In the end, choosing your major is a minor worry

It happens right about this time for most sophomores — the gradual dawning of understanding about the awful and awesome choices that are involved with being at Princeton. Suddenly everyone around you is choosing different paths. Each one creates a unique world of experience within the greater university.

So why did it take me an extra semester to decide something as basic as my academic major?

At first, the implications of my choices at the end of sophomore year didn't seem to amount to much. After all, once bicker and sign-ins were over, I was still sitting next to the same people in the dining hall for the next four months. Meanwhile I'd been going to different classes from my friends for the past two years anyway, so why did it really matter if I picked one department over another?

Whatever I chose, I knew most of my friends would be in other departments, yet we'd all be writing theses senior year and complaining about JPs junior year. So did settling on any one department really matter?

In a way, no. In another way, yes.

Once junior year arrived, my friends were still my friends. I still kept up with my job and activities just as I did before. And we all were struggling through the same experiences of midterms, departmental representatives and independent work. So in that sense, choosing one department over another didn't matter. Yet I've discovered that my choice of academic major really does matter in other ways in shaping my perspective on my final two years at Princeton.

Your major does not matter as much for your future career as you might think or as your parents might tell you, but rather in terms of what it means to be at Princeton.

This idea first struck me when I was listening to friends pick courses this past semester. My friends majoring in economics were talking about courses in finance and macroeconomic theory. My roommate, a computer science engineer, was discussing a course he was taking about computer security. It dawned on me that for them an academic major at Princeton is, in part, about preparing them for specific careers after college. At the same time my friends who are comparative literature majors were talking about graduate seminars on Cervantes' Don Quixote. English majors were talking about taking courses on the history of American theater. For many of these friends, a Princeton major is really more about finding subjects and thinking that interests them.

This is not to say that the economics majors don't have intellectual curiosity or that the English majors aren't also thinking about jobs beyond college. It's just that they all retain a different perspective when they open that course guide each semester, and this perspective is shaped largely by their major.

Some majors stress classes in skills over thinking, while others stress thinking over career preparation. Yet no one major is inherently better or worse. Each one opens new realms of learning and ideas that are very different from the perspectives you would gain in other majors.

For me, it took an extra semester to realize what a major was really about. I am now sure that whatever my major, I can still achieve any of my personal goals after college. I have reexamined my priorities and considered what I want to walk through the gate to Nassau Street with at the end of senior year.

In the end, I decided that my choice of major at the end of the sophomore year resulted in a world where I was perfectly happy, but one that left me wanting something more. I realized that personally I wanted my Princeton experience to emphasize more liberal arts writing and thinking.

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So I switched.

But that's me. The key for anyone else is to think about what you want out of your four years here. Your major is only one part of your life here (and definitely not one to harp about too much), but it is a part that will create a unique academic world for you at Princeton. In the end, it is that ability to create individual experiences that is what ultimately makes college so exciting.

So pick your major carefully. If you're happy with it, then don't sweat it. If you're not, then you might consider switching like I did. The actual major, though, is not what you should worry about. Instead, whatever you do, make the most of the many worlds within the world at Princeton to create one which is what you want out of college.