Major Confusion

Is it really so bad to be undecided or to change majors?

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

When I started college, I was completely confident, in the way you can only be at 17, about my major choice.

I was so confident, in fact, that my “why I want to be a high school history teacher” essay won me a $1,000 “future teachers” scholarship from the local teachers union.

I took that scholarship and trotted off to college, enrolling in the required “Introduction to Education” class in my first semester. By the time that I finished that class, which included 10 hours of classroom observation, I was no longer an education major.

Please note: While I didn’t end up needing the two credits I got for that class, I’m so glad it was required in the first semester. Finding out in October that I didn’t actually want to be in a classroom all day was VERY valuable information! I’m still glad I got to keep that scholarship for the rest of the year though (sorry teacher’s union).

I went from being an education major to being a history major. Then I briefly became a history and political science double major before flirting for a hot second with going fully liberal arts nerd and throwing a philosophy minor into the mix. One of the last electives I took in my senior year was sociology and if I had taken that as a freshman or sophomore, I probably would have become a sociology major for at least a semester or two. By the end the fall in my sophomore year, I’d settled into a history major and poli sci minor, the degree I ultimately earned at the end of my four years of liberal arts fun.

The only thing remotely unique about my story is that I considered philosophy as a major¹.

The rest of it - the bouncing from certainty to change, the playing around with major/minor combos, the ending up in a different program than where I started- all of that is so, so normal.

There is a lot of discussion these days about the importance of students, even those still in high school or even middle school, figuring out their career paths early. High schools introduce career clusters or various “pathway” programs, all seemingly designed to try to get kids pointed in a direction before they get to college so they don’t start out as undecided majors or “waste” credits by changing their program of study once the get started.

So! Many! Clusters!

I think there is definitely value in exposing middle and high school students to different kinds of career fields. Making sure students understand that different kinds of fields require different sequences of math and science courses is a good thing to do. Helping a student who thinks they want to go into, say, engineering understand the value of getting to or through calculous in high school is smart. Making sure the student who wants to go into HVAC repair get into a dual enrollment class at the local community or technical college can save them valuable time and money toward their degree.

All of that is good stuff and I’m not opposed to anything that helps students explore careers they are interested in.

But… and you know there is always gonna be a but in here somewhere… I do have concerns with some of the narratives that make it sound like there is something wrong if a kid doesn’t have their whole life and career plan figured out by the time they are in high school or even rolling into the first few years of college.

Because here’s the thing: most of us are living lives as adults that we wouldn’t have predicted at 17. I’d guess many of us have had jobs that we didn’t even know existed when we were in high school. Developmentally, we aren’t done cooking yet when we leave high school and enter college, so it is SUPER NORMAL to change our minds about the things that we are interested in and the kinds of jobs we want to do.

Given all that, it is no surprise that 80% of students in college end up changing their major at least once and that, contrary to popular myth, changing a major can actually INCREASE a student’s likelihood of completing completing a college degree.

So, let’s dive into the what the research says about changing majors, how to to approach starting college for students who are undecided, and when parents should actually start worrying about their kid’s major.

On Being Undecided

There can be a lot of pressure on students to not enter college as an undecided major. Some schools may want students to apply (and may have different admissions criteria) for particular programs or program areas (sometimes called “schools” or “colleges” within the college/university) or may require a student to have a declared major to access certain courses. There is social pressure as well. By the end of their senior year, most teenagers are probably fairly sick of being asked the one-two punch combo of “where are you going to college?” and “what are you going to major in?”

I tend to take a more optimistic approach and joke that students who enter as undecided are actually being really efficient - that’s just one less major change they’ll need to make in the future!

Here’s the message parents can give their students if they are feeling anxious about being undecided: It’s totally normal not to know exactly what you want to study when you start college, most people who think they DO know what they want to study will actually change their minds about that, and it is almost always possible to put together at least one or two semesters of coursework that will apply to most degrees, so you have some space to explore and figure it out.

Why Do Students Change Majors?

As noted above, the majority of college students will change their major at least once, with some research suggesting that students who start as STEM majors are slightly more likely than students in the humanities to switch.

Side note: A LOT of students enter college thinking they want to go into health professions (I blame the overrepresentation of hospital shows on TV for this) and then hit the two walls known as anatomy & physiology and organic chemistry - classes that tend to have higher than average failure rates and to be very, um, clarifying for students as to how much they actually like the college level science courses needed for many health professions.

According to national data, about 10% of college students will officially change their major more than once. I suspect this number is artificially low since not all students will actually go through the process of updating their official program of study with the school, even if they start taking classes toward a new major.

Students may change their major (either officially with the registrar’s office or just in their heart at course registration time) for a variety of reasons:

• They got new information: They took a class in the original major and realized they didn’t like it or they took an elective course in a new field and fell in love. For a lot of students, college offers the chance to take coursework in areas they’ve never experienced before and may discover they really enjoy. This is a good thing and, for me, one of the reasons I love the liberal arts and the concept of general education and electives so much. Exploration is good!

• They were forced to change: This is a less happy experience but it does happen. Sometimes a student doesn’t get into a program (for example, they start college as a pre-nursing student but don’t get a spot in the competitive and space limited nursing program). Sometimes they just can’t get passed a certain pre-requisite or other class required for the major (hello again, organic chemistry). In some rare cases, they might have been planning on a major but that major gets cut due to low enrollment or funding issues.

• Their career interest shifted: Some major changes aren’t all that dramatic. Sometimes it’s a matter of a student shifting within the same academic division or department. The business major who decides they want to do marketing instead or the English major who decides creative writing is their actual jam… these are major changes too!

• They transferred institutions: Changing majors and transferring schools can sometimes go hand-in-hand. A student may find that their new school doesn’t have the same program and make a change or they may make the institution change because they wanted to change programs too.

• Faculty matters: The right (or wrong!) faculty major can make a big difference. One of the reasons I stayed a history major was that I felt wonderfully supported by one of the faculty members there and looked forward to taking more classes with him. One of the reasons I never considered being a religion major was that, at my smallish liberal arts college, I knew I’d have to take more than one class with a certain professor in that program who I thought was a jerk.

Here’s the thing: ALL college students are entering college with incomplete information. They don’t fully know themselves yet, they don’t fully know all of the academic options available to them, they don’t fully know if they’ll like the classes and faculty in their first field of study. So of course it makes sense that, after getting more information in their first few semesters, some/most students will change their minds!

When to Worry About Major Changes

Okay, I realize that I’ve been very cheerfully “it’s all fine!” about major changes so far. And mostly it is fine, really. But I will note that there are some circumstances where a major change would cause me some concern as both a parent and higher ed person:

• The student is changing their major … for the 10th time: Changing a major once or twice (especially early on) is normal. Changing it every semester for multiple semesters or hitting double digits? Yeah, that starts to concern me. Part of this is that a student can risk racking up a lot of credits they don’t need and potentially burning through their financial aid eligibility (some aid programs are capped at a certain number of credits and/or semesters of enrollment), which can leave them in a tough situation when it comes time to finish their degree. Another part of this is more emotional or philosophical. I worry about whether they know what their “why” is for being in college. Do they actually want to be there? Would they be better served to stop out and maybe do some personal or career exploration (or maybe just some more growing up) to help settle on a program?

• The student is still making major changes after their fourth or fifth semester of college: It is going to be hard for a student to be entering or getting close to their junior year of college and still not be set on a major. They not only risk taking more credits than they need or will be able to use, they might not be able to access upper division credits for their eventual major choice because they’ll be out of sequence for getting their pre-req, intro, or lower level major classes completed. The later a student makes a significant major change, the less likely it will be that they’ll graduate on time.

• The student is at a specialty school where they may need to transfer if they choose a different major: If a student enrolls in post-secondary institution that is high specialized (think beauty or barber college, music conservatory, fine arts school, etc) and realizes that they don’t love their major, they may have limited options for other programs to switch to. In these cases, they may need to consider transferring institutions as well as changing majors, so they sooner they make that choice, probably the better.

• When the student refuses to change their major: On the flip side, sometimes there are students that really, really don’t want to change their major even as they are having limited success or big challenges in their current choice. When I was an academic advisor, I had to have some tough conversations with students who had failed the same pre-req course two, three, or even four times. They were spinning their wheels, wasting multiple semesters and thousands of dollars on tuition, and unlikely to be successful in higher level classes. Warning signs that a major might not be the right fit can include: failing pre-reqs, having a first year GPA that isn’t going to be competitive to get into advanced standing for their program (e.g. a student with a 2.0 GPA at the end of their freshman year is unlikely to get into most nursing programs, so probably should switch to something other than nursing rather than continue down that path for another year, or struggling with mastery of content in lower level classes that are the foundation for higher level courses (math, foreign language, etc)

Conversations to Have About Changing Majors and/or Being Undecided

In addition to the conversation about it being okay to be undecided, here are a few other topics parents might want to talk to their kids about when it comes to college majors:

• When choosing a college: Are there more than one academic program that interests you? Would you still choose this school if you were doing a different major?

• If they are still in high school and PSEO/dual enrollment/concurrent enrollment/college in the schools is an option: Are there any college classes you’d want to try out before you graduate? If the student thinks they have a major in mind, taking an intro class for some college credit in high school might help confirm or shift that interest.

• When visiting colleges: Is there an option to do a class visit? Some schools will allow a student a chance to sit in on a lecture and/or to meet a faculty member so that might be a great way for a student to learn more about what actually taking classes in that area might be like

• If the student is in college and struggling with choosing a major or deciding to switch: This is a great time to tap into campus resources. Many schools will have staff who can assist students with academic or career exploration. This can include career or major counseling, running different degree plans to see how their credits might apply if they switch to a different program, and more. If they aren’t sure where to go for help, start with the academic advising office for a referral!

• If a student is debating whether or not to switch majors (or even schools): Some clarifying questions to ask might include things like:

  • What do you like and dislike about your current major?

  • Would you want to make your current major into a minor instead? Would that help make the credits already earned more useful?

  • Have you taken any classes in the other major you are considering yet? Could you take an intro class before you decide to switch?

  • If you switched over, what do you hope would be different in the new major?

  • Have you talked to your advisor to make an updated degree plan? How will the impact your time to graduation?

  • Will you need to get a new academic advisor?

Ultimately, it can sometimes just be helpful for some students to be reminded that they aren’t expected to have it all perfectly figured out when they are 18 years old!

(And honestly, thank goodness for that, right? 18 year old me was wrong about A LOT of things!)

Feel free to drop any questions in the comments below or, just for fun, share how your college majors changed (if that applies to you) over time!

1. According to the American Philosophical Association, less than 1% of college students choose this as a major. This is as close to be avant-garde as I’ve ever been