Students pick new majors

A week before midterms last October, as he crammed for exams on neuroscience and viruses, Matt Samberg '06 came to a realization: majoring in molecular biology was not the best way for him to understand the inner workings of the mind.

Samberg's interest lies in memory, cognition and the other mysteries of the brain, which led him to pursue a certificate in neuroscience. However, the intricacies of neurons and synapses, conveyed in so many early-morning PowerPoint lectures, no longer inspired him.

"The courses weren't very well-taught," he said. "They consisted almost entirely of memorization, with no effort to connect the details to broader concepts. If you had the PowerPoint notes and a copy of the textbook, the lectures were useless."

Inspired by a paper he read sophomore year about the work of Princeton researcher Joshua Greene GS '02, who uses brain-imaging technologies to study how people confront moral dilemmas, Samberg decided that the philosophy of the mind interested him more than the cellular structure of the brain.

Though the third week of October was too late to switch courses or start writing a fall JP in philosophy, Samberg found philosophy professors who said they were willing to help him catch up. He filled out a few forms and officially switched into the Philosophy Department.

"There was a lot of bureaucracy involved, but in the end it was not very difficult and it was very rewarding," said Samberg, who will make up his fall JP in philosophy over the summer. He plans to write a thesis combining lab work and philosophical analysis.

Samberg is not the only University student who's defected from one department to another. In the class of 2005, 90 students — nearly 8 percent — switched majors after their sophomore year. Most transfers were between closely related departments, like history and politics, and happened early in the year, but some — like Samberg's — were later and more radical.

To switch, students must obtain the permission of the department they seek to enter and be able to complete all junior independent work before fall of their senior year. Students who can't meet those requirements may have to take a year off to complete prerequisite courses at another university before returning, said Assistant Dean of the College Frank Ordiway, who oversees all switches.

Students make the decision to switch for a variety of reasons. Some, like Samberg, are looking for the environment in which they are happiest. For others, the change comes after a long process of self-discovery.

Jason Grover '05 spent two years wrestling with his choice before a life-changing trip to Brazil clarified his priorities.

He came to Princeton intending to major in physics, but found that subject unsatisfying. Grover next considered becoming an MAE and even met with the dean of the engineering school, but changed his mind again to religion. He also considered English and Creative Writing before finally signing into the Spanish and Portuguese department his sophomore year.

Grover went to Brazil that summer to study an Afro-Brazilian religion called Candomble. The subject has fascinated him ever since, and this fascination calmed his major woes.

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"Now I'm really happy with it," said Grover, whose independent work drew heavily on his experience in Brazil. "I've been able to focus on just the things that I want."

Grover's decision emerged from a long process of soul-searching, but the choice of Aprajita Anand '06 struck her like a thunderbolt. She realized she wanted to be an Art and Archeology major as she jogged across campus one day in September of her junior year.

Anand's initial major choice was so tentative she hadn't even shared it with her family.

"It was a really crisp morning at 6 a.m.," she said. "I called my mom and told her I was going to switch majors and she said, 'From what, darling?'"

Anand had been in French and Italian, but her real passion is painting and the visual arts, so she decided to switch into a department more closely aligned with that area.

As she gears up for her thesis work, likely to focus on the French Impressionists, Anand expressed satisfaction with her decision to switch.

"You get support whenever you want" she said, describing how the art department has provided her with studio space, funding and an advisor.

Ordiway said that students who become dissatisfied with their department often base their initial decision on parental preference or career advancement, rather than intellectual passion.

"The most common experience is starting in a major they thought they should major in and changing into a major they wanted to major in," he said.

That is certainly true for Timon Lorenzo '06, who began his Princeton career as an Operations Research and Financial Engineering (ORFE) major.

Lorenzo's sister was an economics major, and his father is a businessman. "I had this feeling I should go on the path of my sister and my dad," he said.

After disliking one of his early ORFE classes, he switched into economics, but by the end of his sophomore he found that unsatisfying as well.

Lorenzo was only a few courses away from completing the requirements for a finance certificate, but Lorenzo was less than inspired by his econ courses and daunted by the thought of a senior thesis in the subject.

"The topics didn't sound like something I would want to work on," he said.

In the spring of sophomore year, Lorenzo signed into the Department of Spanish and Portuguese but spent the summer considering everything from physics to comparative literature.

When he returned to campus in the fall, Lorenzo decided he'd feel more at home in one of the University's biggest departments than in one of the smallest.

It's been a bumpy ride. Though he had taken two history courses in his first two years at Princeton — a prerequisite for entering the department — history was hardly Lorenzo's best subject in high school, and college hasn't proved much different.

"I would definitely have better grades in another department," he said. "A lot of the time I second-guess myself."

Lorenzo hopes to pursue a career in business after graduation, but said he didn't fare well in job interviews, adding that some interviewers said his major counted against him.

Despite the difficulties, Lorenzo said he is enjoying his independent work and doesn't relish the alternative of immersing himself in technical economic analysis. "I find the emphasis on people [in history] more engaging," he said.

For the other three students, the decision to switch has produced no regrets. Looking back on their experiences, Samberg, Anand and Grover advise freshmen and sophomores to sample the greatest possible variety of courses. All three said they encourage University students to develop their interests by taking advantage of the wide range of academic options available to them.

"The process of finding out what you're passionate about and finding out what you're not passionate about is hugely important," Grover said. "It's more about the process of finding where you belong than necessarily where you end up."