I’ve read how it’s very common for college/university students switch majors during their studies. What I was curious about was if anybody knew what percentage switch from a major in one “area” to another “area”? What I mean is this, at my school things were divided up into 3 areas, humanities, social sciences, and natural science/math. I was curious how common a switch from say a social science like history to say chem happens. (Just curious since I started out thinking I’d do astronomy and ended up picking Computer science. I was curious if it’s even common for someone to start out in say History but switch to chem.)
I wouldn’t say a drastic change is that uncommon. Surely it’s probably more common for a Chemistry student to change to Physics or some other small change, but many people go to school having no idea what they’re doing.
Well, as a physics teacher, I’d agree that going from (ahem) Applied Physics to Physics is a minor change.
As for the original post, when I was a tour guide in college at Johns Hopkins (early '90s), we used to quote that 30% of students changed their major during their time in school. Then again, we also used to say that the giant stone diffraction grating monument (to its inventor) actually produced a rainbow when the sunlight shined on it correctly…
-Tofer
A lot of students change their majors, some more than once. I think there are still plenty of freshmen who start their college careers with “Undecided” as a major, because so many of them just don’t know, following high school, what they want to do with their lives. Then, during freshman or even sophomore year, they pick one (after getting the general-education requirements out of the way).
Me, I went from English to Communications back to English.
Would Applied Physics be a branch of engineering?
I was in Astronomy, one of the majors with a high attrition rate. Most of the folks who left astronomy went to General Science, although I think that some of them might have gone to computer science or to some sort of engineering. So far as I know, none of them went to English or the like. And some of them also kept astronomy as a minor, so they didn’t leave completely.
And tofergregg, don’t you know that everything is just applied physics? 
Isn’t engineering applied science? At least that’s how I understood it so I’d say yes to your question.
In response to the others I am curious what percentage make the “big change.” I was wondering this because the czar of my school basically stated how common it was to change majors but it always seemed to me that people didn’t switch from science to humanities for example. (Of course that speech was 15 years ago so I probably don’t remember it correctly.)
I think the serious switches (like your history to chemistry example) depends on how the school is arranged.
At the college I attended for my undergraduate degree, changing majors was simple. I began as biology/pre-med major, switched to a German major, then to a history major/german minor, finally ending with just the history major. There were no separate colleges within the school, so it was just a departmental switch.
At the university I attend now, it seems that it would be much more complicated. There’s the college of arts & sciences, the college of engineering, of business, and so on. I think that switching majors within a college (history and physics are both in the college of A&S) is likely not terribly difficult, but switching from physics (A&S) to journalism (communication) probably takes a bit more effort.
But this is anecdotal and based on my understanding. I’ve never switched colleges here, so I don’t know what the process is like. I know that if I tried, it would involve applying to the graduate department of the college I wanted to switch to, but for undergrads it may be different. I did go try to find information at the university registrar’s page, but I couldn’t find anything.
And the point of that long-winded response was that I think dramatic changes in major may be more likely at schools that make the process simple.
I changed majors from pre-med/bio to psychology my sophomore year. I had to fill out a 1-page application to both declare my new major and transfer colleges within the university. It was pretty easy.
Is it easier now, I wonder, to change majors? You can order books and whatnot online, so can you change majors that easily now?
While it’s probably not uncommon for people to switch from the natural sciences to the humanties or the social sciences, I think it’s a lot less common to switch the other way. Programs in the natural sciences usually consist of a series of sequential courses that build on one another, and to take course #4 (say) you have to have taken courses #1, 2, and 3 already. Such stringent chains of prerequisites aren’t nearly as common in the humanities or the natural sciences, so if you decide halfway through your second year that you want to be a political science major you can take two or three courses each quarter and complete your major. If you decide you want to become a physics major halfway through your second year, though, there’s probably no chance that you can complete those requirements in your remaining two and a half years.
I really can’t think of anyone who hasn’t changed their major–and graduated. I started out in Computer Science six years ago, and know some people who were starting out then and are still trying to finish. I switched to Biology, then added an English major and a Psychology minor. I have a theory about the patterns people move in, at my university.
Engineering --> Philosophy
Computer Science --> Computer Technology
Chemistry --> Business
Biology --> Psychology
Of course, because I started out in the School of Science and, even while getting my English major, was a stepchild to the School of Liberal Arts, all of the people I really knew were in Science. Probably a whole bunch of Liberal Arts people stay in their original major–or just tack on one or two extras (I calculated that in four years, it’s perfectly feasible to get four LA majors, in my university).
Almost every person at my school who changes from engineering goes to business.
i was a nursing student, then found i was bad at it and hated it so i switched to chem.
Id always wanted to do chem anyway, so maybe itll work out. luckily 40 of the 50 hours ive done so far transfer into the chemistry program.
My younger brother started with a psychology degree then switched to a pre-med math degree. I dont know what my older brother did, i think he started with a telecommunications major and ended with a marketing major.
Yes it is. I am at IU bloomington and i am assuming this college, as well as most, make it easy to change majors by making many of the credits for degrees identical.
bachelor degrees have about 120 hours. From what i’ve seen, about 60-70 of those hours are identical between all majors (except engineering). Electives, math, general credits, etc. Degrees within schools which are under the same topic like natural science/math (like switching from one hard science degree to another. Ie biology to biochemistry for example) have about 95 hours out of 120 in common.
Was it different when you went to school? i think its different for engineering though. WIth most degrees only about 40 hours actually apply to the degree (ie you might do 40 hours of chemistry in a chemistry degree, 40 hours of journalism in a journalism degree) but with engineering i think its closer to 90 hours is strictly engineering.
Indeed engineering is usually quite different. I don’t know the details down to the hourly numbers, but in my engineering program, its like 90% pure engineering. Essentially all engineering courses, plus the odd requisite non-tech elective thrown in to make us miserable
My University also offers a really unique program called the “concurrent degree”. By filling up your electives with courses from another department, you can graduate with two degrees in only two years. I’m currently enrolled in engineering AND physics.
For engineering, I find the most common switch is engineering -> compsci.
Heh, two years, wouldn’t that be great. What I meant was you can graduate with two degrees in 5 years (ie, one extra year).
Here at UF, the tracking system is specifically set up to help you if you’re thinking of changing majors. There’s even a “degree shopping” section on the Registrar’s Web site that weighs your current credits against new majors or minors you might be considering.
I switched from engineering to English, and my engineering advisor said it was the first time he’d had a student make such a switch in 20 years of advising. More typical, he said, was for engineering majors to switch to business.