“What’s your major?” The question that all undeclared students dread. Whether that be from professors, other students, or family members that you haven’t seen since the last summer, it is the question that we all fear the most. We envy the other students that can answer the question without any hesitation and without any doubt in their voice. Why is it so hard for me to decide what I want to do? What am I doing wrong? When am I going to figure it out?
When the question is asked and answered with “undeclared”, people sometimes don’t know how to respond. There are the people who reassure you that you will figure it out eventually, then there are the ones who think that they know the solution and try to explain it to you, and lastly there are some people who just dismiss the topic like they never wanted to know in the first place. But what people don’t understand is that a simple question like that can actually be really hard to answer.
To an undeclared student, choosing a major can seem like choosing a tattoo; a permanent decision that can’t be taken back. What happens if I choose something and then don’t like it? What is the process of changing majors like? Do I really want to be that person that changes their mind a million times? It’s a commitment issue with most of us. We know that we want to declare a major but we don’t want the risk of changing our mind and then changing our plans. You might be asking yourself, well why don’t these students just go under liberal arts? Usually, the answer is that we have something in mind or that we want to figure out a major just like everyone else. Most of the time we know what we don’t want to do, we just need to figure out what it is exactly we want to do; and that’s a scary thing to decide.
But soon you start to realize that being undeclared isn’t such a bad thing. You have two or so years to explore your options and test out different majors that you might be looking into. So take advantage of the unknown and ride it out because soon enough things will be different. And remember, you’re not alone. We are all in this together.
