Can't make up my mind (switched majors like 10 times)

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

So I am a 2nd year community college student (will have to stay here an extra year), and I can’t make up my mind on what I want to major in.

Here’s a list of everything I’ve switched my major to

(1) Started off college doing computer science
(2) Switched to premed chemistry
(3) Decided not to do premed, stuck with the chem degree though
(4) Switched from Chemistry to Chemical Engineering
(5) Switched from Chemical Engineering to Mechanical Engineering because I wanted to try physics out, not because I didn’t like chemical engineering
(6) MechE to Physics
(7) Back to MechE
(8) Aerospace Engineering
(9) Mechanical Engineering
(10) Physics
(11) Now I’m stuck between Physics, Premed Physics and Chemical Engineering.

Now just some background info on me:

I didn’t do anything in high school, I barely graduated with a 2.1 GPA and didn’t show up to half of my classes most of the time. After graduation, I realized I was faced with two options: join the infantry, or get my shit together and start doing well in college; I chose the latter.

Fast forward two years and I have a 3.922 GPA and have taken a ton of math, science, and engineering classes, but still can’t figure out what I want to major in. Because I didn’t take high school seriously, I missed out on the main purpose of high school: to be exposed to a bunch of different fields of study so you can somewhat have an idea on what subjects and classes interest you. I pretty much came to college with no experience/exposer to any specific field of study, and have had to just take random classes to try to figure out what I like. The only think I know is that I love math and science, so I’ve pretty much just been taking a bunch of math and science classes to try and figure out what I like the most.

Now that you know my background info, let me talk about the classes I’ve taken, and why I’ve switched my major between certain majors:

So I started out college taking Chemistry and LOVED it, I thought knew instantly that I wanted to be a chem major, and premed just sounded like a bonus. I stuck with that for a while, volunteered at a hospital, didn’t really like it and I also decided I really liked math too so I switched to Chemical engineering and dropped the premed.

After switching to chemical engineering, I was put in a weird situation: my CC doesn’t offer a degree in chemical engineering, just electrical and mechanical. I thought It would have been a mistake to not get an associates degree before I transfered to a 4 year university, and I also thought maybe I would love physics, and that I should definitely try that out, so I took the safe route and switched my major to mechanical engineering. I didn’t switch it because I didn’t like chemistry, I pretty much switched so I could try more stuff out and it seemed safer.

I stuck with mechanical engineering for a while, I really enjoyed all of my engineering classes like statics, physics and engineering graphics (CAD) and pretty much only switched my major up to things that are similar to mechE, like physics and aerospace engineering, but I always went back to mechanical. I was pretty set on mechanical engineering, until a month ago when I went to an “engineering open house” event at a top university in my state. I got to actually see people do mechanical engineering, like building robots and spacecraft and stuff like that. While I thought all of that was cool, I quickly realized that I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life, or even at all. So I left the mechanical engineering building and thought maybe I would check out some of the chemical engineering exhibits they had going on that same day. I went to a few chemical exhibits and they were awesome. It immediately had me rethinking my decision to switch from chemical engineering to mechanical engineering.

Somehow after that day I decided I would major in physics (random right?). I really liked physics and had almost switched my major to it multiple times, and while chemical engineering was definitely my favorite, physics just felt safer because I wouldn’t have to go back and try to learn a bunch of chemistry that I had forgotten over the past year. I was also completely done with Mechanical Engineering. About a month later and I’ve definitely had second thoughts, I’m really considering chemical engineering, and am so close to taking a chem class this summer.

So yeah, now I’m in this dilemma where I’m a second year college student and I feel like I have no idea what I want to major in.

If you actually read all of this I would like to thank you so much. I know it’s a lot but I’m really stressed about what I should major in, and pretty much anything anyone says will help:)

2

It sounds like you have a lot of interests and that is a good thing but obviously stressful. I am a physics professor and so I like physics a lot but my research has taken me into chemistry, materials science and chemical engineering and I have had experience doing engineering design of complex mechanical systems as well. Personally, I found that getting a B.S. and a Ph.D. in physics have given me the ability to move into these different fields relatively easily but maybe you don’t want to pursue a career in research or a graduate degree.

In that case, start thinking about the kind of job that you would be excited to have. This should help guide you toward a major. If you are primarily concerned with getting a job after graduation, then engineering is the best path although the physics majors at my university, Illinois Tech, have had little trouble finding jobs recently. Within engineering, mechanical is one of the more general options and gives you a broad range of options. To help you figure this out, see if you can meet some engineers and learn what they do every day. This may give you more insight into the working world and what an engineer does.