Do I Have To Declare a Major When I Enroll at Christian College?

Coming out of high school, you may feel overwhelmed by the decisions laid before you as you plan for your future. With thousands of colleges out there, each with its own set of majors, choosing what is right for you can be a big headache. To help students make decisions one step at a time, many colleges, including Christian College, allow students to begin taking classes temporarily without declaring a major.

College is about Exploration

If you are not sure what you want to do, try something new. An article published by the New York Times suggested that students who had not yet settled on a major should take classes that satisfy graduation requirements for multiple majors, but cover material significantly different from what they studied in high school. Pushing the envelope of what you know is what going to college is all about. Depending on how you apply yourself, college can be a place where you really meet yourself for the first time and find out who you are and what you want to do.

Interested in Everything?

Many students who have trouble choosing a major find themselves unable to make the decision because every field is fascinating to them. If you are having trouble choosing what you want to study simply because everything is so interesting, you can choose to major in a broad field like Liberal Arts or something closely related like English or Philosophy. There have even been some studies that suggest that students who major in these fields build ‘soft skills’ that lead to more long term success in the workplace than students who major in more technical fields.

Why Have Majors?

Majors exist to help you organize the classes you need to graduate and start your career. Some occupations, like education, medicine, and computer science, require certain accreditation and licensing processes before a new graduate can pursue a job. If you decide to pursue a career in one of these fields, declaring a major is an important step that will enable the college to help you fulfill those requirements by recommending or requiring courses that supply the skills you need to get your accreditation. However, if you find you don’t like the major you are in, you should not feel locked into that career path. Nationwide about 50 percent of students will change their major at least once before they graduate.

Conclusion

One important thing to remember about making decisions like these in college is to relax. Declaring a major is not going to be the most important decision you ever make. Just as no major can guarantee you a job, no major will doom you to joblessness. Many employers do not care about which major you chose, they just want to see how well you did and how hard you worked. Remember that most students will eventually choose a career that has little to do with their major and be successful and happy in that field.

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