WHAT’S your major? This question is becoming harder for students to answer, for many, the answer is simple. There are people who have always known what their real passion is, but many have no answer to this question or maybe they are undecided. A great portion of college students in today 's 21st-century struggle with choosing a college major and deciding on a career path. An undecided student is someone who has not yet chosen a field of study.
Undecided students can experience lots of anxiety and stress about what their future holds and can even make students feel isolated from their peers, who already picked a major and know what they want to do once they graduate. Making a decision about a college major and career path is one of
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However, some students that are still unsure of what they want to study only just pick a major just to alleviate some of the pressure they are currently experiencing. Excuses like "I need a major to get earlier registration" or "Everyone has a major, so I need one too" are also heard on a routine basis. Nevertheless, both of those common excuses are false. If you are unsure of what you want to major in, it is much more productive to arrive at college as an undeclared student. Being an undeclared student grants you multiple opportunities in exploring careers and majors that cannot be taken advantage of by declared students. Being an undeclared student can be a smart choice as it can help students explore
multiple career paths without making a significant commitment and it can prevent them from
making a wrong choice. Moreover, selecting a major may seem like a huge deal, but in reality,
many people end up in a career entirely different than their major. Another point that needs to be
mentioned is that your major does not have to dictate what you do as a career for the rest of your
life. This is an idea that many college students (not just undeclared students, by the way) do
The first and the most common regret is choosing the wrong major. The major reason people regret the decision they made years back is either because they do not get a suitable job in their required field or they have no more interest in their field.
An undergraduate that is primarily focusing on a liberal major has the tendency to become lazy. “Colleges have allowed widespread grade inflation and shown increased tolerance of late or incomplete work” (46). A ripple effect swept through the majority of students and led to apathetic habits. The realization of this, made colleges decide what kind of educational opportunity that can help in the improvement of the little effort being put into liberal major responsibilities. “A much more controversial step would be to allow undergraduates to take a small number of elective courses in practical vocational subjects, such as accounting, marketing, or finance”
Sometimes Dual enrollment classes can be really tough. Therefore, when choosing classes for their senior year; the vast majority choose the most unchallenging classes that require almost no effort at all. People make this decision because they think it would require less work and obviously who would want to work hard while they have a better option? That’s where most of them are wrong! In the long run, even for
Teachers are clueless about the needs of students when it comes to college. There are various underlying personal problems that can affect students going to college. For some it may be having children and having to work to pay for college and their children.
Students often think that they can only get jobs in that specific field because of their degree. Keyes describes that regardless of what students study, school will not prepare them for the workforce. He also explains that an employer likes to see a diverse background from potential employees when they are hiring, because the student’s major might be an asset to their company. With that in mind, it is important to choose something that interests students so it won’t bore them as they get older. I’m choosing a major in kinesiology; which is the study of body movement and I am sure will keep me entertained throughout studying it and practicing it as a
In today 's society, there are multitudes of pressure high school students face. One of the biggest pressures put on high school students is the decision of going to college. From the moment students enter into a secondary education, they are constantly asked questions about their future plans. Teachers and parents expect students to perform their best, while giving them no chance but to look towards college. In some cases, however, college might not be the answer. Other options exist as alternate avenues after high school, however, these are not as often expressed as the idea of a four year university. Although a college education and degree is most often more impactful than a high school diploma, there is too much pressure
Orndorff, Robert M., and Edwin L. Herr. "A Comparative Study of Declared and Undeclared College Students on Career Uncertainty and Involvement in Career Development Activities." Journal of Counseling & Development July, 1996: 1-17.
As an adult you will be opposed with many difficult decisions throughout your life time, and deciding my major had to be one of the toughest decisions I’ve made in my short adult hood. Choosing my major was a tough decision for me because I knew my next four years of college would be the most vital years of my life for years to come. Weighing out all possible outcomes, likes, beliefs and dreams I finally came to the decision of my major.
Going off to college is can be exciting because in these moments a student learn to be independent having the ability to choose how there future will end up. Some students come to college knowing exactly what there major will be. However, once they see the workload it may not be what they expected. Leaving them with the thought of changing
It seems as though the majority of college students these days aren’t looking to further their education because it’s what they really want, they do it to please their parents, to be accepted by society, or because there’s nothing else for them to do (Bird, 372). These expectations have led to students being unhappy and stressed, and have pushed them into a school or a job that they don’t particularly care for.
Within recent decades, college has become a more easily available path than it has been for the past generations. In a current news release, The Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that, “Of the 2.9 million youth age 16 to 24 who graduated from high school between January and October 2014, about 68.4 percent were enrolled in college in October” (BLS Economic News Release from April 2015). When a student graduates high school, most of them intend to continue on to college. They have the idea that, while there, they can break away from all the general classes and just focus on what they want to learn. However, for almost all students, they find that this is not the reality. Just like high school, they find that they have to take approximately two years in general studies in order to attend and graduate with the major of their choice. General education classes should not be required because a majority of the information learned has already been covered in past years. Most of the courses do not benefit a student 's major, and the total amount of required hours for these classes can become a big waste of time and money.
“Choose something that you’re good at.” This was the advice given to me by my mom before applying to college. “Choose a major that will get you a good job, but also something that you like.” These are the words that came out of her mouth; these are words that say one thing but really mean another.
Some people already know by the age of seven that they want to become a pilot or nurse; others, however, have more difficulties deciding what to do with their future. People who decided to go to a university or college have to make an important choice: what major are they going into? For many people this is a very difficult question. As the statistics show, one out of five students change their major between admission and the first day of classes. Nearly three out of four students change majors at least twice before they graduate. And three out of four college students express uncertainly about their major. These striking results raised some questions for me. Is it really necessary to choose a major? What influence has the choice of a specific major on the student and his or her education? What are the opportunities for the future? And how can these students be helped? Since I am still having trouble choosing a major myself, I decided to do some research on this topic and I hope it will help you a little bit to make the right choice.
Having a good career, whether it pays well or because the student is passionate about it, helps make it easier. Majors, minors, and electives stretch from criminal justice and chemistry, to dance and music. Although the level of grading and schoolwork gets more challenging through the years, college education offers many things high school education simply couldn’t. Paulo Freire best describes the difference between high school education and college. “Worse yet, it turns them into “containers,” into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teacher” (p.58). In high school, the curriculum that is used to teach their students often focuses on memorizing, and not about actual teaching. This is different in college. Professors are in charge of leading students into a greater based knowledge of both what they are being taught inside of the classroom and outside, and it is the student 's job to learn. Professors go through thousands of students everyday in their classes, but their schedules are flexible. Students have the ability to make appointments with their teachers if they have trouble in their classes, and classes are often a maximum of three per week which helps the student have more time to complete assignments and work. The schedule
There has been a number of debates as to whether college students should be given the opportunity to choose their courses. Like any contentious subject, while others are of the opinion that, courses should be chosen for college students, others believe that, students should be given complete freedom to choose the courses they would love to study. When students join college, they are forced to study for subjects they do not want to. Many students complain that they are not allowed to choose subjects they are interested in; rather, they are forced to take compulsory subjects. In addition, students complain that, they are forced to spend their entire years in college doing things they really do not need. This is very wrong because, college students should have more freedom to choose their own courses for several reasons. To start with, students are always interested in studying different subjects, and they love courses they choose to study. Moreover, if students are allowed to study the courses they choose, it will be easy for them to concentrate and work hard so as to excel in this subjects.