"You are going to look back in ten years and this will be one of the top ten worst decisions of your life." This is what I was told when I changed my major to sociology at the beginning of sophomore year. Social sciences have always been a passion of mine but I chose a more "prestigious" major mostly because I am a recovering people pleaser. I realized the absurdity of majoring in something because others wanted me to so I changed it.
I love my major now: my sociology classes actually interest me, challenge me, and encourage me to make the world a better place. I am confident that I made the right decision when I feel so invigorated in class. I surely did not feel that way in my organic chemistry lab. Even though I love my major and am so glad I changed I still get plenty of push back from all kinds of people.
"She didn't change her major to something stupid like sociology did she?"
"Oh, science was too hard for you?"
"I guess you were treated like you were too smart in high school and so you couldn't handle difficult college classes."
These are all things people said to me. I hear these things everywhere I go. From Christmas dinner to extracurricular activities, other people are not afraid to share their opinion on my major and future career opportunities. I know this is true of many things, but college majors are definitely on the top of the list of unsolicited advice. I say enough is enough. Picking a major is hard enough as it is, let's be kind to college students who are doing the best they can. And let's face it; there's no such thing as a perfect major, and if there were then everyone would major in the same thing. There's a reason we all have different strengths and just because you are "smart enough" to major in a particular thing does not mean that it is the right choice for you.
There is no written rule that your major indicates your future, plenty of people end up in a career outside of what they studied. The path to success is fluid and Martin Luther King Jr. majored in sociology. Do you think he thought of that as one of the top ten worst decisions of his life?
