What to do if you "choose the wrong" major after enrollment, experts say three ways to help you remedy
The "wrong choice" here means that after the freshman actually entered the university, they found that the major they chose was not what they had imagined.
What should I do if I don’t drop out and repeat the course?
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Freshman Mengxin entered school one after another and entered a new stage of life.
But many freshmen will encounter a headache, that is, not long after entering school, they find that they have "selected the wrong major".
It is a complicated matter to apply for college entrance examination. Volunteer selection of majors is a complicated matter. Everyone has different points of interest, ability characteristics, and personality characteristics. With so much professional information, as a high school student, I don’t know very well, and may choose based on the literal meaning of the professional name. Now, the possibility of "wrong selection" is very high.
The "wrong choice" here refers to the fact that after the freshman actually entered the university, they found that the major they chose was not what they had imagined, and they didn't like it.
What should I do then?
Many students think of dropping out and repeating studies, but they feel that the cost is too high and they dare not put it into practice.
Now let’s talk about what we can do without dropping out.
The first way: consider changing a major
Generally speaking, the sooner the university transfers a major, the better, the later the school will give fewer opportunities, and the higher the time cost for the students themselves.
Therefore, every freshman needs to complete an important task in the first semester, which is to thoroughly understand the major you are studying.
These include what courses you will study in the future, which courses are more difficult, what career paths you have after graduation, and what professional certificates are needed.
Through this understanding process, most students will establish a certain sense of professional identity, and either continue to develop on this road or consider changing their majors.
What kind of conditions can I transfer to a major?
The specific regulations of each school are different.
Most schools will require that you have good grades in your current professional studies, or even be among the best.
You may think this is a paradox-you want to transfer if you don't like this major. Why do you want me to be among the best in this major?
Because the school needs to avoid a situation, that is, you don't study hard, and you want to change your major because of difficulties.
So even if you are not required to be among the best in your original professional scores, you will at least be required not to fail a subject, or to have multiple courses drifting by.
From the perspective of the school, think about it. There are enough students in front of you. Why should you accept a student with a poor learning attitude when you have a choice?
From the perspective of personal development, switching to a major because of laziness or avoiding difficulties also needs to be avoided.
In high school, many students were taught by teachers that "after three years, you will be fine at university." They really think that college life is easy and easy.
In fact, that kind of life does not exist.
If you have to live that kind of life, it's hard to get mixed up in any major. It's not too easy to drop a course.
The real situation is that the learning process of each major has relatively difficult places, and it is these relatively difficult places that happen to be the threshold and competitiveness of this major.
Especially when you want to learn well in a certain major and become the best among your peers, these relatively difficult subjects are just the touchstones for testing the king.
If you are lazy and don't want to face difficulties and switch to a major, the final outcome is-there may be a greater difficulty waiting for you in the future.
For example, when you graduated, you found that you didn’t learn anything, or you were not competitive when you were looking for a job. Even after you work in the future, you will not be eligible to ask your boss for a promotion or salary increase... So improving your strength is the kingly way. .
Turning professional because you are lazy, you will have nowhere to run in the end.
Of course, this is not to say "It's difficult anyway, so don't turn it around."
Each person's strengths, strengths, and interests are still very different.
So the key is not to escape, but to choose the one you love.
What is true love?
To love first is that you know the profession better and know that this profession also has its difficulties and challenges, but you are still willing to choose to bear the difficulties in its learning process. The so-called perseverance is true love.
To thoroughly understand the major you want to transfer is also a very critical issue.
Every year I participate in the transfer interview of the Department of Psychology, I will ask my classmates: "Do you know what difficulties you will encounter in studying psychology?" "What do you think of psychological statistics? Do you have confidence?" Every year, a classmate asks in surprise: "Do you still need to learn statistics in psychology?" It can be seen that these students have the same idea for the major they want to transfer to, or they jumped into the same pit based on their imagination.
In fact, you have come to the university, and it has become very easy to investigate the actual situation of changing majors on the spot.
You can go to your favorite professional class to listen to, find teachers and seniors in this major to understand the situation, understand which courses are available in the four years of university, which careers you will lead in the future, and what is the true feeling of having engaged in these occupations, so as to avoid another misunderstanding.
The second way: minor or cross-professional postgraduate entrance examination
What must be faced is that there are certain thresholds and restrictions for university transfer to majors. Otherwise, everyone is admitted to a certain unpopular major with low scores. After entering the university, then randomly ask to transfer to a popular major. Isn't it a mess?
Therefore, those students who have not successfully transferred their majors can consider a minor course.
That is to say, you can choose to take another major you like while meeting the basic requirements of this major.
Some schools also set up two types of minors.
The second is that if you have enough credits and you can complete your graduation thesis, you can get a degree in the second major.
You can do what you can according to your own schedule.
You need to know that the second degree is also a degree, which is equivalent to twice the time to study.
In order to avoid conflict in the school schedule, minor courses are often held on weekends, so academic tasks are more onerous.
Of course, every sweat gets a reward. If you can earnestly study in the minor courses and lay a good academic foundation, it will be relatively easy to take the postgraduate entrance examination in this major in the future, so that you can completely switch to another professional field.
Of course, it is possible to pass the postgraduate entrance examination without a minor, but it will take a lot of effort to pass the entrance examination.
The third way: through social practice or audition
I met such a classmate who was originally majoring in education, but found that he didn't like it, so he switched to financial management and still didn't like it.
When he was depressed, by chance, he joined the school’s modeling agency and found that this was what he liked. So he did a lot of practice in his spare time and achieved good results. Later, when he graduated, he decided to take a career. Model road.
I also know a student from the Department of Psychology. I met a lot of students majoring in fashion design through club activities. After in-depth understanding, I found that I prefer fashion design majors, but he can’t change majors because fashion design majors require students to have high school skills. Art foundation, and he didn't.
So when he had the opportunity, he went to listen to the course of the fashion design major, and usually worked hard to make up the foundation of art, so that he was more familiar with the teacher of the fashion design than the teacher of the psychology department.
Of course, whether you switch career paths through social practice or auditing, you need to graduate normally from the original major, otherwise the absence of a college degree will also be an obstacle to your future career path.
Finally, if none of the first three roads work, you can only work hard to cultivate the motivation to study this major.
In fact, many students don't like this major, often because they don't know enough about the future career development path of the major, so they lack motivation.
Everyone knows that a profession is not equal to a profession, and a profession may correspond to various professions.
You can look for possible directions from the experience of teachers or seniors.
Take psychology as an example. If you like to deal with people, you can aim to become a psychology teacher or psychologist after graduation.
If you like to deal with data, you can do education, psychological statistics, and psychological measurement.
If you like to deal with animals, you can also try to do psychology experiments. A colleague of mine tries to design and make experimental equipment according to the needs of the experiment.
If you like to deal with art, you can also develop in the field of psychology art therapy, try music therapy, dance therapy, painting therapy and other directions.
In fact, similar situations exist in many interdisciplinary subjects, and the key is to look for them.
To sum up, when we find that we have "selected the wrong major", there are roughly two strategies. The first is to change direction, that is, "love one line, do one line." The three paths mentioned above are all strategies to change direction.
The second strategy, "do one, love one," is to find the direction you like in your current major.
So, do all roads lead to Rome?
However, there are two prerequisites that need to be paid attention to:
First, you need to know where the Rome in your heart is.
Second, go to Rome on your own, instead of waiting for Rome to come to you.
That is when you find that you have chosen the wrong career while in college, actively seek, explore, and practice.
In the face of "wrong selection", the worst strategy is to pass it by and pass it passively.
When you graduate, you will encounter a question "Although I graduated, I don't like this major, what should I do?" Instead of asking questions at this time, it is better to complete it at the university level.
The sooner this problem is resolved, the less you will have to bear the huge cost of switching majors and occupations.
(The author is an associate professor at the School of Education, Beijing Normal University Zhuhai Campus)
Gao Yan Source: China Youth Daily