Deciding what field you want to go into can be very challenging. A lot of students change their majors several times when they get to college as they start to realize they don’t enjoy a certain field as much as they thought they would. Even though it gives a lot of students reason to panic, this is normal.
Many colleges will encourage you not to declare a major until your sophomore year. That is because declaring early might make some try to stick with a major that isn’t a good fit for them. You shouldn’t feel pressured to declare a major or to stick with the major you thought you wanted to pursue. So now that you are thinking broadly, it’s time to consider some important things when deciding what to study.
When most students go into college, they have at least a few things that they have definitely ruled out. You might be terrible at math, so you know you won’t be majoring in Mathematics or Statistics. Others who are more mathematically inclined will consider these majors or others such as Physics or Engineering which are heavily math-oriented.
It helps to really know your strengths and weaknesses and weigh that against your dream career. Having aspirations of becoming a world-renowned surgeon are great but if you can’t understand chemistry, these are probably not very realistic goals.
Aside from your own personal strengths and weaknesses and what you are good at, you should also assess what you really enjoy. Sometimes it’s a trade-off. You might not be very skilled at what you really love, but if you are determined and work hard enough at it, you can succeed. So there are probably a lot of different options that you are open to.
Maybe you like psychology, but also law and accounting. You can use your first few years to explore. Maybe take some classes to test the waters. You mind end up falling in love with another field and changing your major. You should also remain open-minded to studying something different than you did for undergraduate as a graduate student.
Many students think that if they studied a science undergraduate, they can only continue their studies in science if they go to grad school. But that’s simply not true. There are many people who study something that then go on to specialize in an entirely different field.
This brings you to another important thing to consider and that is how long you are willing to stay in school before you start working. Some fields, like nursing, require only 2 to 4 years and are very profitable. If you want to be a doctor, on the other hand, you have to be sure you are in it for the long haul. It is a good idea to do a little research into several different professions and look at how many years of study are required to do what you want to do.
These are all important things to take into consideration when deciding what to study. The more you explore and the more options you rule out for yourself, the better you will feel about your final decision and eventual career.
