by Riley Cronin, Product Specialist
Switching majors in college is very common but is also seen as a very daunting task. Around 80% of students in the United States switch majors once, many switch majors at least three times.
Coming out of high school it is hard to know what you want to do with your life because we are so young. When I graduated high school I did not know what I wanted to do, all I knew was that I liked math and science better than English so I applied to Engineering schools. After giving engineering a full year, I decided it was not for me and that I wanted to switch majors.
I was four weeks into my first semester of sophomore year when my parents and I decided that I was going to try to switch majors and get into the Business school. I scheduled a meeting with my advisor to learn more about the process and the different deadlines. There were so many options that I would never have thought of. The first option was to continue with class and be a full-time student and hope that the credits transfer to something that will benefit my new major. The second option was to become a part time student and drop some of my harder classes, but get no money back. The third option was to withdraw from the semester. I decided to withdraw from the semester so I could get a refund. There was a 60% refund date and a 40% refund date.
I chose to withdraw from the semester because I could get a refund and not be wasting my time on classes that would not benefit my new major. The next step was to figure out what classes I needed to take so that I could apply to the business school before next fall. There were four prerequisites required but you could not take all of them in one semester so I decided to take one class over the winter break and the rest in the spring semester so I could make the May application deadline for the Business school.
At my school if I switched to another major I would not have had to apply into a school I could easily just have switched, but the business school is so popular they have rules and applications that must be completed.
This whole process was a learning experience. It taught me that everyone's college journey is different and that college is not always completed in a four year time frame. Since I took a semester off I might need an extra one that would make me a fifth year but that is ok. Switching majors might be the right decision for you so if you are thinking about it, take your time and look at all your options because there might be some that you never would have thought of.