Major Help

College Life
1

<p>Okay, so here's my problem. I am currently a freshmen at the University of Michigan, but I have enough AP credits, that my standing is actually sophomore. Therefore, I will hit 55 credits by the end of this year and have to declare a major. I know that you can change your major many times before you graduate, so that's not the issue. The problem is I came here as a pre-med student, with intentions of majoring in something other than science. But right now, the pre-med thing is kind of wearing off. I'm taking orgo this semester and it's not that it's hard, I got a 65% on my first exam, which turns out to like a B right now, so that's really not the problem. The problem is that I can't see myself taking four more years of these science courses. I really hate my schedule this semester. Besides orgo, I'm taking spanish, a requirement, a seminar that I thought would be really interesting but turned out pretty boring, and a required english course. The english course is turning out to be the best of the bunch, although it's greek lit and the discussion is my favorite part.</p>

<p>Anyway, I really started to get interested in journalism during high school. I was editor of my school paper and I love exploring the media. But my school doesn't have a journalism major and when I mentioned exploring communications, one of my professors told me not to, that the program is very weak, and to major in anything else, english or polysci or whatever.</p>

<p>But when i've explored the course catalog, the english and polysci classes bore me. I'm really interested in the media, not polysci, and I love writing, not exploring classic literature, and writing about it.</p>

<p>I still haven't decided completely against going to medical school. But most of my friends who are pre-med say that they can't picture their lives not going into medicine. But I can, I have this other passion. </p>

<p>Basically if I don't go into medicine, my choices are to transfer, or to stay and major in something else, the only other major I've considered is american culture, which i think is equivalent to american studies at other schools. When I mentioned this to my parents though, they said it sounded like a complete nonsense of a major. I don't really know much else about it.</p>

<p>If I transfer, I lose all of the friends I've made, the organizations i've become involved in, and have to start over somewhere else, which isn't too appealing to me.
I also heard that most schools won't let you transfer when you're over 60 credits, and I'll have close to that before sophomore year. </p>

<p>I've also looked at internships for next summer, and may have found one with my local paper, which would definitely help me decide if journalism is my route, but by then, I won't be able to transfer to a better program.</p>

<p>I know it's early, and I haven't even been in school that long, but since I hate my current schedule, i've been looking a lot into the upcoming semester. And it seems like the weeks are going by so fast, that before I know it, the deadlines will come up for transferring, and I'll be signing up for next year's housing, so I'm just trying to look ahead.
I know this is really long, but I'm just really confused right now, so any advice would be appreciated...</p>

2

<p>As far as I know, you can still transfer to anywhere with over 60 credits.
It is my understanding that at most schools to graduate from them you have to earn at least sixty credits from the particular school. (ok for some reason that sounds like a really bad sentence to me) </p>

<p>As for not going pre-med, I can’t help you there. You have to decide what you want to do with your life.</p>

3

<p>You shouldn’t have any problem transferring. Set up your schedule for next semester with less emphasis on the sciences. Stick with general ed type of classes that can be used towards core requirements at most every school (Intro. to psych. or Intro to soc., a literature class, communication class, poly. sci. class, writing class, etc.). Go through the housing procedure for next year as usual. In the meantime, start researching possible colleges that offer a wide range of majors and make sure they offer journalism and/or communications with a media concentration (my S is a Communications major with a concentration in TV, Film, and Radio–cool classes like Writing for TV, Writing for Newspapers, Film Studies, etc.). Send out a few transfer applications between now and December for next Fall. This way, you’ll have options at the end of the year if you still have the calling to change your major. </p>

<p>If your heart isn’t into medicine and the sciences, move on to something else.</p>

4

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that’s not going to matter 5-10 years from now and you realized you made a horrible career mistake. my father went back to school 3-5 years after he got married to get his masters/PhD in a completely unrelated field from his undergrad studies. Same goes for my bro too, my bro graduated with engineering degree from cornell, hates the field, went back to school. My father says its better to study what you want when your parents are paying for it, lol. </p>

<p>If your friendships are that weak, you might want to reconsider it. I mean you guys can still see each other right? All my friends are different majors so I don’t even know why this is an issue.</p>

<p>Or if you really want to go into medicine anyway, why not minor or double major in journalism? keep up with your interests, see if it fits you better than medicine.</p>

<p>I’ve seen people change majors all the time so I don’t think it’ll even be that big of an issue. I changed my major and I’m a junior.</p>

5

<p>If you are interested in Journalism, transfer to Missouri ASAP. Don’t take any communications courses at Michigan, because they will just laugh their asses off at another schools Journalism/Communications courses.</p>

6

<p>Exactly. Find a school that has good Journalism/Communications/English departments. There are many out there to choose from.</p>

<p>(I don’t know anything about the depts at Michigan so I can’t comment on them)</p>

7

<p>There aren’t many good journalism schools. You can go to Northwestern and learn about journalism, or go to Missouri, and learn how to do journalism. (Although Northwestern is the best if you have ambition of going on ESPN).</p>