“Hey! What’s your major?” – Every university student on every campus ever
When you start university, this will be the universal question: what’s your major? You’ll be asked by other students, parents, professors, and academic advisers (who are supposed to know!).
Ideally, you will know what major you want to pursue before you even apply to university. After all, you’re picking your universities based on the programs they offer, right? (If not, read How NOT to Pick a University immediately!)
At the very least, you should figure out what your interests are before you apply. Here are a couple of reasons why:
Choosing Universities is Easier with a Major
It will be easier to shortlist universities because you will look for them based on the strength of the type of program you’re interested in. For example, if you think you want to be a writer and maybe study journalism, you can find universities with good journalism AND English programs. You wouldn’t want to go to a great engineering school to be a writer.
“Selling” Yourself is Easier with a Major
You can tailor your student activity resume’ and your essays to the program, making it easier to get accepted. Universities want students who have already investigated, tried out, or participated in their interests. If you want to study graphic design, for example, you’d better have done the graphics for your school newspaper, magazine, website, something.
You Can Change Your Major Later
Once your in, it’s easier to change your major within your program, which saves time and money (as long as you’re applying to the US). If you’re applying to universities in the US, similar majors are grouped into schools or colleges. For example, computer science and computer engineering could be grouped into the School of Computer Science and Engineering. Let’s say you decide to change your major from computer engineering to computer science.
Changing will be easy since many of the course requirements of these two majors are the same. You can change and won’t lose a semester or two. If you changed from computer engineering to math, however, you are likely to extend your time in university because these two majors have different requirements. If you’re unsure the major you want to pursue, try to get as close as possible and then change if you need to. (NOTE: This concept does NOT apply to UK universities. If you change your major, you usually start over!)
Not sure what majors are available?
Check this out.
A friend sent us this great infographic on WhatsApp and just had to share it with you. Keep in mind, it was made for education in India so it’s not perfect (for example, most university degrees in the US take 4 years to complete), but you get the idea.
This infographic gives you a great idea of the diversity of major available within a specific field. Of course, check with the specific universities you’re interested in. Take a look and figure out how you’d answer the question:
Hey, what’s your major?
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