It’s the end of the world! You’re not happy with your major and you realize you want to do something totally different with your life! Let me break it to you nice and easy…It is okay if you want to change your major, career, or life goal. Heck, most people in our day and age change their job eight different times! That is why it should be no surprise to you or anyone else if you realize you don’t want to be a certain major anymore. We change your ideas and we change our passions throughout our lifetime and it is completely okay.
Let me take you back four years ago…
I was a little freshman entering Siena as an English Education major. I loved my education class and freshmen seminar, but I hated my English class. I dreaded going each and every day to the class. The material was dry, the teacher was boring, and I could not pay attention. Little did I know that it was more just the class than the actual major…but that didn’t stop me.
Sophomore year rolled around and I got the “brilliant idea” that I wanted to open up a clothing store. I went to the school of business and changed my major: Marketing with an English minor. The marketing and economics class was so interesting but the math class was quite the opposite. Yet again, I dreaded going to that one class. Then I started to daydream about reading books instead of staying up all night doing math problems. Second semester rolled around and that is when I realized maybe I wanted to be a teacher again. So I changed my major again back to English Education.
Junior year I was dead set on being a teacher. I actually stayed with my English education major all throughout junior year. I was able to study abroad even though I already had changed my major three times by now. The whole time I was studying abroad I was blogging, taking pictures, and connecting with different people. I loved having the freedom to write.
Senior year rolled around and I started observing one of the best teachers I have ever seen. He was so optimistic and cheerful about his students. He connected with his students in a way I have never seen a teacher do. That is when it hit me. I did not want to be him. I had and have no desire to stand in front of children and perform. Teaching is a wonderful profession but it is just not for me. This is when I changed my major for the last time…English with a writing minor.
I was able to change my major four different times, see all of the different paths I could have gone on, study abroad, and will still graduate on time. It is completely okay to try on all of these different hats because we go to a liberal arts school. You can try to see if you want to be a doctor, lawyer, artist, teacher, business man/women, or physiologist.
Bottom line is that you should be happy with your degree and be able to graduate on time. If you think your parents might be unhappy about you changing your major, talk to them about how you’re feeling about your classes. Be honest with them and they’ll listen. Fortunately, I was blessed with parents who accepted me not knowing right away what I wanted to do.
My advice before you change your major:
- Write out the pros and cons
- Talk to the career center about possible opportunities you can do with your new major
- Talk to people who are that major
- Talk to friends and family
- Talk to your advisor
- Look up jobs you can do with that major
Most importantly, you’re going to figure it out. It took me four different tries to figure out what major I actually wanted to be in. It is a good sign that you want to do more than one thing. Good luck!