“It’s okay to change your major!” an adage you’ll likely hear throughout freshman year, doesn’t always calm fears as often as it’s meant to. “I don’t want to be just ‘okay,’” you think, “I want to be great. I want to spend college chasing the same dream, and follow one straight path to my destiny!” At least that’s along the lines of what I thought.
And besides, there was no way I would ever even consider switching majors. Abandon journalism? The career choice that guided my application process and led me to BU? Never. When my high school Spanish teacher assured me I would return a year after graduation having changed my mind about my major, I thought I would prove her wrong. I was born to study journalism, and there was no other line of work I would rather do. Now, about two years later, I’m here to admit she was right.
After three semesters at BU, I’m a believer that changing majors isn’t merely okay, but rather it’s good. It is a good thing, for not only your sanity but also for success in your chosen career, to realize that what’s best for you might be deciding to weigh your options, rather than staying married to one major.
For me, involving myself in journalism-related extracurriculars and writing for publications on campus opened my eyes to the nature of the work I was pursuing. I found that my own personality didn’t quite mesh with what I thought I wanted to do to make a living. Reading course descriptions for other majors, I became genuinely enthralled with classes offered for Communication studies majors. Now that I’m registered for two of them, I cannot wait to begin.
Allowing myself to switch majors has already opened doors for me, in terms of internships and possibilities after graduation. It took me some time to figure out that not everyone is cut out for the same career, and not every major is made for all students. But I’m happy to be chasing new dreams, no better or worse than my old ones. And I’ll happily say that changing your major, in cases like mine, can be better than okay.
