There’s a fundamental flaw in this article, especially for potential engineering majors. Many universities require you to apply to a specific college within the institution. I’ve seen public and private universities that do this, some “top tier”, others not so much. In these cases, there almost always seems to be a General Studies or Liberal Arts college and an Engineering college, maybe a business college for undergrads, and possible so other specialized colleges. While transferring between colleges in the university is certainly possible if the student has the grades, the student could find himself/herself far behind his/her peers with respect to required coursework.
I’m calling out engineering majors because:
- The article specifically mentions it
- These majors have a significant number of front-end, sequential math and science courses required
- I changed majors from Architecture to Civil Engineering after 2 years in the Architecture program at CMU
Engineering programs typically require 4 semesters of calc/diff Eq along with 2 semesters of physics. If you don’t apply to the engineering college, and don’t take these courses your first two years, declaring as an engineering major after your sophomore year could mean taking more than 4 years to complete your major; taking several courses during the summers of your sophomore and/or junior year; and limiting your ability to do things such as study abroad or take an internship.
Therefore, while I don’t think there’s any shame in not declaring a major on the college application, I would definitely recommend reviewing the curriculum requirements for the fields that interest you the most and take as many of the required courses as possible.