Student Profiles: How Upperclassmen Chose Their Majors

Choosing a major is an important and personal decision that will impact the rest of your life.  How you arrive at your decision is as individual as how you choose to use your major after college.  Don’t panic, don’t rush, and do use every available resource to explore majors.

Finding out how other upperclassmen made their decision can be a great source of inspiration to you, so these profiles provide tips on how some current students decided on their major.

Lyndz Steeves Course 11 with a minor in 17: I am a sophomore from Weatherford, TX. When I was accepted to MIT, I was set on majoring in Course 2, focusing on Bio-mechatronics. However, after participating in two summer programs that gave me the chance to both design and build robots, I decided that a field in mechanics was not for me. I loved, and still do love, Biology, so I decided to go microscale in my interests, declaring Course 20 during my freshmen spring (well really Course 7, with the intent to applying to Course 20 sophomore year). I searched for a summer UROP in Course 20, hoping to solidify my decision. However, I quickly realized that research in the biological field was also not for me. I pulled out the MIT course book and hi-lighted all the courses that I wanted to take before I graduated, courses that I would be eager to study and to apply in the world outside MIT. Most of my selections were in Course 11 and 17, so I declared a major in Course 11 and a minor in Course 17. It has been nearly a semester and a half after I made my decision, and I have never second guessed my choice. Being passionate about your studies in your choice of major is only one half of the decision, make sure you are just as passionate about implementing your studies in the real world too.

Joshua Sklarsky Course 11: When I first came to MIT I thought I had made a grave mistake. Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Calculus...my head was spinning! It would be horrible taking the GIRs. I soon came to realize that after taking a year off to travel, studying Science or Engineering was no longer my top priority. I wanted to change the world. I wanted to dedicated my life to some sort of public service. Physics was fun in high school - that's what was on my mind when I applied to MIT. Though I still find myself interested in technology, problem solving, and science related issues, I knew that the required Science and Mathematics course would serve me well later in life and that's how I got through them - but for my major I wanted something different. I think I had browsed the DUSP website once during Orientation. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina I took a seminar in ESG about New Orleans. One of the guest speakers was Larry Vale, the head of the Urban Studies Department. His talk put the department in the back of my mind. Second semester, I took 14.01 and 14.02 because I thought I wanted to study Economics. I found a UROP doing some course 6 and course 2 type stuff, but that didn't work out so well. I looked through all the course requirements and noticed how many course 11 classes seemed interesting. Of all the majors, DUSP would allow me to take the most classes that sounded neat while still letting me get a degree. I soon found out it was a lot more than that. Urban Planning was just the multi-disciplinary course I was looking for, where almost everything we do is centered around making the world in which we live a better place.

Kaitlyn McCartney Course 2: Coming into MIT, I was pretty sure that I wanted to be a Mechanical Engineering major. My whole life, I have been fascinated by the ocean, and when I saw that MIT offered courses in Ocean Engineering, I decided I had to try it! Taking 2.011 – Intro to Ocean Science and Engineering my freshman spring convinced me that this was what I really wanted to study. I was able to get a UROP at MIT’s ocean engineering lab, Sea Grant. Spending the summer doing research only encouraged my interest in my chosen major. Last summer I worked for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. I got to go to sea for six weeks with one of their remotely operated vehicles, the Jason II.
MIT offers a variety of sub-divisions within each major, and I strongly encourage exploring these opportunities! Whether it’s a full semester class, or a subject offered during IAP, or even a UROP, MIT gives students of every level ample opportunity to figure out what interests them. You may discover something you are really passionate about, and we all know it is easier, and a lot more fun, to study something you love!

Ted Fernandez Course 3 with a minor in Course 2: When I initially applied to MIT, I was 100% positive that I wanted to major in Biological Engineering. Everything about it intrigued me; the challenge, the mixture of biology and mathematics, and the general idea about doing something important all made me sure that that’s what was meant for me. I remember speaking to a lot of upperclassmen, trying to figure out what would be a good major for what I wanted to do. So I switched to Course X, Chemical Engineering. I took classes like Organic Chemistry later that year and found that while I enjoyed it, I still felt as if something was missing.At a time when I was even less sure of what I wanted to do than before, I found Course 3, which is Material Science and Engineering. This was a major I had not heard a lot about, because most students don’t come into the school with it in mind as their major.  I interned in a lab this past summer working on (coincidentally enough) Biological Engineering. Just do what interests you in college because you only get that experience once.

Kelli Pointer’s Course 20 and 9: Ever since I can remember I have always wanted to be a doctor. In high school I had decided that I was going to major in Biomedical Engineering and then go to medical school. My freshman year all my friends wanted to major in Chemical-Biological Engineering, so I jumped on the bandwagon figuring it was the next best thing to Biomedical Engineering. I was also interested in Brain and Cognitive Sciences when I came to MIT, because I either want to be a cardiovascular surgeon or a neurologist. I realized that if I majored in Chemical-Biological engineering I couldn’t major in Brain and Cognitive Sciences because Chemical-Biological engineering is a really structured major that doesn’t really leave room to choose your classes. As the deadline approached to choose a major, I decided to look at the curriculum of the different majors that I was interested in, as well talk to different people in those majors. Ultimately, I realized that what I was truly interested in was Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering. Since you can only declare Biological Engineering midway through your sophomore year, I declared Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Currently I am double majoring in Biological Engineering and Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Both majors are really flexible and the classes are really interesting. Do not jump on the bandwagon and chose a major because everyone else is doing it. Pick something that you truly enjoy and your experience at MIT will be much better.