I’ve become sort of an expert at this, not for the best of reasons, but it’s somewhat true. When it comes to a student, I’m an expert on changing my major. I don’t mean: I love changing my major (it’s nerve racking) but seeing as to how I’ve done it three times within three semesters (I’m on my fourth major) I feel I have an expertise on the feelings around it. First of all, a little more about my switching journey.
Semester I: Freshman Year
I came in as an international studies major because of three things:
- I thought I wanted to be an international lawyer (spoiler: I didn’t).
- I didn’t know I could be undeclared.
- Of all things I consider and think of: my major wasn’t one of them.
Early on I struggled with the concepts, ideas and the work. I couldn’t memorize where the countries and their capitals were. Where’s Bahrain and what’s the name of the capital? I still don’t know despite studying it for hours. That was the first indicator the major just would kick me around. The second indicator: I nearly fell asleep in class a few times, despite having only ever doing that once in high school.* I spoke to my advisor about switching and listened to his instructions and then chose to change my major to Biology.
Here’s the thing about my love of science: I love science a whole lot. I read it as often as I can in my free time; usually astrophysics but still. Also, my biology class was fun because I loved dissecting fetal pigs (I’m that weirdo). That’s all. Nothing particularly pulled me towards being a Biology major other than I dissected a pig and got an A in Advanced Biology in high school. That’s not the best reason to switch over from one huge thing to the other. To this day, I believe this choice was one of the least thought out I’ve ever done, which is hard to admit for someone as neurotic as me who makes pro-con lists and has decision trees stored away.
Semester II: Freshman Year
Biology became the disaster I never imagined very quickly. Concepts that were dubbed “the simpler stuff” were utterly destroying me. I couldn’t grasp it, failing my quizzes despite studying in advance two weeks ahead, two hours a day. Sometimes in life, things don’t click…that’s okay. I wanted to be a surgeon (by this point) but I couldn’t grasp a darn thing. It felt like grasping for imaginary straws. By March I dropped the class and chose to switch my major after talking to a career counselor twice. It was too late to add another class but at least Biology wouldn’t wreck my GPA in the end.
Though…there’s a right way to go about changing your major and a wrong way. I did it right the first time, I did it wrong the second time. Semester One, I told my advisor and had a few talks with him about switching before I did it. Due to all the nerves and the stress I’d undergone from being terrible at Biology I made the brash choice of just doing it without talking to my advisor. She hadn’t known until I’d done it already.** Don’t do that, speak to your advisor before you change your major. That was my lesson from that.
Semester III: Sophomore Year, a Few Weeks Ago
Before I began my furthering my academic career at an awesome university my father told me be a business major. I had no backup plan and no clue if I’d like it. My schedule for the semester had a business class, sociology and three General Education classes. My major was business, and my minor was sociology. The funny thing about sociology was I’d never heard of it before I spoke with my career counselor. No clue it existed. It intrigued me when I learnt what it was. I took two days of intro to sociology and fell in love with it. I took one day of business and jumped ship so fast you’d think I’d found gold at the bottom of a ravine. Business was dropped in favor of another sociology class.
There were a few reasons this changed happened. What’s funny is I figured I’d drop business if I hated it, not if I fell in love with sociology (a class I technically wasn’t supposed to be taking but due to hesitancy of taking two business classes and hating it, I added sociology over another business class). Yet, I loved sociology quickly. The thing about me is: I love something about everything. It’s why I can talk to a nursing major about anatomy (I still look at my anatomy book I got when I was thirteen), a computer science major about technology in most capacities, or a business major about economic instability in certain areas of the world and ideas to fix it. I love people. I love science. Sure, there are days I dislike some people…but I love them overall. There are five moments I knew I’d switch:
- I saw the syllabus for business and dreaded everything about it.
- My sociology professor spoke of studying people individually and in groupings and it was amazing to think about.
- I disliked my business homework and skimmed my reading, wanting to do something else. I read word for word my sociology reading and was very focused on the homework.
- I woke up wanting to do more sociology classes. Even on a day where business was going to be my class.
- During summer I’d read Outliers and loved every sociology experiment that was written about (fun fact: it was going to be a reading assignment for my business class).
If you’re not too sure about what you want to do with your life when you start college, don’t worry, it’s truly not the most important thing ever, but it is important. Maybe start undeclared. Explore a bit for a year to a year and a half at the most. As for me, I prayed daily for an answer or a sign of sorts…I got mine. I also had an amazing amount of support from friends, family and others who cared what direction I wanted to go. If it comes to it: speak to a counselor, it can help a ton. Not all roads are straight; many have bumps, turns, potholes and nails.
Finally, I should say what I think I want to be (don’t hold me to this if I change it). A friend and coworker told me: choose a career around what you want from the rest of your life, not a life around your career. As of this morning of this writing, and really since March, I believe the direction I’ll go is career counseling. Funny how life works sometimes, ain’t it?
From,
Now a Sociology Major by the name of Michael A. Gracia
