There is no master blueprint to follow in helping you decide upon a major. Some students sample a major by taking courses within the area of study; others attempt to define their career interests first and then they select a major that will help them attain their career objectives. Others are inspired by extracurricular activities or volunteer work in determining a major.

You should consider what your academic strengths and interests are as you decide upon a major. There is little sense in deciding you will pursue a career in engineering if you have no aptitude for math or quantitatively oriented subjects. At the same time, you should not completely ignore the effect a chosen major will have on your future once you begin to pursue a career following graduation.

Some steps you can take in selecting a major include:

• Taking elective courses
• Getting involved with campus organizations or volunteer work
• Visiting Career and Employment Services
• Talking to peer tutors in the Academic Resource Center about their major
• Taking the Strong Interest Inventory in the Office of Academic Advisement

Additional Steps

Do some research
Sometimes introductory classes in a major do not give a full picture of what a major entails. Look at the upper-level courses in a major. Do they sound like areas you would like to spend your junior and senior years studying? Do they sound like areas in which you would want to do an internship?

Talk to upper classmen and department chairs
In addition to the course work, find out about the internship experiences of students in the major or the laboratory research on which faculty and students are working. Also, find out about graduate school possibilities.

Visit Career and Employment Services
Make an appointment with a career counselor to talk about your post-graduate plans and how you can start building a résumé-even in your freshman or sophomore years. You can also discuss shadowing programs, look through Career and Employment Services' resource library, or discuss how summer work experiences can help you define your goals.

Research careers options on the Web
To explore the major-career connection, consider doing some research on the World Wide Web.

A final comment
Because choosing a major is such a critical decision, it is important that you make an informed, carefully thought out choice. You shouldn't simply rely on what your peers tell you about a major, nor should you pick a major because you think it will get you a good job. Instead, you should consider how you can identify an academic subject area that brings out the best in you, one that cultivates your intellectual development. There is no such thing as an inherently correct or incorrect major, but there can be correct or incorrect majors for you.