Advice on Making Your Choice

This section will help you as you contemplate choosing your major. Included are tips to get you started and help you figure out what choosing a major is all about. When thinking about choosing a major, it is important to identify your interests, explore multiple resources, give yourself options, and evaluate your academic plan for the next three years.

Step 1: Ask yourself some questions...What do I like to study? What are my interests?

• Do you like working on your own or with a group?
• What are your hobbies? What do you do for fun?
• Do you like to do hands-on work? Do you like to research and investigate.
• Do you like to work with people or with things and ideas?
• How important is salary?
• Do you want to work internationally?
• Would working in a lab be interesting?

Because you have an interest in a subject does not mean that you will want to major in it, but it is a good place to start. For most people choosing a major becomes an easy process when you find the subject that best matches their day to day interests.

Did you know that many majors at MIT have two or three different ways of studying the same subject?

Some majors have internships attached to their course work and others have combinations of classes from other courses as part of their own. (ex. math and computer science otherwise known as Course 18-C; and physics and electrical engineering otherwise known as Course 8-A). These are just some of the many different ways that a single major choice can open doors to other departments.

Ask Your Advisor About Choosing a Major

Advisors often have a deep knowledge of particular courses and departments. Most advisors have been at MIT for a number of years and are a key link to departments because they have taught, or advised for those departments. Advisors will be able to direct you to the best way to gather information about the majors and help you access information about majors by alternative methods such as academic societies, Open Houses, UROPS, externships, internships, volunteering, and academic fairs.

Check-in with Undergraduate Academic Administrators

The Ugadmins are a great resource for information about specific classes in a major and this is also the person that would be able to help you create a four year plan and/or a major roadmap to help you discover the sequence of classes required for a particular major. The Undergraduate Administrator in each course is the person that will know the most specifics about class choices.

Make the Right Choice For You!

Some students choose a major because they think they will grow to like it. Some because they feel some pressure to choose a major that is popular or feel pressure from their parents. There are also people that choose a major only because it is known to make the highest starting salary after graduation.

Everyone has there own reason for chooseing a major and there is really no right or wrong way to choose a major as long as you came to the final decision on your own.

In the long run majoring in a course that interests you on a personal level will make things easier during the rest of your academic career because you have an interest in the subject matter outside the classroom or lab.

Contact information for departmental Undergraduate Academic Administrators and Undergraduate Academic Officers can be found on-line at: http://web.mit.edu/acadinfo/deptcontacts/, listed according to course.

The 4 most important things to know about choice of major...

1. Get involved with every possible activity, group, or organization on campus that relates to the majors you are interested in.
   
   
2. Have good communication with your advisor. They know when you need to start thinking about majors and where to go to get the right information about them.
   
   
3. Know who the department undergraduate administrators are for each major you are interested in. These people get things done and are a lifeline when it comes to facts about their department.
   
   
4. Keep an open mind about what you are willing to study and remember that a major choice often leads you directly into a job or a career, but there is room for change.

Some final notes...

• Don't just choose a major because you think you SHOULD. Make sure that you WANT to do it.
  
  
• Check out the workshops offered by the Global Education and Career Development Center for more information on identifying interests, preparing for a career, etc.
  
  
• Use this site's search function, which is located below the "In this section" navigation bar on all pages of the site, to search on key words (i.e. biology, media studies, chemistry, etc.) or areas of interest (i.e. biotechnology, software design, etc.). You may be surprised by the number of majors that turn up!