The Realities of Changing Your Major

You go into college thinking you’ll excel in your major and that this is what you would be looking forward to doing for the rest of your life. Suddenly, classes kick in and you start planning out the rest of your semesters—and you feel this impending sense of fear that this is not what you want to do anymore. Soon enough, you find yourself in your advisor’s office after pulling an all-nighter purely out of stress and eating half your weight in Ben&Jerry’s. They sit down and they ask you what you’re interested in, and suddenly, it seems like the fog is clearing. You need a change. Fortunately, major changes are extremely common in college. People change their majors anywhere from the first semester of their freshman year to their second semester of sophomore year and beyond. Though the process of changing your major can seem daunting, it is usually extremely helpful and clarifying for most students. Either way, it is important to get a sense of the realities of what changing your major truly means. Here’s how you can tell if changing your major is the next right step for you on your academic journey. 

1. Make sure you are in your major for your own interests 

Using myself as an example, I ended up choosing my first major of college because I thought I would be able to impress my family and friends by taking a challenging series of courses related to my major. However, after entering college, I realized I really didn’t have much interest in the broad topic that was biology. Taking the introductory class showed me that while there are topics that I find fascinating, I was confused during most of the lectures—mostly due to my disinterest. After putting some thought into it, I realized the most healthy way for me to deal with this issue was to stop thinking so much about what everyone else thought and recognize that it was me that was going to be putting in the work for a degree in this major. Following through in this major for the satisfaction of those around me would not benefit me in the long run because I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the learning experience. 

2. Self-analyze yourself to find out what your true interests are 

For me, this meant taking a million personality and career quizzes at midnight with my roommate, trying to figure out what I am passionate enough to pursue in my life. I had a general sense, but I knew if I was carrying out a process as complicated as switching my major, I needed to be sure that I was interested in the next major for sure. After taking career quizzes and looking back at classes in high school and topics that I was generally interested in, I narrowed down my interests and had a more concentrated idea. Another great way to narrow down your interests is by looking through your school’s course options and circling or highlighting which classes you find interesting and tallying up which general subject area most of those classes lie in. This was a great method I used to find where my interests lay and helped me decide on a major. 

3. Changing your major will most likely increase your interest in school

In my own personal experience, once I changed my major, I woke up excited to go to class and learn. Yes, you heard me right. Previously, I had to drag myself to class to learn material that I didn’t care about, and then come back and do homework that I could barely force myself to learn. After the major switch, my class participation in class increased, my willingness to stay on top of my homework and assignments increased, and my GPA in general went up. It has been proven in multiple studies that increased interest in the material you are learning causes your grades to go up, purely because of the focus and importance you are now giving your work. Give your GPA a chance to glow up! 

Changing your major is definitely never easy. It means you have to rethink important decisions that you already made. It requires re-examining yourself and finding out what you are more interested in. Sometimes it means difficult conversations with your family. Sometimes it means difficult conversations with yourself to pep-talk your confused brain into understanding that studying can be fun—if you are passionate about what you are learning and have a desire to work with this subject material in the long run.

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• changing majors
• college
• decision making