<p>I've had a somewhat rocky and scattered high school career. Not because I didn't try (although procrastination did often get the better of me earlier in my high school years) But because to be blunt; I think I have too many interests.</p>
<p>In high school I wanted to try everything and took all kinds of classes that we're interesting and took college courses as well. I've taken classes in Zoology, Marine Biology, MicroEconomics, Film, Graphic Design and Multimedia, Computer Science and more and was really interested in all of them and more.</p>
<p>Then the list of subjects and fields of study I've considered/wanted to pursue in college because I go to a crappy public school in California and we don't have a very broad curriculum gets even longer; I'm interested in taking college courses in Psychology, Human Development, Public Health, Economics, kinesiology, BioMechanics, Enviornmental Studies, Anthropology, Archeology, Cognitive Science, Finance, Education...you get the idea.</p>
<p>The thing is, since I've spent high school exploring all these different avenues and at the moment, have literally dozens of options to choose from/go into but am having trouble picking just one or two, I honestly have to ask and consider;</p>
<p>What are your thoughts on going in undeclared? </p>
<p>Will appriciate any advice/insight you guys can give me. I can post more details like scores and schools I'm considering if that helps you out at all.</p>
<p>Muchas Gracias :)</p>
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<p>My thoughts are: what makes you think you have to “declare” anything now, before you get in? Maybe it’s a random question some of your schools ask on a supplement, but I don’t think anyone expects you to declare a major – it’s way too early. </p>
<p>That’s what college is for – to take lots of different classes with good professors and one topic or field of study will appeal to you (or maybe more than 1 field) and then you take another, higher level course in that field, and if you still like it, end of sophomore year you pick something you want to major in.</p>
<p>There are some places where you apply to different schools within the college; most commonly, there’s a school of engineering, and there’s no guarantee that you can transfer into it if you didn’t go in as a freshman. But yeah, it’s pretty rare that going in undeclared affects anything.</p>
<p>I don’t see anything wrong with it. Majority of applicants (I remember reading 80% a while back) change the major that they list on their college apps. While some majors are more competitive than others, colleges know that people change their mind more often than not. </p>
<p>I didn’t declare. But you might want to check each school’s policy. Mine doesn’t expect you to come in knowing what you want to do. Some schools expect you to declare a major within the first year. Others give you until junior year of college to choose a major. If you have many interests then you should look into schools that 1. dont expect you to know what you want to do 2. give you plenty of time to pick a major 3. let you explore many classes.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, colleges often do not make it obvious how easy or difficult it is to declare or change major. You may have to search for “declare major” and “change major” on the college web sites. UCs typically allow or require freshmen to enter undeclared in the Letters and Science divisions, but the Engineering divisions may require being declared from the start. CSUs admit freshmen by major and may be difficult to change major at.</p>
<p>But you also need to be aware that some majors have long prerequisite sequences, so if you are unsure but are considering such majors, you need to start taking the prerequisites early to avoid delaying graduation if you choose such a major.</p>
<p>My daughter went in undeclared. She started off taking science oriented classes and physics and the math required for physics, but when she took a year long CS Intro sophmore year she decided to declare CS major. Although her school allows for declaring major right to the end of sophmore year, it might have been too late for straight up CS but they also had a math-cs major where all the math satisfied many requirements.</p>
<p>Aside from checking each school policy on declaring majors, be very aware of the core requirements of the ones you are applying to. You likely want to look at schools with open cirriculum, for instance at Brown there are no core requirements at all. This allows you to do the sort of survey you want–you just need to fufill major requirements. Other schools like University of Chicago have very full and broad core requirements in several disciplines, and you have just some room under each to pick the ones you are more interested. This gives you a very good base for a survey but not as independently selected as the specific classes you mention necessarily. Aside from these two schools there are others that are not so hard to get into, these were just examples.</p>
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<p>There are very few such schools – Brown (except engineering), Amherst, Evergreen State (BA degree).</p>