<p>I’m a parent, with my own story about majors, but I like these stories much more. I hope we hear a few more. So instead of telling my story I’m going to talk about my D who has little attachment to what she’ll major in. She thinks it will be neurosci but she has all these interests in Spanish, Italian, literature, linguistics, art history, philosophy, and aesthetics. The one thing that holds them all together in her mind is her curiosity and neuroscience, so she’s going to college and tell them it’s neuroscience even though she knows she could easily major in any one or two of these. Neuroscience curricula can be very interdisciplinary but that is not always the case. Because she could major in so many areas, that’s where the AP courses come in; because she won’t have to take Freshman English, Calc, a foreign language, social studies, etc., in her first year, she will take intro to linguistics courses, or art history, or philosophy of mind, or survey of british lit, or Italian lit–in addition to Biology, Chemistry, Chem labs, and maybe intro to Neuroscience. Doing so should help her rule out early on some fields as major fields.</p>
<p>In addition to the advantage the AP courses give her, she’s also looking at schools in which she can major in any one of these fields. Not every school has a major in and department of linguistics, neuroscience, and Italian. If she wants to major in one of these, she wants a school that has depth of courses in these areas. That often means a larger school, maybe a state school but also many mid-size unis. There are some smaller schools that offer a Neuroscience curriculum that is very interdisciplinary, requiring students take courses in philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, psycholinguistics, etc., so she’s looking at them, too. Problem there is depth of field in neuroscience. Any of these majors probably mean graduate school and she wants to ascertain that she takes the courses in those fields that are required by graduate programs in those fields; this may pose problems for these smaller schools. Smaller schools tend not to offer Italian or linguistics, or to have very few instructors. She also has a couple schools on her list that will allow her to design her own major if it should come to that.</p>
<p>In addition, she’s also open to the possibility of not majoring in any of these fields. After all, who knows what college is going to bring her. She’s changed so much these last four years, had so many different and valuable experiences. Why would the next four be any different? So she needs a college that can respond to her changing directions: very rich LACs, mid-size unis that have a lot of money, too, and state flagships. Enjoy your discovery. Have faith in yourself. Choose schools for their breadth of field.</p>
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