The college experience for a student majoring in a STEM field like engineering, chemistry, computer science or physics is fundamentally different from the experience of majoring in almost any other field. Why? Because of the “vertical” structure of these majors: Almost every course you take in a STEM major requires one or more prerequisites, so that you must get off to a fast start with math and science courses during your first semester of college to stay on track to graduate in four years.
And that is why declaring “exploratory” or “undecided” as a major is a bad idea for a student entering college if there is any chance at all that she or he will want to complete a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field. Instead, a student entering college should declare the most challenging STEM major that student might possibly choose. If an entering student declares an engineering major and then decides a semester or a year later that engineering is not for her or him, then she or he can switch to (for example) political science easily enough and graduate in four years, anyway. However, a student who chooses an exploratory major (or who declares a major in English or sociology) who then decides to switch into (for example) physics a semester or a year later is likely to end up in college for five years instead of four.
The ease of switching from a STEM major into one with a less vertical structure can be illustrated through the case of a physics major I worked with more than a decade ago who decided when she was two-and-a-half years into the bachelor’s degree program in my field that she wanted to pursue a career in science policy instead of in scientific research. So she added a second major in political science – which she completed in three semesters with no grade below an “A-” – and went on to earn a master’s degree in science policy at another prestigious university. Today she has a premier science policy job in a federal agency.
To those who object to this advice on the grounds that “college is supposed to be for exploration”, I would argue that it makes more sense for a student to test drive a major (and then perhaps to set it aside and move on to something else) than it does to sample general education classes in a variety of fields. In STEM disciplines, using general education classes to choose a career field is like trying to decide from reading children’s books whether one wants to be a serious novelist. For a student, immersing one’s self in the introductory courses for a STEM major is the best way to find out if a career in the field is attractive to her or him.
Bridge to Tomorrow 