switching majors from business to psychology -- Virtually Advising Q+A

The Q: I am in the second semster of my freshman year in college. I am now enrolled as a Business Major. To tell you the truth, I hate it. I dread going to my classes and it does not interest me at all. I came up with the idea of changing my major to Psychology. What advice can you give me on making this transition easier and is it too late to change my major? Will it effect me graduating in 4 years?

The A: It's most definitely not too late to change your major. The first thing I'd encourage you to do, in fact, is slow things down a little bit: be sure that psychology is a good match for you -before- you officially make the switch in majors.

You can usually take psych courses without actually being a psych major, so unless your school requires you to have a major right now, there's no need for you to put that extra pressure on yourself when you're not yet positive what subject you most enjoy. If you've already taken a psych course or three and thought they were great, then super; but otherwise, I think it'd be better for you if you look before you leap. You don't want to switch majors only to realize that you don't like the new one any more than the old one -- that'd just be depressing. Much better, I think, to give yourself a kind of buffer period, where you can take a bunch of different classes whose descriptions interest you (be sure to thoroughly read through your school's course catalog), and just keep walking down the paths that appeal to you most. That way, ideally, after a couple semesters of trying different classes/subjects you'll be in a much better position to choose a major you know you'll be happy with.

Your more specific questions -- about the impact switching majors would have on how soon you'll graduate, and on how smooth your transition will be -- need to be answered by your adviser or by academic counselors at your school, since I don't know enough about your school to know for sure either way. Usually, switching your major anytime during your first couple years of college won't at all hurt your ability to graduate in four years. All it means is that you'll have two or three years to take the rest of your major's required courses instead of four years, which isn't usually that big a deal. But there are other factors that come into play here -- for instance, if you're currently in a business program that's separated from the rest of the university, switching into an arts & humanities program might involve a little more effort and paperwork than just signing up for non-business courses. That's why it's important you talk to an adviser, academic counselor, dean or your school's registrar to make sure you've got your bases covered.

Best wishes!

—Myles Helfand, General Advisor