Operation “Soaring Eagle” : Your Major

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Choosing Your Major

This post is in continuation of the Financial Permeability under Operation “Soaring Eagle”.

Now, the word itself might be confusing to some. I am not, of course, referring to a rank-holding officer in the military. Instead, here, I’m referring to an academic major. Basically, it is what will decide the core curriculum of what you’ll study at college. For example, engineering is a group of majors and computer engineering is one major.

Several colleges provide you with a certain degree of freedom with regards to what you want to study. They will set out the core curriculum i.e. the main courses that comprise your field of study. In addition, you will have a number of electives to choose from. These electives may then help you minor in a particular field. This may not be applicable to all colleges, but we’ll get to that later.

Now, the reason why your major is very important is because the system is very much unlike the ones found in Indian universities, where you will sit an entrance examination, get a result and a rank, and then allotted a stream according to rank and preference. Here, more often than not, you will be applying to a particular college within a university. A college here refers to a particular collection of departments within the universities. Since most universities in the US are fully comprehensive i.e. they offer almost all courses of study, ranging from medical to management studies, the need for distinct colleges has arisen.

What I mean is that when you’ll be applying, you’ll need to be dead certain of what you want to study. Ideally, by the time you enter 11th grade i.e. your junior year at high school, you should have a fair idea of what you want major you want to pursue at college. For example, I was very certain from a very young age that engineering was the field I’d see myself in several years along the line. However, I was a bit undecided about the exact major I wanted to pursue. Of course, I wasn’t that into foreign apps in the 9th grade, but I had computer engineering in my mind. Fast forward 3 years, and I see myself filling that out in my applications.

And remember that not all colleges may allow you to apply to multiple courses in a single application. Many universities may not have a fall-back option i.e. if you don’t get your major of choice, that’s it. Some do, but that’s besides the point – you need to be confident about what path you want your future to take. Essentially, you need to choose your major and then apply to colleges, rather than choose a college and draw up a list of majors you’re willing to study.

Remember that this will have a significant impact on your life, so be sure to spend some time thinking it over. Discuss it with family, friends and teachers if you want, and then come back for the next post which will be about choosing colleges. This of course, will be linked to the Financial Permeability.

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