<p>fishymom - How long did it take your son to graduate with an “upgraded” major? Did he have most or all of the expected freshman engineering courses (calc through diffy q, chemistry, physics, CS) under his belt before he made the decision? I think lots of students become reluctant to change majors after sophomore year because of the extra time (and expense, especially for full-pays at private schools!) involved, and some schools and advisors (especially after climbing the prestige ladder) also seem anxious to push students out in 4 years.</p>
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<p>^So, just out of curiosity, how long did it take your son to finish his degree since he switched from business to engineering?</p>
<p>My son just started his sophomore year and still has no idea what he wants to major in. Late last semester he thought ‘okay, I’m at a school with the #1 International Business program in the country with an auto-admit to the program so I’ll major in IB.’ So he’s now taking classes geared toward the business school. Over the summer, he started considering pre-med (thankfully has the grades to date to do so). However, now he’s taken business calculus and if he decides to switch to pre-med, or another science field I can see where that will set him back a bit. It will only get worse until he declares a major. He went in with a ton AP credit, so that gives him some wiggle room and meant he doesn’t need to take as many general education requirements but I can see where he’s heading for a 4+ year UG plan. That’s not going to make his father happy. :(</p>
<p>I think that, especially with respect to engineering, a lot of student start out there because it is a major they have “heard” of, and also because if a student does decide that engineering is what he/she wants, it is difficult to transfer in to later because of the way the classes are laddered.</p>
<p>However, a lot of students then decide their true interests lie elsewhere…in majors they didn’t even know existed before they hit the college campus.</p>
<p>For some, engineering continues to be the right fit
For some, engineering is too hard
For some, engineering gives way to a new interest in linguistics or policy analysis or something else that becomes a consuming interest.</p>
<p>And some people should have switched out of engineering when they had the chance. My BIL is a very successful engineer…and has hated his job for 35 years. But he was not brave enough to try anything else.</p>
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<p>Maybe not…but that IS the title of the thread…just saying.</p>
<p>No, he was not taking the Calc and physics classes, he started taking the pre-reqs second semester of what would have been his senior year. He has gone to school year round and overloaded every semester since then. He started as a freshman in 2004 and will graduate, finally!!!, after 7 1/2 years. There are 7 years between our 2 children and we never dreamed we would have 2 in undergrad at the same time. At least it is only for one semester, could be worse!</p>
<p>I found the title of the thread amusing also, but having grown up in a family of engineers as the only non-engineering major they do tend to think of an engineering degree as the pinnacle of college majors :-). The irony is now in our mid-life we all have very similar jobs, just approached from entirely different angles.</p>
<p>Well, I grew up in a family of physicians that divided the world of working men (it was before women entered medical school in great numbers) into “doctors” and “those not smart enough to get into medical school”. The latter included engineers, physics and math PhD’s, all manner of published authors, and, of course, accountants, lawyers, government workers, miscellaneous business people - including i-bankers, teachers, etc. </p>
<p>Even within the medical profession, BTW, they thought highly of surgeons and tended to be contemptuous of psychiatrists.</p>
<p>ROTFL It MUST be a burden for people to feel so superior.</p>
<p>I agree with another poster and actually had this discussion with friends. Many students pick engineering but HS courses really don’t give you any idea what engineering is about. So how can you know you want to be an engineer (other than outside interests/clubs/etc which many students don’t have access to). So I can understand the surprise when they don’t stay in the major. Also, it’s pretty intense which many don’t seem to be able to grasp when they start college.</p>
<p>We’ve told our DS that although he thinks he knows what he wants to major in, we will be supportive if he changes his mind. We don’t want him to stress out and be unhappy trying to succeed in a major he decides isn’t for him.</p>
<p>S2 has several friends at his university who started out as business majors but found the finance/accounting classes were too much for them. Most changed to Communications. One changed to Art-video production.</p>
<p>DH majored in Mechanical Engineering (after spending one semester in Chem. Eng). He says he really didn’t know much about engineering when he chose his major. He was the smart math kid in his h.s. class and was always told he would make a good engineer.
Luckily, it worked out for him but he knew others who switched out of engineering early on.</p>
<p>My degree is nursing. I knew a lot of girls who started out as nursing majors but were done in by the Chem./Anatomy classes and changed majors. Nursing is another major that lots of people start out in without really knowing what is required and how difficult it is.</p>
<p>Fishymom - 7 1/2 years! That’s what i am afraid of. A co-workers son’s who switched majors twice is going on 7 years. Sigh, I guess as long as they eventually end up doing something that makes them happy…</p>
<p>Your son is one lucky guy. We signed on for the “four year plan” and if our kid had taken 3 1/2 years longer to graduate, it would have been on her dime.</p>
<p>Our kiddo did the opposite. She went in undeclared but took all of the engineering requisite courses freshman year. She declared her engineering major during her sophomore year…and then added a double major…biology…to her list. I never thought of it as an “upgrade”.</p>
<p>I regret using the term “downgrade” for the thread title. But I was actually talking about students who had to retreat from their original major because they couldn’t handle the work, not students who simply discovered they liked something else better. Although I used engineering as the example, it could be any major in which the student found the work too challenging. </p>
<p>Like Packmom, I’ve known nurses who had to leave the program because the classes were hard and nursing school didn’t cut them any slack. I’ve known music majors who couldn’t handle the music theory classes and changed majors. </p>
<p>Interestingly, most of the education majors I’ve known (who didn’t ultimately stay in teaching) didn’t drop out of education until after they graduated, actually hit the classroom, and realized how hard teaching is.</p>
<p>Seems like every major has a class or two that “thin the herd”. When I went to college “Experimental Analysis” turned alot of psych majors into sociology majors.</p>
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<p>Not to mention music majors who when faced with the reality that their skills are just average when compared to their talented peers and that they’re not ever going to get remotely close to a principal’s job in a major symphony orchestra decide to make a change.</p>
<p>Son of a friend went off to a school with a very good music program as a string bass major, having been an all-Chicago-area bassist in high school. After auditions, he was placed fourth out of five among entering freshmen. Switched to chemistry and eventually earned a PhD in that discipline.</p>
<p>It used to be much easier to switch. I went to college with several who found out that despite outstanding GPA’s, they were not destined to become actors or writers. Other found out once they started work that they enjoyed studying and getting A’s in a field much better than actually working in it.</p>
<p>But, back then (late seventies), law school was a viable option for many of these folk as even graduates of lower-tier law schools were finding jobs. Others who switched direction became teachers or accountants. Engineering wasn’t very attractive because of mass lay-offs (lots of these people went to law school, to become patent lawyers.)</p>
<p>And, a few decades ago, the expense of re-training wasn’t nearly so much of a barrier. These days, we are seeing lots of recent grads who are unable to find full-time employment even after a year or two enter post-bac pre-med programs (if they had a decent GPA), get teacher certification (popular among science majors), or enter certificate programs in accounting. Some are even trying grad programs in engineering or education to give themselves a resume boost. And, of course, nursing programs are always popular.</p>
<p>I myself am holding my breath until D (environmental studies major) graduates in a couple of years and hoping not to be on the hook for too much extra tuition. At least she took the basic science and math courses for an engineering major, so if she decides to go in that direction it shouldn’t take 7 years.</p>
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Unfortunately, it would probably add 3 years to whatever point she was at when she decided, depending on which engineering field. Maybe 2 if she were to load up on summer courses. :(</p>
<p>My sister switched from Geology to Spanish Literature when she failed in her third attempt to pass the required Physics course. With nothing but her Spanish Lit BA, she makes enough money every year to buy and sell me several times over. “Downgrading” her major has had zero effect on her life, except that she got to stop being miserable and feeling like a failure (which of course made an enormous positive difference). It did take her an extra semester to graduate, which was probably the greatest godsend of all. She got a part-time gofer job in a stockbroker’s office, and it turned into a professional investment management career.</p>
<p>My sister decided at the end of the school year that she hated Econ and has become a French major. She has yet to tell our father.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree, my son is a fortunate young man. We live in Florida, with good state schools that are very reasonably priced. He also had a prepaid tuition plan, which paid for his first 120 credits. He was self pay for years 5 and 6, working 20+ hours a week while carrying a full load. We paid his rent, car payment and phone, but everything else was on him. Year 7 he qualified as an independent student, received some grant aid and took out student loans for the first time. He did not work during this past school year because his course load was too demanding. He had a paid internship this summer that allowed him to pay off some of his loans. He did have a scare with fin aid for his final semester, found out his internship, which he received credit for, put him over his credits limit for financial aid. Fortunately, he was given a waiver for an additional 20 credits for this semester. We thought he was good, only needing 14 credits. Then he found that the freshman English I class that he CLEPed out of gave him credit but did not satisfy the Gordon Rule for writing. The test has since been redone to meet the Gordon Rule requirements, so he figured no problem, he would just take it again. Nope, can’t do that because he has already taken English II. So he has to take freshman English I to graduate! He thinks he will be able to do it on-line, so hopefully it will not be too much of an issue.</p>