By Abigail Gan | Staff Writer
There is a lot of pressure to know what you want to do and who you want to be in college. Any student can probably attest that they’ve been asked, “What do you want to do?” many times. The truth is that coming into college, the majority of people — even those who have everything planned out — change what they want to do in the future. Coming out of high school with limited knowledge and experience of the different topics and programs, students often take more time and in-depth classes to explore their interests.
While it’s relatively simple to change your major during your freshman year, it becomes more complicated to change your major as you progress in your degree program. While logically, this makes sense, it should still be feasible to change your major as a sophomore or early on in your upperclassman years. After all, much of the beginning of college is taking general education classes or basic classes for your major.
At Baylor, many kinds of bachelor’s degrees are offered: bachelor of arts, bachelor of music, bachelor of science, bachelor of fine arts, bachelor of business administration, bachelor of social work and more. While it is wonderful that so many programs are offered, switching between programs is a nightmare.
Oftentimes, when switching between programs, a student is able to finish the major requirements on time. It’s the differing general requirements that add up and create trouble with graduation. If a student has completed all of the core requirements for their degree program and is required to take another set of core classes — albeit very similar — after switching between programs, the adviser should work with them to waive those courses or allow them to count.
Furthermore, specifications such as taking classes in residence can also be frustrating. It is pointless for a student who completed a course not in residence to now have to complete the same class in residence simply because the new program requires it.
Lastly, double majors and secondary majors should be made more accessible. Secondary majors often have the same number of hours and requirements as a full major would have.
Overall, there should be more accommodations to change degree programs and majors later in a student’s college career.