Academic majors continue to play a huge role in the social identity of the average college student. When it comes to majors, we usually see three types of students: some are absolutely sure of their major and embrace it proudly, while others may have no clue and are looking around for their academic niche, and some even may be in the wrong major completely.

I am a junior at Cazenovia College and within my time here I have fit into each of these three categories at one time or another. I arrived as a clueless freshman who identified as an undecided student. At the end of freshman year, I chose to declare a business management major with a focus in accounting. I was sure I had found my niche, but once I completely submerged myself in business management classes, I realized I was not in the right program. At the end of sophomore year, I decided to switch my area of study to communication studies, and I now feel a sense of true belonging and pride within my major.

Unfortunately for college students, majors are a lot more than just areas of study. They decide the kind of person you are, how you act around campus, who you hang out with, and what norms are socially accepted of you on a day-to-day basis. All of these influences add a ton of stress to college students who seem lost about which major to choose. As human beings, who are innately social creatures, we crave a sense of belonging especially on a college campus. Not having a major, or being enrolled in the wrong major, is similar to not having an identity, which can be very problematic.

I remember, as a freshman, feeling the pressure to choose a major. Every new person I met on campus seemed to ask me the same questions. Where are you from? What building do you live in? What is your major?

As an undecided student, I hated that last question because I felt that people just assumed I knew what I wanted to do in life. I could tell that the word undecided spooked the people I met because it gave no insight into the kind of person I was or the kind of things I am interested in. The word is essentially one big question mark, which can be really inconvenient when you are trying to make new friends.

If you happen to be an undecided freshman, I have a couple of tips to help you along with the process of choosing a major.

First off, relax. You will feel pressure to pick a major, but do not rush that decision at all. Typically, academic advisors will tell you that you need to decide by the end of the first semester, but your decision can easily be held off until the end of Fall semester of sophomore year. I rushed my decision, which ended up being the wrong one. Ignore the pressure and take your time experimenting with various programs before you make a decision.

My second tip is to join some clubs that are very different from your interests in high school. My college hosts Quad Day, an annual event where all campus clubs gather on the quad to get new and returning students to sign up. When I was a freshman, I signed up for a variety of different clubs: Drama Club, Paranormal Investigations Club, Business Club, Women’s Empowerment Group, and The Quad, which is the student newspaper. Clubs are an easy way to both get involved on campus and discover hidden interests, so go for a variety. I ended up discovering my love for writing and journalism through The Quad, which led me to eventually change my major to communication studies.

My third tip has to do with classes. When you go to sign up for classes, get your general education requirements out of the way but also make sure you have a variety of classes. My first semester of classes consisted of the following: Intro to Management, Statistics, Academic Writing II, Intro to Journalism, and Stages, which was a first-year seminar on theatre. This variety introduced me to a ton of different avenues of study. Specifically, Intro to Journalism further influenced my interest in news and news media, but Intro to Management promised me an education that would ensure a good job and a great salary one day.

The promise of a good salary leads me to my last tip: do not choose your major solely based on future salary! Trust me, you will be much happier if you choose the major that interests you the most. You want classes that you look forward to going to and you want to pursue a career that will keep you content.

Now, if you believe that you may be enrolled in the wrong major, I also have some tips for you.

First, do you know exactly what you want to do after college? If not, do you have any ideas? Does anything greatly interest you? Are there potential internships that sound fun to you? These are all important questions to ask yourself. If your answer to each one is no or I don’t know, then you may be in the wrong program. I constantly asked myself these questions as an accounting major, and I was never able to come up with an answer for any of them.

Another thing you can do is analyze your feelings toward your classes. Do you enjoy going to class every day? My fourth semester at Cazenovia consisted of the following classes: Business Law, Ethics, Managerial Accounting, Business Internship Prep, and Communication in the Mass Media. I was taking the last-mentioned class to fulfill my journalism minor, and yet it was the class I looked forward to the most. Ethics was also very interesting to me because it was largely theory-based. I realized that I dreaded going to the other three classes, which were all required for my accounting major. This was the huge tip-off for me to change my major.

Don’t just think about the content of your classes. Also consider how your classes run. Both Ethics and my communication class were seminar-style, which required more writing and reflection of our own thoughts on theories and concepts. My business classes were more memorize-and-regurgitate style, which doesn’t hold my interest for very long. All of the communication classes I had taken to this point have been more writing and discussion-based, which I preferred over memorizing concepts, processes, and formulas.

Lastly, consider going with the choice that interests you the most, even if switching majors would be a bad idea monetarily in the future. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average entry-level accountant makes around $65,000 a year, and jobs in this field are on an 11 percent increase, which is “faster than average.” On the contrary, the BLS states that the average entry-level journalist makes around $37,000, and jobs in this field are on a 9 percent decline. These statistics are scary to me, but I also understood that communication studies provide a much wider field that could potentially broaden my career interests in the future. Either way, I still find journalism way more interesting than accounting.

When it comes to either choosing a major or switching to a different major, the number one piece of advice I have for you is to go with your heart. Do what interests you and pursue what makes you happy. There is a popular saying that I believe academic and career advisors should always tell the students that they advise: do what you love, and you will never work a day in your life.