Entrepreneurship
Special Education
Biology (which could lead to premed)
Journalism
Sociology
Psychology
I am between these majors, a junior in high school, and obviously still a lot of uncertainty about what I want to do. Between these 6, what do you guys think? I’ll definitely double major, but what should I mark when I apply to colleges? Can I switch majors in college?
Mark undecided. Apply to colleges where there is a range of majors and you can explore a little before deciding. Many, many colleges don’t require you to declare a major until the end of your sophomore year. You don’t need to have that figured out at the age of 17 or 18. For many majors, there is little or opportunity in high school to take classes in those subjects. The first couple semesters in college are a great time to explore different courses to see what you like.
I’ve heard marking undecided looks bad at very selective schools. Is that true? Also, this choice would help me shape my senior year schedule. If I know for sure I am doing journalism, for example, I would not take a science next year but instead would focus on Communications and Journalism Advanced at my school. Of these majors, do you know what are considered what? Like what do you know about special ed majors, etcThanks
In many colleges, students don’t declare a major until sophomore or junior year. Since you’re not sure, I would opt for a school where you could do any of these majors rather than a specialized school/proram (i.e. business school or a journalism school). It will be important for you to look at each college/university that you apply to and determine if acceptance rates vary by major or program and how easy it is to change “majors” or programs once you are accepted. Some majors like engineering should be started as a freshman since they have so many requirements and classes that must be taken in a sequence and other majors can be started soph year. If you are interested in double majoring, determine how easy or difficult that would be at the various schools you are considering.
You don’t have to have your life planned out as a junior in high school. Really.
i KNOW i just wanted a direction
How interested are you in pursuing medical school? All of those majors can be rendered “pre-med” if you take the right classes.
I think you should be thinking about things in terms of what you would want to do after college. Do you want to go into business? Medicine? Teaching? Journalism? Those are all very different career paths, and it’ll take some time to sort through them. What have you done to see if you would be interested in any of these? You could volunteer at a hospital or shadow physicians. You could try writing for your school paper. You could tutor or volunteer with the special olympics. And a lot of these things you don’t have to do right now. You will have even more opportunities in college to explore these fields and try to narrow it down. It sounds like you’re interested in a lot of things, which is good! Start trying some of them out to see if they fit or not. This really isn’t something that other people can tell you what to major in.
How easy it is to switch majors really depends on what school you want to go to. Look into the process at schools you are planning on applying to. For some schools, it might be harder to switch majors than others. For others, it may really not matter what major you apply as. And even if you apply as a certain major, no school is going to make that a binding agreement. You can always change it. And there are a lot of pathways you can take without having a certain major. You can major in anything and still go to medical school, provided you meet the med school prerequisites. You don’t have to major in business to be an entrepreneur. You don’t have to major in journalism to be a journalist, and you don’t have to major in special education to be a special education teacher. There are a lot of different paths to the same end goal. Don’t stress so much about your major at this point. What you put on your college application is really not going to determine your whole life.
I get that you want a direction. But the way to find that direction is to explore different paths, to talk to people in the field about different career options (or to research them), and to try out different careers to see what you would like to pursue (through volunteering, internships, shadowing, etc). Liking something and wanting to make a career out of it can be different things. And you don’t have to have this all figured out as a junior in high school. It’s a process. Take it one step at a time.
I wouldn’t recommend that you make your high school courses too specialized. High school is supposed to be a generalized education, and college is where you have the opportunity to become more specialized. Part of the reason it can be good to stay general in high school is that it can give you the chance to be exposed to different subjects and still be prepared for a more specialized education in college. Take courses of interest, but there’s no reason you have to neglect science courses because you think you might major in journalism. Is there any reason you can’t choose your courses generally–take a science, a math, an English, a social studies, and then elective courses to fill in the rest? Your major in college really shouldn’t be influencing your choice of classes in high school so drastically.
That was the most helpful answer I’ve ever gotten on college confidential. Thanks a ton