{"id":16394,"date":"2021-09-30T08:40:43","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T14:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=16394"},"modified":"2022-01-11T15:02:27","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T21:02:27","slug":"how-to-choose-a-major","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2021\/09\/30\/how-to-choose-a-major\/","title":{"rendered":"How to choose a major"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Sara McClaran<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students may come to college uncertain about what their major will be, or they may decide that the major they chose is no longer what they want. However, there are resources on campus to help students have the education they want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dean of the University College Kevin Kehl said students who don\u2019t know what they want to do are often pressured to choose and decide very quickly. About one third of students registering for Bison Bound say they are undecided, Kehl said, but by the time they arrive at Bison Bound that number has gone down to around 5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncertainty about choosing a major isn\u2019t just limited to freshmen. Sophomores, juniors and seniors all visit the Career Center \u2014 and some change majors more than others. Senior molecular and cellular biology major Derek Nutt is one such example and has changed his major at least 20 times since he came to Harding, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI started out doing something absolutely ridiculous, okay \u2014 I was wanting to do genetic engineering, and I thought that that was a combination of studying genes and engineering,\u201d Nutt said. \u201cSo I tried to major in both mechanical engineering and biochemistry but quickly found out [that] was the wrong thing to do. So in a way, I\u2019ve kind of stuck to my plan, but there\u2019s definitely been a few tangents here and there, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nutt said he has experimented not only in biology, but also in kinesiology and film and plans on going to law school after he graduates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think college is obviously a formative process and you\u2019re developing all the way through, so you\u2019re going to develop new philosophies and thoughts on various issues,\u201d  Nutt said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such exploration is the purpose of some of the opportunities offered through the Career Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe idea of exploration during college is an expectation, and so we just make it official with exploratory studies,\u201d Kehl said, \u201cWe want students who are exploring \u2014 who know they\u2019re exploring \u2014 we want to normalize that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kehl said there are as many reasons for changing majors as there are people. For senior Bible and math major Alina Westbrook, it was a hard decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a bit of [an] identity thing, and so whenever I realized that I needed to change my major that was [getting] swiped at the knees, you know \u2014 [it was] a humbling moment,\u201d Westbrook said, \u201cGod has built me as a teacher, [and] now that I\u2019m in pre-student teaching and everything I can see that a lot better now than I did before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Westbrook stated that now at the end of college, things that seemed important at the beginning no longer matter so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you were to interview faculty members and ask them about their career journey or their vocational path, it\u2019s not always very linear,\u201d Kehl said. \u201cAnd if you were to ask them about what they thought about when they were 18-22, it\u2019s often very far from where they are right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nutt said finding your major is helpful, and people should pursue it completely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely good to already know what you want to do and just drive straight toward it,\u201d Nutt said. \u201cBut that\u2019s the thing \u2014 no matter what you\u2019re doing, it\u2019s good to drive straight toward it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students may come to college uncertain about what their major will be, or they may decide that the major they chose is no longer what they want. However, there are resources on campus to help students have the education they want.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15192,"featured_media":16381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}