Wednesday, April 2, 1997
ACADEMICS:
Process of picking field of concentration can be as rewarding as
the decision itselfBy David Whelan
You all know the question. You’re at a party, a family
gathering, a trip to the supermarket. You run into a high school
friend, an old neighbor, your family dentist. "Oh, so you’re at
UCLA. What’s your major?"
For those of you who know your major (or who have chosen some
"temporary" one, for just such situations), these moments may be no
big deal. But for those of you who aren’t sure  the
"undeclareds" Â such a question can be awkward at best. In a
society of increasing competition and pressures to "get ahead," to
be in college and not yet have a clear plan for your future can be
quite disconcerting.
While choosing a major is an important decision, it needn’t
incite panic, and it needn’t be painful. Consider it an opportunity
 a chance to make intellectually and personally satisfying
adventure rather than a hurdle to be gotten past in your quest
toward graduation.
College is not only a place for career preparation, however much
it may feel that way. It is also a place to learn about yourself
 your interests, your strengths and weaknesses  and
develop as a person. The process of finding a major can be as
personally rewarding and informative as actually completing the
major you eventually choose.
In our work helping students in the College of Letters and
Science Counseling Office, we routinely try to touch on a number of
points when it comes to choosing a major. Among them are the
relationship between major and career and the importance of
assessing your personal skills, interests and values and seeing how
they mesh with the academic characteristics and requirements of
different majors.
Despite what you may hear, there is no one-to-one relationship
between major and career. People who major in history, for example,
work in such diverse fields as international diplomacy, education,
law, architecture and personnel management. On the other side of
the major/career equation, workers in a particular field Â
say, journalism  may have majored in anything from English to
biology to Asian American studies. One way to investigate the
possibilities for a given major  or the demands for a given
career  is to visit the Career Center. Another is to contact
people in a particular field  the UCLA Alumni Network can
help you out here  and ask about their backgrounds. The range
of majors open to you may be wider than you ever imagined.
As mentioned above, another consideration when it comes to
thinking about majors has to do with your personal skills,
interests and values. Most of you probably have a general sense of
what your skills are. Perhaps you’ve always liked playing with
words. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to know how things work, to get
inside things and take them apart. Or maybe you’ve always enjoyed
manipulating numbers. Each of these sets of skills and interests
can be good indicators of the appropriateness of different majors.
They’re clues to be followed up on. So if you haven’t ever sat down
and thought about your unique constellation of skills and the
talents you seem to have, spend some time doing so.
Making use of such self-discoveries will, of course, then
involve learning about what different majors involve. What kinds of
skills, for example, are important for a communication studies
major? I recently saw a student who was interested in that major
but who professed a dislike for writing. It’s wonderful that she
knew that about herself because I could then help her see that,
with that dislike, that major might seem onerous to her. We could
then move to considering other majors she was curious about where
there was a better fit with her particular talents.
What about your own particular values? What gives you meaning in
life? Questions such as these are important to answer if you hope
to feel fulfilled in your studies. And here, the more specifically
you can define your interests and values, the better. We may all
have a desire to help others, for instance, but we may have
different ideas about the most appropriate way to do so. For some
of us, it may involve direct contact with others. For others,
making a difference may mean changing or improving political
institutions. For still others, protecting the environment may be
the only thing that seems worthwhile. It’s not hard to see that
having such a sense about yourself could help you distinguish
between, say, a psychology, political science, sociology or biology
major.
There are other little tricks that can be helpful in choosing a
major. They, too, essentially consist of giving yourself a chance
at self-exploration. As an example, it can often be very
informative to spend an hour or so browsing through the textbook
section of the bookstore. Often students just go there to get the
books for the classes they’ve chosen. But poke around a bit; go up
and down every aisle. Do you see any books you’d love to be
reading, even if they weren’t assigned to you? Maybe you’ll
discover a course in a major you’d never considered. Maybe the
interesting books will cluster in one general area, say, the
humanities. You may turn out to be more focused than you’d
realized.
The best major for you is, simply put, one you’ll enjoy. That’s
the major you’re likely to do best in, and when all is said and
done that’s what will matter most in terms of your future success.
But you won’t necessarily know what major you’ll enjoy without
taking the time and effort to learn about yourself. As in so many
things in life, learning to enjoy the process is the key. Choosing
a major is an opportunity, not a chore. Take that opportunity and
enjoy it.
So forget "undeclared." Think "exploratory." And if you feel the
College of Letters and Science Counseling Office can be of help to
you, stop by and see us. We’re located at A-316 Murphy Hall, and
we’d be pleased to help you take the pain out of what’s really an
exciting process.