Many of the incoming freshman students don’t know what they want to do yet.
However, you may have at least an idea of what interests you and what doesn’t, as well as subjects that you have an aptitude for and those that you don’t. This is a good place to start asking yourself. Are you better at math and science, or reading, writing and analytical thinking? This will set you in the right direction and help narrow your options.
If you’re still in high school, it really helps to know if you’re leaning towards liberal arts or a more technical field of study. This will help you decide what colleges to apply to. Most medium and large colleges offer hundreds of different majors. It would be impossible for them to be first-rate in all of them. Ideally you would want to attend an institution that has a good reputation in your field of study. This will pay off later when you’re looking for a job.
Once you start college, you don’t need to declare a major right away. Most programs have plenty of general education requirements and those classes will dominate your first two years of college. There are exceptions though. Programs such as engineering, architecture and pre-medicine have very specific pre-requisites and students are urged to declare a major as early as your first year, otherwise you may be in college for more than four years.
As you complete your general requirements, you can explore different subjects, find courses that excite you and rule out some that you thought you liked. You also have the freedom to take elective classes, which can open up possibilities you never considered before.
Many students choose their first major because of a general interest in a subject, sometimes dating back to childhood. But oftentimes, people are surprised to find they don’t like a subject once they see what it is like to study it rigorously. That’s why it’s a good idea to take a program for a test drive before you commit to it as a major, otherwise it may just be your first major and not what you end up graduating in.
Switching majors isn’t the end of the world either. Plenty of students change majors midway through their college careers. But it can make that career longer and more expensive. This is the reason why you don’t want to rush into a major.