How to Handle a College Major Change

As a college professor for nearly three decades, I find myself often meeting with students who are concerned about what to tell their parents when it comes to declaring or changing a major. Many students embark on their college journey aware of parental expectations related to grades, social life, money, and a slew of other things. But one thing that isn’t always obvious but that eventually rears its head is when students emerge with interests and passions that they know are far afield from their parents’ hopes and wishes.

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Many parents have ideas, hopes, and preconceived notions of what their children will gravitate to even before a child is born. These perceptions shape, inform, and dictate purchases of toys and games for small children, and this is also evident in the activities that parents sign children up for when they are young. But it doesn’t stop there.

College students report that their parents want them to be certain things; for example, I have numerous female students who share with me that their mothers, grandmothers, and aunts want them to become nurses, and I have male students who reference fathers getting excited for them to have careers that integrate sports and business. As we can see, these desires often have gendered patterns, and they often reflect either a parent’s choice of career and wanting to see their child follow in their footsteps or represent careers that the parents themselves wished they had pursued. That can add a lot of unnecessary pressure on college kids.

Here are some suggestions for how both parents and students can negotiate this bumpy road.

1. Get curious about how and why your adult child got interested in this field of study.

If you don’t know a lot about this field of study, ask your child questions about it and also do your own homework. Research more about it and read up on it. When your child trusts that you are showing genuine interest rather than judgment and criticism, they will be more interested in engaging in discussion about it.

2. Recognize that this choice of major might indicate that your child is developing priorities and values that might be different from what you hold dear.

For example, you might have preferred that your child become a business major with the goal being to secure the most lucrative career possible. But your child may discover that a major in history, English, political science, or sociology is what sparks their imagination and interest the most. On the face of it, those don’t sound like moneymakers, yet they very well could become the foundation for that. There are plenty of lawyers, entrepreneurs, and directors of for-profit and nonprofit organizations who possess a liberal arts major like one of these.

3. Ask yourself, “Whose life is it?”

As older adults, we have more life experience to see the potential limitations, implications, fallout, and failure that may result from any given decision. It is tempting, though misguided, to jump in to rescue a college student to save them from themselves. It’s their life, after all. Students need to be the ones to try things out, seek informational interviews with people in their field of interest to learn more about what is really involved and determine if this path is right for them, and explore internships that might help them answer their questions.

4. Avoid making threats.

It’s common enough to think that if parents are paying for college or contributing very significantly to it, they are entitled to weigh heavily on what major their child selects. But the problem with this way of thinking is that it’s counterproductive to fostering a trusting relationship with an adult child.

5. Acknowledge that your child’s decision may not be set in stone anyway.

Remember that it is extremely common for students to change their major multiple times, sometimes even coming back to their original intention. It’s best not to get overly attached to your student’s current passion, as this may change. Encourage your child to use college as a way to try on different hats and see what feels and fits best.

An analogy could be made to dating, where you might not care too much for the person your child is involved with, and you want to scream, “No!” Or perhaps you’re secretly hoping this is the person your child will end up with for the rest of their life, and you get too involved, even becoming friends on social media with this person. It’s best to let students experiment with their sense of a new emerging self since that is exactly what college is about.

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6. Be sure you’re pursuing a major that is solvent at your school.

Of course, students need to be sure that the major they want to begin is in good solid shape at their university. With numerous institutions across the country on increasingly shakier ground, and with accompanying budget cuts to programs and faculty, it makes good sense to seek reassurance about the program’s viability and plans for growth.

7. Remember that maybe the choice of a major doesn’t matter so much anyway.

The major you choose doesn’t necessarily determine the life you will have, the person you will be, or the opportunities you encounter, nor will it necessarily be the key to happiness and fulfillment. Sure, it’s an important decision, but it’s one of so many life choices. I have a college friend who majored in English and, years later, became a nurse. A former student turned dear friend was a sociology major and is now the president of a private girls’ school.

Rather than putting so much energy into what your major should or will be, agonizing what you ultimately might or might not do with it, and then analyzing its return on investment, take time to really comb through the course catalog and the schedule of actual course offerings in the future semesters. Ask yourself if these courses grab you, if they feel meaningful, if the professors teaching the classes are people you want to learn from, and if the content of these classes ignites the sense in you that this is material you’d be interested in learning and talking about for some years to come. As Joseph Campbell said, “Follow your bliss.”