Chapter 13

Choosing a Major

Your Major

In the United States and Canada, your academic major—simply called “your major”—is the academic discipline you commit to as an undergraduate student. It’s an area you specialize in, such as accounting, chemistry, criminology, archeology, digital arts, or dance. In United States colleges and universities, roughly 2,000 majors are offered. And within each major is a host of core courses and electives. When you successfully complete the required courses in your major, you qualify for a degree.

Why is your major important? It’s important because it’s a defining and organizing feature of your undergraduate degree. Ultimately, your major should provide you with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and/or behaviors you need to fulfill your college goals and objectives.

In this section we look at how to select your major and how your college major may correlate with a career. Does your major matter to your career? What happens if you change your major? Does changing your major mean you must change your career? Read on to find out!

How to Select Your College Major

Selecting your major is one of the most exciting tasks (and, to some students, perhaps one of the most nerve-wracking tasks) you are asked to perform in college. So many decisions are tied to it. But if you have good guidance, patience, and enthusiasm, the process is easier.

The video below shares nine tips:

  1. Narrow your choices by deciding what you don’t like.
  2. Explore careers that might interest you. Ask questions.
  3. Use your school’s resources.
  4. Ask your teacher, counselor, and family about your strengths.
  5. 60 percent of students change their majors.
  6. Your major isn’t going to define your life. But choosing one that interests you will make your college experience much more rewarding.
  7. Go on informational interviews with people in careers that interest you.
  8. There’s no pressure to decide now.
  9. Take new classes and discover your interests.

Does Your College Major Matter to Your Career?

There are few topics about college that create more controversy than “Does your major really matter to your career?” Many people think it does; others think it’s not so important. Who is right? And who gets to weigh in? Also, how do you measure whether something “matters”—by salary, happiness, personal satisfaction?

It may be difficult to say for sure whether your major truly matters to your career. One’s college major and ultimate career are not necessarily correlated. Consider the following:

  • 50–70 percent of college students change their major at least once during their time in college.
  • Most majors lead to a wide variety of opportunities rather than to one specific career, although some majors do indeed lead to specific careers.
  • Many students say that the skills they gain in college will be useful on the job no matter what they major in.
  • Only half of graduating seniors accept a job directly related to their major.
  • Career planning for most undergraduates focuses on developing general, transferable skills like speaking, writing, critical thinking, computer literacy, problem-solving, and team building, because these are skills that employers want.
  • College graduates often cite the following four factors as being critical to their job and career choices: personal satisfaction, enjoyment, opportunity to use skills and abilities, and personal development.
  • Within ten years of graduation, most people work in careers that aren’t directly related to their majors.
  • Many or most jobs that exist today will be very different five years from now.

It’s also important to talk about financial considerations in choosing a major.

  • Any major you choose will likely benefit you because college graduates earn roughly $1 million more than high school graduates, on average, over an entire career.
  • STEM jobs, though—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—can lead to the thirty highest paying jobs. So if you major in any of these areas, you may be more likely to earn a higher salary.
  • Even though humanities and social sciences students may earn less money right after college, they may earn more by the time they reach their peak salary than students who had STEM majors.
  • Students who major in the humanities and social science are also more likely to get advanced degrees, which increases annual salary by nearly $20,000 at peak salary.

So where will you stand with regard to these statistics? Is it possible to have a good marriage between your major, your skills, job satisfaction, job security, and earnings?

If I Don’t Know What I Want to Study, How Can I Apply to College?

Don’t worry! Even if you don’t know what you want to study or what you’re interested in, you can apply Undeclared- this means you will decide what you want to study after you try out different courses. As previously discussed, you will have to take general education courses, or gen-eds, in order to graduate. These will expose you to a number of different classes that can help you decide what you want to study- you may not know what you want to major in yet because you don’t even know it exists!

Remixed with:

Bruce, Linda. “College Majors.” College Success, Lumen Learning, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/lumencollegesuccessxtraining3/chapter/college-majors-2/.