Education Advice

The Ins and Outs of Changing Majors

Lately, I’ve had a lot of readers during down time at book signings talking to me about college. It might be their own experiences because they are currently attending or recently completed or because they are parents of college students. In either case, they express frustration over lost time or unused credits because of changing majors. So I thought I would address those two topics here in Education Advice. It is not a quick-and-easy topic to address.

Changing Majors

When I started college, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a journalist and I wanted to back it up with art (maybe be a photojournalist). My college did not have a degree in journalism, so I majored in Communication with a print journalism emphasis and a political journalism specialty. (I wanted to be Woodward or Bernstein.) I did what I set out to do when I entered college, as far as my major. My minor was another story, which shifted from Art to Philosophy, then it became my second major when I became Editor of the newspaper and had to stay an extra semester.

According to the Student Research Group (SRG), as of January 2025, 80 percent of all college students change their majors at least once.

The oldest statistics I could find for students changing majors was from 2004 by the U.S. National Center for Educational Statistics, indicating that the major-changing dilemma has increased dramatically, up from 46 percent. (I would love to have founds stats for when I graduated with my bachelors, 11 years earlier, but no dice.)

So what’s the problem? Why do students change their majors so much? Is it because they were ill-prepared for college? Is it because they were ill-informed about the major itself? Is the major too hard? Was it simple immaturity?

Are Today’s Students Ill-Prepared for College?

I taught college for 25 years and, unfortunately, from my own experience I would say, “Yes.”

I taught Communication classes, so that meant that they were required for most majors. As a result, I had students from almost every discipline, and tended to see them when they were freshmen. Something that never happened in the first 10 years I taught, started happening more and more often.

I had students who, until my class, had never written a paper.

The first time it happened, I was literally stunned into silence that someone could graduate high school without ever writing a paper. Then I had a couple years where one student each year made the same admission. Then it increased one student a semester. Then it increased dramatically to one student in each class. Then it increased to multiple students in each class. Then it jumped to half of my students in every class. When I retired from teaching, roughly two-thirds of my students in every class had never written a paper before being in my classroom.

But don’t just take my word for it.

According to a February 2024 article in Education Week, “High school students think they are ready for college, but they aren’t.” The article cites the lowest ACT scores in 30 years in 2022, and steadily declining SAT scores.

According to ACT statistics, only 21 percent of high-school seniors are meeting all four (English Composition, Social Sciences, Algebra, and Biology) ACT benchmarks, while 43 percent of all high-school students fail to meet those benchmarks in any of the four areas.

Even more shocking, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2015, only 14 percent of first-year college students took a remedial course in math; 8.8 percent did so in reading and writing. Only four years later, in 2019, 65.4 percent of first-year undergraduate students took a remedial course in math; 42.1 percent did so in reading or writing.

That is a stunning increase in just four years, but it was about that time that half of my students in every class had never written a paper before.

Ill-Informed About the Major Itself

According to SRG, some majors are “stickier” than others and/or inspire more loyalty. Here are some statistics that show how often students switch their major:

• 52% of Math majors jump ship

• 50% of Engineering majors switch

• 40% of Natural Sciences majors change up

• 37% of Education majors fly the coop

• 36% of Humanities majors retreat

• 35% of all STEM majors switch

• 32% of General Studies majors change lanes

• 31% of Social Science majors shift gears

• 31% of Business majors abandon their posts

• 28% of Computer and Information Sciences majors switch

• 26% of Healthcare Field majors change

These statistics, just by themselves, are interesting. When looking at how “hard” a major is, it’s even more interesting.

Major is Too Hard

According to College Insider, of the 21 hardest college majors, 10 of the top 11 are Engineering disciplines (Computer Science is the exception), followed by Math, Physics, then four of the next five are in the Healthcare Field (Astronomy is the exception), ending with Architecture and Fine Arts.

So does difficulty play a part? Taking the above information and comparing it to the percentages of changing declared majors, it seems so. The exception is in the Healthcare Fields. There, it seems that helping people makes all that hard work worthwhile. Another factor is that, in the undergraduate Healthcare fields, students are often planning on continuing into advanced degrees, which would also have an impact.

Is It Simple Immaturity?

Again, going back to my own experience teaching college for 25 years, I would say, “Yes.”

Something that never happened in the first 10 years I taught was having a parent call me about a student. The first time it happened, once again, I was stunned into silence. I could not believe that a parent would have the nerve to actually call me, rather than allowing her child to take responsibility for his academic performance. When my brain finally kicked in, I told the parent that I could not discuss it, because it would be illegal, violating Family Education and Rights Protection Act (FERPA) laws, because the student was either over 18 or pursuing secondary education.

It did not happen again for about five years, then it happened again. Then again about two years later. Then it happened once or twice a year from then on.

More on Helicopter Parenting

Helicopter parenting is epitomized by parents who are overly involved in their children’s lives, often micromanaging their activities and decisions. This is not a new term, by any means. It was first coined in the 1969 book Between Parent and Teenager by Dr. Haim Ginott, where a teenager described his mother as hovering over him like a helicopter.

Helicopter parents often exhibit the following behaviors:

• Constant Monitoring: keeping a close eye on their children’s activities, be it school or play

• Intervening in Conflicts: resolving issues that children could handle independently, such as disputes with peers or academic challenges

• Micromanaging: controlling aspects of their children’s lives, including their schedules, friendships, and even academic choices

Obviously, helicopter parenting is well-intended, but it can lead to several negative outcomes:

• Low Self-Esteem: children may have diminished self-confidence if not allowed to face challenges independently

• Poor Coping Skills: hindered development of essential life skills, leading to diminished ability to handle stress and adversity

• Increased Anxiety: higher levels of anxiety and lower tolerance for failure, because they were never allowed to fail or deal with setbacks on their own

An article on PsychCentral.com described something that I think is much more practical, aside from leading to positive outcomes: “glider parenting.” It described the role of a parent as that of an airplane with a tow cable attached to a glider. The plane gets the glider into the air and lets go once it is sure the glider has enough lift to keep going on its own. The success of both is evident when the glider is sailing free.

But enough about that.

Impact of Changing Majors

So what’s the big deal if students change their majors? There are a lot of employers out there that really don’t care what a person’s bachelor’s degree is in, they just care that the person had the discipline to complete a four-year degree and has a foundation of knowledge required to do so.

The impact is that it often leads to taking longer to complete the degree, as well as costing more money. In changing majors, all of the completed course work may no longer apply. If all the required elective credits have been fulfilled, then those other credits are no longer being “used.” That is not to say, however, that it was wasted money.

Education in and of itself is valuable. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development conducted a study of 48,000 people in 24 countries that “detected the overall positive linkage between educational attainment and life satisfaction.” The study lists a massive amount of reasons why, but anyone who has been in my classroom has heard me say that my personal theory is that, the more educated a person is, the more worldly the person is. Thus, the more likely that person is to realize that “the grass is not greener; it’s just grass.” So envy and jealousy play much smaller roles in life, leading to greater “life satisfaction.”

Aside from life satisfaction, though, if a class credit is not applicable to the new major and all the elective credits are already fulfilled, then more classes will be required. That will cost more money and more time.

Choosing a Course or Field of Study

So how do you decide what to study in college?

Start with what interests you. It is almost impossible to study something that does not interest you in any way. If it interests you, then it is often also one of your personal strengths. This will make it easier to get through the course work.

Ask yourself: what are your career goals? Research market demand for job availability in the field you want to enter. Will you have to move to another state or even country to get a job? As part of your research, look into industries that are growing.

Take the answers to all these things and weigh them out to choose your major.

W.D. Kilpack III: Official Web Site