Picking Your Major. AHH!

“Do I even want to be an engineer?  Business seems like more fun.”

“Math is literally killing me.”

“I hate ALEKS.”

 “If I have to retake physics, I will punch a wall.” 

These are all common phrases heard from every freshman in engineering. More specifically, I have said every single one of these phrases multiple times. I have called my parents crying at 11:30 pm because my physics homework was due soon and I couldn’t figure it out. I had convinced myself that I was going to switch out of engineering at one point because Physics 211 and I didn’t get along very well.

And now look at me. I’m still here in mechanical engineering 2 years later.  I’ve interned with GE for two summers. I made it through all of those exams and weed out classes. If I can do, I know you can too.

Picking your major is the easy part once you’re here. You’re already in engineering! Any major you pick will be a good one, and you can do virtually anything with an engineering degree once you get it. There are a bunch of different types of engineering that you have to choose from after three semesters. Three semesters gives you enough time to realize that maybe Civil Engineering isn’t for you and you want to do more Aerospace Engineering. It gives you time to figure out what you want and don’t want.

I changed my major freshman year. I was originally Aerospace until the early entrance to major forms came out (asking if you wanted to formally declare your major early). I went absolutely nuts when I read the email. What if I don’t want to be an Aerospace Engineer for the rest of my life? What if I get tired of that stuff when I’m 35? I’ll just have to suffer through the next 30 years. Oh my god. Oh my god. I went online and changed my major online in 30 seconds and that was it. 

If you do decide that you don’t like your major, changing your preferences on eLion takes around 1 minute to switch, which is a blessing and a curse.  It’s easy to change your mind but don’t change your mind TOO much. Then you’ll just confuse yourself!

Take a deep breath. You can do it! Pick something that you like. Pick a major that you can see yourself doing in 20 years. I’m mechanical because I want to build planes and satellites when I’m older, which I can do with mechanical. If you want to build the newest device that saves people from cancer, maybe biomedical engineering.  If you want to do more business with your engineering and problem solving, industrial engineering is for you.There is a major for everyone. You can do it!

Katie Farnum is a junior in Mechanical Engineering, and she is a Mentor for WEPO '14!