<p>My school recently implemented a new policy requiring all students declare their major by the middle of their 3rd semester, else they cannot register for a 4th semester. This policy seems to be responsible for pushing people into "popular" majors and causing problems for intro classes in those departments because they have higher enrollments than in the past. While it is possible to switch majors, it sounds like it is actually forcing people to choose earlier. Do other schools you know of have this policy? Do you think it's a good policy? Why or why not?</p>
<p>It may depend on the division in the school, or the specific major. For example, engineering majors may have to be in specific majors earlier.</p>
<p>Makes sense to me. If I hadn’t declared by then I wouldn’t have graduated on time. That seems like more than enough time to me to make a decision-- but in my case it’s pretty easy to switch if you change your mind.</p>
<p>I honestly think that after a year in college you should be pretty much decided on at least a general field of study…maybe you don’t know yet you’d like to do X major with Y minor but you know you’re somewhere between X, Z, and W. If you declare later than 3rd semester you might not be able to graduate on time.</p>
<p>Although as an engineer who’s been set on her major for the past almost-4 years I might be biased.</p>
<p>Using Berkeley as an example of differing major declaration requirements by division:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>College of Letters and Science: freshmen are admitted undeclared. Students are required to declare a major before the first semester of junior year (transfers before the beginning of their second semester).</p></li>
<li><p>College of Engineering: most freshmen are admitted into specific majors; a few are admitted undeclared. Undeclared students are expected to declare in their first year. Transfer students are admitted into specific majors.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Regardless of when the school wants you to declare a major, a student needs to check on the prerequisites needed for each major, so that s/he can declare whichever major without delaying graduation.</p>
<p>I don’t think that sounds unreasonable at all. I know both my kids had to declare their major sometime in their third semester. AT that time they went through an audit and planned out the balance of their years with their adviser who signed off on the plan and then they registered for spring sophomore classes. S1 added a second major junior year at his college and S2 has added minor at his college this summer (rising junior).</p>
<p>When I was in college you had to declare a major at the end of freshman year - some of the special majors that you had to apply to had sophomore year seminars just for majors. At some point they decided to give students another semester to decide. They still seem to give the special major tutorials though. My older son decided his major when he applied - Computer Science is your major if you apply to Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science. He had a little longer to figure out his required minor. My younger son is at Tufts and they expect you to choose a major by April of sophomore year, but my son was planning courses for his major starting as a freshman and he had plans for a backup major if he wasn’t happy with how the major turned out, but even by the end of sophomore year it’s hard to fit everything in especially if you want to take a full year abroad, since international studies hardly ever lets you could taken overseas for the major requirements. (!!!) If he’d realized that it surely would have been a consideration.</p>
<p>With the exception of majors requiring extensive cumulative prereqs like engineering, most colleges I know of allowed students to wait until the beginning of their junior year to declare their major. </p>
<p>Didn’t impact me much as I already had a good idea of what I wanted to major in before I even entered. Only changes in my plans were additions of a few minors because they overlapped so much with my major core requirements, distribution requirements, and courses I wanted to take anyways I had nothing to lose by declaring them. </p>
<p>Then again, I also knew of colleges which mandated one declare majors at the end of freshman year. </p>
<p>Didn’t see much of a difference with either policy for students I knew of who were inclined to be indecisive and to change majors multiple times. They almost always ended up having to take summer courses and/or take an extra year or few to graduate.</p>
<p>My school required major declaration before spring break Soph year so they could start schedule calcs for Junior year.</p>
<p>They may have found that students who were waiting until their 4th semester weren’t graduating on time, so that’s why they implemented the switch. Personally, I think it’s a good idea. Get the students thinking earlier and taking the classes they need earlier. Really, I think you should ideally have your major decided after freshman year when you’ve gotten the chance to take some classes, because it allows you to schedule your time to allow for outside activities, internships, and study abroad opportunities later.</p>
<p>I know at Georgia Tech you have to apply into a specific major.</p>