Choosing your Major in College and University
When it feels like you can’t even decide what to have for dinner or what to do on Friday night, choosing a major may be a little daunting.
With some research and planning, you can make an informed decision based on facts, personal experience and a knowledge of what best suits you.
1. Assess your interests and skills.
A good way to start is to ask yourself some “what” questions.
What…
- subject areas interest you most? Which ones do you do well in?
- skills and talents do you have? What do you find comes easy to you?
- strengths and weaknesses can you identify?
- dreams do you have? What do you envision yourself doing? What do you see yourself doing in 5 or 10 years?
- past experiences (extracurricular activities, volunteer work) have you enjoyed?
- what are your values?If you can, discuss these things with people you have known well for a long time as they may have useful insights you may overlook.
Need more help? Some guidance counselors, career centres, and even web sites have formal interest inventories and self-tests that can bring some possibilities to the forefront.
2. Do your homework! Before you settle on a particular major, find out more about:
- the types of job opportunities in that field,
- which schools offer the major,
- heaviness of course load,
- aptitudes needed to succeed in that field,
- job placement rates,
- typical salary levels,
- and the predicted growth rate.
How to find such information? Two ways:
Talk to Folks in the Know
Find people who can look up information for you or who have first hand experience in a potential major. Talk to professors, guidance counselors, or career advisors. They can tell you more about a field and can also point you to talk more with students or alumni of a major, or professionals working in that field.
Go Where the Info Is
Career centres, academic resource offices, university course catalogues, web sites, libraries (books, trade and career magazines, professional journals), career fairs, employment centres are all centralized places with information that could help you better understand a potential major.
3. Get Experience.Watch for opportunities to try job shadows (tagging along with someone working in a field for a day), volunteer positions, summer jobs, co-ops, internships. These opportunities can help you see if you enjoy the theory in practice.
4. Compile and Compare.Put everything together and put on your thinking cap. Compare your answers to the “what” questions with your research results and hands on experience.
5. Narrow Down and Choose.Look over the options, form some decision criteria and eliminate choices based on the criteria. You may need to re-evaluate periodically.
6. Finally, don’t get too stressed about it!You can almost always change your major later if you find your interests change or if you feel like you’ve made a mistake.
And remember, your choice of a major isn’t the biggest decision in life that will cement you on that path for the rest of your life (eg. a guy who majored in fine arts even got into med school!).
After all, there are other important decisions in life, like what toppings to have on your pizza tonight!
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