Deciding on a college major is more involved than merely choosing the path that leads you to what you’ve always wanted to be when you “grow up”.
Feeling pressure to make a choice from every direction can be all-consuming when many freshmen would prefer to go in as “undeclared” majors and instead explore various interests until they strike a passion.
Is that truly such a bad idea?
The decisions made now create a foundation for a student’s entire life. Taking time to test the waters genuinely makes a lot of sense and should, in fact, be mandatory for at least the first year.
Although some might believe they have it all figured out (which a few seriously might), there could be a passion being pushed to the side because it’s not considered a priority. Many of these talents could make the ideal career opportunity if explored.
At face value, some qualities can, to outside influences, be trivialized. Still, when put in context in an academic environment, there can be substance, a title, and a salary applied to this creation.
You never know what you’re capable of until you let yourself go beyond the restrictions you have on yourself.
Reasons To Explore Academia Rather Than Restrict It
If you’re fortunate enough to find yourself in an academic setting where you can train for whatever you wish as a career for your life, take that advantage.
As a young person facing the world, you have many interests going into college that will ultimately narrow down to a single decision:
Variables
The freshman year is your opportunity to “investigate” all the variables to see which work and for which you don’t want to commit years of study.
Often students have a few areas in which they excel, unsure themselves where they want to focus their attention because each offers their own advantages and disadvantages.
In many cases, there is the potential to blend the interests into a single career path.
When you don’t limit yourself to a particular regimen, it allows you to customize your studies to create a unique career opportunity that suits your specific wishes.
Suppose you have a deep passion for art with an incredible gift for marketing. This could turn into your life’s ambition.
Passion Is Lost
For some individuals, there is no particular interest initially, and that’s okay. Just because nothing drives you in any specific direction doesn’t mean inspiration won’t come after engaging in some coursework.
It’s a matter of simply signing on for things that sound interesting until eventually, you find something that creates that passion.
Competitive Major
In some cases, majors are limited to a certain number of students within a university, with those who don’t make it in having to take their second choice major or go in undeclared.
It allows the opportunity to engage in an academic exploration of other interests while still pursuing credits towards the major of choice.
You can then transfer into the competitive preference later or, perhaps, you will change your path if you find during your explorations that the original option isn’t, in fact, what you now see for your future.
Many freshmen heading into college do so with a declared major steadfast in their minds.
But most of them change these within their first year. Coming out of high school straight into college with your entire future planned is unlikely.
It’s not impossible, but it’s unusual. There are merely too many variables.
Campus advisors, however, can lead freshmen through the uncertainty of “declarations”.
Final Thought
Genuinely, it’s vital to explore the person you’re evolving into at the very least throughout the freshman year without the burden of a “declared label,” and consider in the process how you think you might want to try to make a difference in the world with your life’s work.
As parents, we need to encourage the expression of passion. These might stray from what is considered traditional “stability” for your child’s future.
Still, ultimately the talents and dreams of kids today might lead to unique careers with incredible security that you could never have imagined.
