Trouble picking college major

Get behind what? Everyone had their own journey

Highly recommend this book: www.amazon.com/What-Color-Your-Parachute-College/dp/1984857568

My daughter is a high school senior and changes her mind on what she thinks she wants to major in every other day. We've gone on many college visits and all the tour guides tell us that is normal and the average college student changes their major 2 times. It's hard deciding what you want to do for the rest of your life!

It's hard to know what you want to do for the rest of your life when you're that young. Hell, I'm not even sure NOW!

DD went through the same thing.. she started as a math major, then went to civil engineering, and finally switched to actuary before her junior year. She was in math all along so it worked out.  She's got a great job and her boyfriend of 5 years is also an actuary, so they're fine.

DS #1 was undecided for a while, and finally transferred colleges to get a degree in film studies (which I admit I was a little iffy on, but it's always been his passion so I'm happy for him.) He works for a lighting and grip company now.

My youngest kid, who is starting his junior year, started in business, dropped that in freshman year to be undeclared, then went to personal finance, and now just informed me he wants a different accounting degree. By this point, my attitude is "whatever, just graduate and get yourself off my payroll".

Does she have a campus advisor she could speak to? That might help.

Good luck! I know it's stressful but it generally works out.

Most of her new friends probably don't have an exact major picked. Or, they have a direction picked. Generic like "business" or "education" or "design". They're all taking the gen eds anyway, no one as a freshman is taking actual "major" classes yet.

That isn't exactly true.  My son is in engineering (material science) and while he is taking one gen ed class, the rest are all geared towards his degree.  It may be different for engineering students.  They generally have every class selected for them for all 4 years.  He is taking the first engineering course plus one for just material science majors.  

My dd did biomedical engineering and with the exception of her minor classes, all of her classes were selected for her all 4 years.  Even the gen ed classes.  

Both of my kids had their classes planned out before they ever set foot in a classroom. This is really important if your student wants to do a study abroad or is a certain class is only offered in the fall or spring. But in the plan, they had things like “300 level major class” or “English class” so it wasn’t entirely written in stone and had some flexibility for new course offerings. It just put a placeholder in for a class to get all the requirements in and to make sure that a student didn’t have 4 math classes or 4 classes with a lot of papers due every week. 

maryland, she’s just getting to know people.  Of course they have a pat answer for what they will major in—everyone has been asked this question for months!  But the reality is that a large percentage of students change their majors once they start taking classes and exploring their interests. And the ones who are undecided aren’t talking because it’s scary to admit that they don’t have a plan. 

For example, DD went in as a biology major. She planned to go to physical therapy school and knew she would need to take a lot of science classes. So Bio just made sense. But once she got there, she found that she just didn’t like the advanced bio classes. She was mentored by her freshman symposium professor, who was a psychology prof. She fell in love with Psych and majored in that. But she still took those physics and anatomy classes for PT. It took a plan and she was able to sub in psych classes for bio classes. She also too Spanish for 3 summers at the local community college so that she didn’t have to overload during the school year. And she took calculus one summer so it it didn’t ruin an entire semester.    As for DS, he wanted to be an engineer from the time he know what that was. And he did!

I would just encourage your DD to take a broad range of classes this semester and next. I suspect that she will find something that sets off a spark in her. But also let it be known how many semesters you will pay for college. Both of my kids had large scholarships, but those ran out after 8 semesters/4 years. They knew that we willing to pay for a 5th year at a private school. 

I'd recommend an appointment with the academic advising office or career center. They would be able to help direct her.

Better to take 5 years and get a solid understanding of what she wants to study, than push thru 4 years and miss the opportunity to make the right choices for her.    

she's not behind. One of the purposes of the Gen Ed requirements is to expose them to fields that they might not have considered. She probably doesn't have to 'officially' pick a major until she's choosing courses for Junior year (there are a few exceptions like engineering) because traditionally the first 2 years are Gen Ed and the 2nd two are the major/minor courses. If she entered with college credits - that time may come a bit sooner depending on how many credits she has and whether she wants to graduate early or take the full 4 years.

And as many have said - majors change.

I went from Computer Science to French to History to a dual History-Government and ended up graduating as Government (History had all but the capstone). I graduated late but there were life circumstances involved and because I switched fairly early on (freshman and sophomore years), I could have graduated on time despite the switch.

DD21 started as English - Creative Writing and switched to Religion and Cultural Studies...she IS going to have to do a super-senior year because she made the switch so late and had already taken so many English major classes.

She is a new freshman and is already worried that she won't graduate on time? Sounds to me that she needs some help with anxiety, poor thing. Is there a student group or therapist she could see?

And OMG on "What Color is Your Parachute!" I read that book back in the 80's and had no idea it was still around. Within a year or two of reading it, I quit my career of 10 years, got a PT job, and got a degree in an unrelated field that i loved

She isnt expected to declare a major for 2 more years. This is her time to take gen ed classes - she should pick classes that satisfy the gen ed requirement and interest her. If she has room in her schedule, she should take some classes that she thinks will be of interest to her.

Yes, advise her to take the basic courses that everyone has to take anyway, and worry about a major later. I changed my major TWICE in college, then ended up in grad school for something unrelated to my actual undergrad major. lol Dd knew right away what she wanted to major in, and is now working at a job she likes but that has nothing much to do with her major. Dh majored in history, then taught biology in a high school in his home town, and now work for the State Department doing a job that has nothing to do with general history or biology.  

Basically this. However, if she even remotely has a clue about what she might like to do, I'd recommend confirming the requirements for the particular degree type.

For instance, my degree is BS. At my college, that meant I needed at least two science classes WITH LABs (my AP bio credits didn't count for that because of the labs). If I had pursued a BA, I'd have needed to make sure I had 4 foreign language classes.