What Should I Major In? A Practical Guide to Choosing a Major in College

So, you’ve been accepted to a school and you’re ready to start your new life as a college student. But a huge question now stands before you: How to decide on a major? If you’re not sure yet about how to pick a major, the good news is, you’re not alone. Actually, you are part of the 75% of American college students who either start their college career with their major undecided or who change their major at least once, according to Central College.

Hence, if you haven’t figured out what should my major be, you have plenty of company. In order to help you find your footing when it comes to choosing a major, read through this practical guide on how to pick a major.

Getting Started With Choosing a Major

The first step for how to figure out what to major in is to evaluate your strengths and interests. While money is often a big factor in deciding your major, your career path should be focused on something that really interests you, and then you can decide how your choice will fare in the job market afterward. 

Choosing a major is one of the most significant decisions a college student will make. In an ideal world, the right college major can clear a path to the job market and assist you in navigating toward a job that pays well and maybe turn into a full-on career. Choosing what things to study in college is something that should be balanced: On the one hand, you should explore fields of study that may be unusual, experimental, or just downright entertaining; on the other hand, you should pursue fields of study that align with your interest, passions, and idea of what you want to do professionally after college. 

Whether you’re a current college student or a high school graduate about to attend college, you should be mindful of how your major will position you for an industry you wish to work in. What’s more, you should also consider how incomes can vary over the course of a career, depending on the field you decide to go into.

With the preliminaries out of the way, here’s a step-by-step guide for how to choose a major and how to know what to study in college.

1. Figure Out Your Interests and Passions

Often college students ask themselves, “What should my major be?” This question is perfectly fine, but a better way to approach the question of what should I major in is to ask, “What college major fits with what I’m interested in and passionate about?”

Figuring out how to choose a major is a lot like the famous job-seeking self-help book What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles. This book, about figuring out a career path, begins with identifying the things you are interested in and passionate about — and from there, then beginning your job search in earnest. This is also a great strategy for college students trying to figure out how to decide on a major. 

Thus, the first step to take when choosing a major that is right for you is to discover for yourself the areas of study that are most significant to you. These fields of study can cater to your interests, your passions, the values you live by, and your capabilities, among other criteria. Here’s a closer look at these various ways to home in on how to choose a major:

Choosing a major based on your interests

Using your interests for how to figure out what to major in is a very useful method of determining which major to choose in college. If you are very interested in biology, then majoring in biology or a related field may be a perfect fit. If you’re interested in the inner workings of the justice system, then criminology could make a lot of sense as a major. It is only natural to want to work in a field that aligns with what you’re interested in.

The main caveat with choosing a major based on your interests is that your interests may change over the course of your life. This is a very natural part of the human experience: What once interested you in your youth may become less relevant, or even irrelevant, when you’ve gotten older. While you can’t read the future, you should try to zero-in on an interest of yours that is unlikely to change much over time. This means evaluating your interests in a broader fashion. For instance, if you are interested in mathematics, you may want to approach your interest in mathematics as a broader interest in numbers, in data, in how data can be practically applied to real life. If you’re interested in history, perhaps think about how history and historical events are connected to other fields, such as economics, sociology, entrepreneurship, the sciences, and other ways the lessons of history can be applied to the real world today.

Choosing a major based on your passions

What you’re passionate about is similar to what you’re interested in but brings in a stronger emotional element. Your passions are areas of significant interest, yet they also combine your values and capabilities into something more idealistic; something that is a combination of the brain and the heart. Whereas you may be interested in history, you may be passionate about enlightening people on how history can teach us how to deal with the problems and issues we face today, or how history isn’t merely a collection of past events but a field that is alive and shapes the contemporary world we live in. 

Using your passions for how to figure out what to major in is a very useful guide, but like using your interests for picking a major, your passions too may change in time. A good way to prevent overthinking about what you’re passionate about and how long or intense your passions will be over time, is to ask people close to you, like family members and friends, their thoughts on your passions. Having a third-party, an outside observer, provide input on what you're passionate about can be extremely helpful because they are less susceptible to the kind of overthinking and constant rumination that you yourself thinking over your interests and passions can produce. They may agree or disagree on what you believe you’re passionate about, yet they might just help you unearth passions that were always there but not directly obvious to you.

2. Recognize Your Capabilities 

Understanding your capabilities, and their limits, is essential for how to know what to study in college and picking a major that makes sense for you. In general, capabilities are what you are able to do, rather than what you aspire to do, or what you’re interested in or passionate about. Figuring out what you’re capable of learning and doing, namely, in what areas your strengths and skills lay and where your weaknesses are, is a great method to zero-in on what to study when deciding what should I major in.

For instance, you may desire to become a doctor like your parents, but if you can’t master typical pre-med prerequisites like organic chemistry or physics, then you may want to lean towards a field of study that appeals to your interest in biology but doesn’t necessarily mean becoming a doctor; this could be biochemistry, biological research in a lab, food science, environmental science, forensic science, and much more. 

Recognizing your capabilities means knowing your strengths and weaknesses. And recognizing the latter is especially important because if you choose a major and a career path that highlights your weaknesses, you might become very stressed both professionally and personally. Everyone has areas of weakness, and it is crucial to know the limits of your capabilities when figuring out how to choose a major.

3. Think About How Your College Major Will Fare Over Time

Another critical part of how to choose a major is to consider how useful it may be in the future. Trends like technological unemployment, in which certain jobs or entire industries are made obsolete by technological advances, can have a direct impact on how useful your major is in the real world. Of course, you don’t have a crystal ball to tell the future, but investigating trends in both college majors and the employment in the job market is an important step to take when picking a major.

A good resource for trends in employment is to check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH). This resource on the BLS website allows you to search various job titles and see relevant statistics like median earnings, typical entry-level education required, work experience needed, whether or not there’s on-the-job training, the current estimate of the number of jobs, and a 10-year outlook for the job’s future change in terms of employment. For example, if you want to major in pharmacology, you can use the OOH to find out the employment outlook for pharmacists; in this case, the job outlook for pharmacists over the decade from 2020 to 2030 is a 2% decline in employment, while the current estimated number of pharmacist jobs is 322,200, as of 2020.

Another good way to gauge what college majors are in demand is to research the percentage of bachelor’s degrees awarded in specific fields of study, and the change in percentages over time. Below you’ll find a table that details the percentages of bachelor’s degrees conferred by postsecondary schools (i.e. colleges) over the five years from the 2013-2014 academic year to 2018-2019, based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES):

Per the data in the table, business majors account for the largest percentage of bachelor’s degrees awarded for every academic year from 2013-2014 to 2018-2019. This is followed by majors in health professions and related programs. In terms of growth in the share of bachelor’s degrees awarded by field of study, military technologies and applied sciences have increased by 300% (equal to quadrupling) from 2013-2014 to 2018-2019. This is followed by majors in computer and information sciences, which has the second-largest growth of 48.65% over the last five years. Bachelor’s degrees in engineering come in third place, with growth of 27.59% in degrees awarded over the five years from 2013-2014 to 2018-2019.

4. Think About Colleges When Choosing a Major

If you have figured out what should I major in before you’re in college, then you should investigate which colleges have a strong record of academic programs for your field of study. For example, does a certain college you like have a reputation for turning out graduates who go on to have successful careers in their chosen field of study? Even more important, does a college you’re interested in even offer the major that you want to pursue? 

If you have a solid idea of what you want to major in, then a good place to start is by reviewing college websites to learn more about available academic programs offered. A college you may like because of its social atmosphere and geographic location might not be the college that has a strong program for the major you’re interested in. Numerous websites, including BrokeScholar, have rankings of the best colleges for various fields of study and majors, whether it’s the best colleges for psychology, or the best for sociology, or even something very narrow, like the best for colleges for entomology (the study of insects).

It's important to bear in mind that if you are more interested in a specialized or experimental major, it is the more selective colleges that tend to offer greater leniency in crafting your own field of study when choosing a major. However, this does not mean larger public colleges are disadvantaged when it comes to choosing a major that fits you. What’s great about bigger public schools is the sheer quantity of courses and degrees offered. You should weigh the pros and cons of private versus public colleges when you’re figuring out how to decide on a major.

When you have narrowed down the colleges to a couple that seem to fit you the best, review their list of undergraduate programs and majors to establish which specific program suits you. You may want to even consider declaring a major in your college application because this provides admissions with a better idea of how you may fit in and contribute to the incoming undergraduate class of students. You can, of course, always change your major later even if you’ve declared it on your application.

5. Seek Help from Your Advisor(s)

Figuring out what should my major be is your personal decision, but that doesn’t mean you can’t seek advice from others to help you zero-in on choosing a major. One of the best resources for help in how to decide on a major is your college advisor, especially since this is one of their core job responsibilities.

Making time to meet with your college advisor can offer much more than simply advice on which major is right for you. These advisors can help you craft an academic path toward your desired major as well as provide insight into how your field of study can be applied to the real world after graduation. College advisors don’t have to be limited to purely telling you what minimum requirements you must meet to receive a degree. They can help you choose the right classes beyond minimum requirements that fit with your vision of what you want to do with your major.

Besides meeting with your college course advisor, you may likely be able to find a specific career counselor or advisor who can help you match your desired major with a practical career path. For many students, this advice is even more important than figuring out which classes to take in order to attain the degree they want. Meeting with career advisors can be very helpful since they can provide a longer-term view of how a specific major can be tailored to a job or career after graduation.

6. Identify Possible Drawbacks Before Choosing a Major

Even if you’ve found a major that fits you perfectly, it’s important to be mindful that every major tends to come with some drawbacks and difficulties. Your major may have a whole slew of difficult prerequisites you’ll need to pass in order to graduate with the degree. Your major may be cross-disciplinary, requiring you to take multiple sets of required courses in order to attain it. Or your major may be highly specialized and recognized by a smaller circle of organizations after graduation. The main course of action you can take is to identify any disadvantages of your major and make moves so you can handle them when they emerge.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself when figuring out how to decide on a major:

• What is the probability that you’ll change your major? It is very common for students to switch their major as they progress through college. Changing your major is perfectly fine, but it’s critical to understand the costs of doing so. The costs of changing your major can include requiring more time to attain a degree in your new major as well as literal monetary cost in enrolling in new courses, which may carry a price tag.

• Can you handle the prerequisites for your major? This question goes back to recognizing your capabilities. If you enroll in college with the intention of being pre-law, can you handle all the prerequisite courses needed to major in a pre-law field of study? It’s a good move to review the entire curriculum, from freshman through senior year, of what you’ll need to take and pass in order to graduate with a degree in the major you want.

• Is your major too specialized? Choosing a major that is too specialized isn’t necessarily a bad move, if you have a clear idea of how to apply it to your career path after college. But if you don’t have a clear view of how to use a specialized major after graduation, you may want to avoid it. You don’t want to narrow your career prospects from the get-go, so you may want to consider something broader or work with an advisor to figure out how to apply a specialized major to the real world of the job market.

7. Figure Out How Far Your Undergraduate Degree Will Take You

As important as graduating with a bachelor’s degree is, equally important is making sure a bachelor’s degree is enough for the job or career you’re interested in. For many jobs, a bachelor's degree can be entirely sufficient for the role. However, many professional roles require additional training beyond a bachelor’s degree, such as a master’s degree, professional certification, or doctoral degree. For example, going back to pharmacology, according to the BLS OOH, the typical entry-level education required is a doctoral or professional degree, not simply a bachelor’s degree. Another example, postsecondary education administrators — administrators that oversee student services, academics, and faculty research at colleges and universities — has a typical entry-level education of a master’s degree. 

Thus, while majoring in pharmacology or education could be the right move at the undergraduate level for the mentioned jobs, students should be aware that additional levels of degrees or certifications are often required to get hired in the career field they desire. Therefore, before choosing a major, you should examine your overall goals career-wise and figure out if you will need a graduate or professional degree in order to achieve your objectives.

8. Find Internship Programs

A major benefit of going to college is that businesses often offer internships for enrolled students who want to gain some professional experience before they graduate. Most colleges have webpages and offices dedicated to internship programs for a variety of fields of study. Your advisor can be a big help in pointing you in the right direction when it comes to finding internships

Internships are vital in gauging whether you’re actually interested in a certain career. You might at first have your eyes set on a particular profession, but upon partaking in an internship for the profession, you may realize that it’s not what you anticipated. Thus, internships are beneficial for multiple reasons: They can provide you with real hands-on professional experience, while at the same time, eliminate some professions you may have been considering but now realize are not for you.

It also makes sense to have a few internships under your belt before graduating from college, as it will greatly influence where, and how quickly, you’re able to find a job after graduation. Doing a summer internship at a company you’d like to work for after graduation typically greatly enhances your chances of being hired.

9. Be Mindful of Possible Earnings with Your Major

Although you shouldn’t use future monetary compensation as the sole criteria when picking a major, it is definitely a critical factor to incorporate when deciding on one. Researching possible salaries of jobs that align with your college major is especially important if you have student loans to pay back. By getting an idea of what kind of salary you could look forward to, students can proactively take steps toward budgeting for variables like student loan payments or the costs of education for a graduate or professional degree. For example, according to PayScale, the bachelor’s degree with the highest median earnings for alumni with zero to five years of experience is electrical engineering and computer science (EECS), with a median early career pay of $108,500. Meanwhile, a bachelor's degree in psychology and human services or early childhood education have median early career salaries of just $35,600 and $36,100, respectively.

10. Consider a Minor to Complement Your Major

Another good strategy to pursue when figuring out what should my major be is to consider minoring in a field that can complement your major, especially a minor that has more practical application in the professional world than the major you might be choosing. For example, if you’re planning on being a history major, you can complement it with a minor in economics or entrepreneurship to give your degree a more pragmatic edge to it (especially if you don’t want to be a history teacher). Combining a useful minor with a major can enhance your skills across multiple disciplines, giving you more groundwork to work in a variety of industries. 

The Bottom Line on What Should I Major In

When it comes to how to decide on a major, much of the work is examining yourself: Evaluating your interests, your passions, your capabilities, and your vision of what you’d like to do in the professional world after graduation. Thus, the process of choosing a major is both very subjective and objective. The subjective part is the evaluation of yourself; the objective part includes the research into all the prerequisites you’ll need to meet to attain your desired major, the research of the job market and potential salaries for a degree in your desired field of study, and the steps to take while still in college, like summer internships, in order to set yourself up for professional success when you graduate. 

It is essential to combine your personal tastes with realism when figuring out how to choose a major. Do your research on the job market and on what kind of sacrifices you’re willing to make for your career. Here is a list of questions for you to consider for how to figure out what to major in:

• Is there a great need for your profession in the current job market?

• What about the future job market?

• What is the average income for an entry-level position in your chosen field?

• What about someone with five years-experience?

• How much time would you need to dedicate to your profession?

• Does your profession require you to travel often?

• Do you feel your strengths coincide with your chosen profession?

All of these questions will help you be realistic about what kind of lifestyle a particular profession entails. For instance, if you want to be a doctor because you like to help others, but are not interested in science, then maybe a major in social work is a better path for you. Maybe you love literature, but don’t want to teach literature, so you could pursue a minor in marketing or business to give your literature major a more practical appeal when applying to jobs. Lastly, don’t be afraid to change your mind. College is an excellent time to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life, and there are hundreds of professors, advisors, and employers who can help you get there.