<p>My child (not my first) looking at colleges now, (started a while ago) seems to be under the impression that she needs to major in everything she is interested in. I am not saying this sarcastically. So if she enjoys a subject, she thinks it has to be a major. My husband and I have both explained to her, tried anyway, that she can take classes in things that are not her major, often even going in depth, or even study these subjects outside of school. For example, I loved history and theater and took classes in those things. But I did not declare them as majors. I had 1 major, and when the school required it, I also declared a minor. I actually had enough classes for 2 other minors. </p>
<p>Are there any articles aimed at high schoolers, or even college students, explaining the purpose of a major, and maybe even gives advice when thinking about what to major in? I know she does not have to make a decision now, but this is causing a lot of trouble in looking at schools, when she is listing 6 majors, but she is very serious that she has to love the department for each major at a school to attend that school because she fully intends to major in all of them.</p>
<p>Additionally, she has ruled out engineering, because, she cannot major in engineering, and the other majors she wants at the same time.</p>
<p>Have her talk to the high school GC (guidance counselor) to set things straight. It is very hard to even double major… so most students just add a minor. You can’t have 6 majors. </p>
<p>It certainly is possible to have many interests and eventually refine choice of major. That would probably best be accomplished a large university with lots of variety. Since she has such varied interests, I suspect that engineering would not be a good fit (very few course choices). Take a look at Econ… that’s what my analytical, mult-faceted daughter settled upon after leaving engineering. Econ allowed plenty of electives - history, linguistics, etc.</p>
<p>Many students enter college not knowing what they want to major in. Most of the time, it is fine to spend the first year of college exploring.</p>
<p>6 might be too many to start with. Can your daughter rank the 6? Can she narrow down to the top 3? In addition to being interested, are there subjects that she is better at? Has she looked into what she would do with the majors like what jobs the majors lead to, graduate school, etc?</p>
<p>Depending on what year she is (high school junior, senior?), she still has time to figure it out.</p>
<p>Would you believe there’s an app that might help? It’s called Unstuck, and it’s meant to help people think through decisions big and small. No personal involvement here, but it is actually very clever.</p>
<p>We had our kids make Venn diagrams of three things-- things they were interested in, things they were good at, and personality traits. For example, your daughter might be interested in history, good at organization, and be an extreme introvert. While the intersect might include some kind of research,it probably won’t include teaching high school (which is not for introverts)</p>
<p>ANd it is probably time to just flat out say she needs to narrow it down to three, because people don’t have 6 majors, that’s not how it works. Insert the helpless mom shrug there…</p>
<p>I always try the “draw me a picture” approach.</p>
<p>I would take the hypothetical 6 major approach, write out the ridiculous degree plan that would be required, provide a cost-estimate and schedule…</p>
<p>and then</p>
<p>I would pick a couple that you like and do the same for a double major</p>
<p>Then I would explain as greenbutton did that people just don’t have 6 majors, and I’d recruit help from the GC if it didn’t all properly sink in.</p>
<p>Perhaps her GC can communicate that 6 majors is just not something that any college would entertain.</p>
<p>Assuming you are able to get her past the “six major” idea… some colleges do not have minors. You need to look at the academic section of the college website to see. And at a few colleges it is very, very difficult to double major; an example would be Reed.</p>
<p>I can understand if she is undecided between all the majors she might want to make sure to go to a college with strength in several of them. At most colleges she will not need to declare a major until later in sophomore year. One thing a kid I know did was try to take 2 classes in each area he thought he might want to major in over the first 3 semesters of college (to be fair, he only had 3 possible majors in mind). He also spent a lot of time in the college career office discussing what he could do with each major. Then he selected a major and a minor after that.</p>
<p>All the way through high school, at any given moment, I could have told you exactly what I wanted to study. I also changed my mind a gazillion times.</p>
<p>I remember visiting Boston University absolutely convinced that I was going to major in physics and go on to med school, and then going to Northeastern the same afternoon and telling them (and meaning it) that I was a comparative lit major.</p>
<p>I went to college as a declared journalism major, even though there was maybe one 12 hour period in my life when journalism sounded appealing to me. It just happened that that 12 hour period coincided with the time when I needed to fill out my application. Once at college, I declared majors in history, anthropology, psychology (several times), comparative lit, Russian, Slavic studies, and English. </p>
<p>Neither of my siblings ended up with their initial declared major either. Ironically, I did end up with my sister’s initial intended major which was political science. We all have careers that we love, that build on the writing and reasoning skills that we developed in college, but otherwise have no relationship to our majors. </p>
<p>I guess my point is that I am not convinced that a high school student needs to have a clue about what major they will choose. They’ll sort it out when they get to school, and thinking that she’ll major in six things might remind her to find a school that is good at all six things, so that whichever she picks will be there for her when she makes her final choice.</p>
<p>CuriousJane - it would have been catastrophic for us if D’s didn’t have SOME idea. If they couldn’t get in the ball-park and had to waste a lot of hours, it could have easily cost them $20,000. We don’t have that kind of money to waste.</p>
<p>Since they had the majority of their core-curriculum out of the way, all they had left were classes specific to their majors.</p>
<p>I hear your argument often, but that would not have been a viable option for my kids.</p>
<p>Maybe there are some majors where you have to commit before freshman year, but there are still plenty where you don’t. My D is majoring in an area she didn’t really even know existed until she got to college, and is very happy she didn’t just go for what she liked and was good at in HS. It’s fine if kids know what they want and have it all mapped out, but it is still very, very possible to explore a bit in those first two years and still complete a major successfully.</p>
<p>I graduated college in the “minimum” amount of time required to satisfy residency, as did my brother. My sister went to a state school with no residency requirement and graduated in 2.5 years. So, it doesn’t seem as though entering without a plan slowed me down or cost extra money. </p>
<p>Most colleges have general ed requirements, that can be fufilled by taking entry courses in the majors a student interested in. In addition, a student will often be interested in at least some majors that are related in some way, and some of the same core requirements. </p>
<p>Yes, there are certain specific majors, such as engineering, where it’s best to know going in, but there are plenty of programs where a student can spend their first two years getting gen eds, and language requirements out of the way, and burning a few electives trying out different options, and still graduate without taking additional credits.</p>
<p>Your childs interests in six majors simply prove her academic well-roundedness, which is an important success factor of college education emphasizing multidisciplinary experiences.
When she checks intended majors in application process, just consider her life-long goal, for example, to become academic or professional person in certain area in the future, to build skills and capacities required in that area during her college days. I believe most colleges have BA or BS programs that your D has interests in.</p>
<p>As intparent (#8),qialah (#12) and curiousjane (#13) said, your D will declare a major later in sophomore year after about one-and-a-half years exploring majors at most colleges. In that period, as greenbutton (#5) said, three things important. Id like to elaborate more on two things: what kids were interested in and what they were good at. To identify her interests and talents, consider these self-assessment questions:
What are my favorite courses?
What do these courses have in common?
What subjects interest me when I read?
What activities do I look forward to?
What do people say I do well?
How do I learn most effectively?</p>
<p>Also practical advice on academic options of your Ds college will be very helpful in that period. This includes talking to the people who can help and visiting the department. Consider these questions:
What are my options in majoring?
What majors are offered at my school?
What prerequisites are required?
What courses will I be required to take and in what sequence?
This can’t be literally true. I’m sure she’s not a stupid girl, and can understand quite well that you are willing to pay for four years of college and that it is physically impossible to major in six subjects in that amount of time. Moreover, I don’t know how it’s possible to “love” any college department based on the kind of information you acquire during a college search. The best you can do is read up on the professors and look at the course list. Neither will necessarily tell you much about the actual experience of majoring in that department. I suppose she could interview students within each major at each school, if she could get their names and they’re willing to participate, but that would be a full time job!</p>