A "Major" Problem

David Lai

The majority of first and second year college students haven’t the slightest idea of what they want to be when they leave college. As a result, most students have problems selecting a major course of study. Even the students who have a major selected entering college typically do so for either perceived earning potential or influence from a high school teacher. As a result, Young Money claims that sixty percent of students change majors at least once before graduating. Furthermore, of the remaining forty percent, ten to twenty percent of those students “will likely leave school regretting the major they chose and wishing they too had switched to another major.”

This is because selecting a major – and, as a result, a career – is a major life decision that will drastically affect the direction that a student’s life will take. This decision should be made based on the student’s passions and career interests. As such, students should be extremely well informed of each major’s implications before making a selection, a significant change from the way things are done now.

One solution would be to give students a broad exposure of traditional post-college experiences for the most common academic majors. Ideally, this should be done in the last year of high school or the first year of college. The career services departments across all high schools and universities need to become involved in getting realistic information to their students so that they can gain wide exposure and decide what they are most passionate about. According to Stephen Stahl, Dean of Arts and Sciences at St. Bonaventure University, exposure is the key. “The major change is not that the student fell out of love with their major, they have just been exposed to something else. It's about discovery.”