The Observer, November 2, 2007
Volume XL, Issue 9
Quarked: Useful tips on how to choose the major that fits you best
It's that time of year again: the leaves are changing color, the mornings are decidedly chilly, and there's that faint rustle in the air of freshmen brandishing major declaration forms. How exciting! In just a few short weeks you first-years will be able to proudly declare your major to people you meet, and promptly start a friendly argument explaining why yours is clearly superior to that other guy's. You will be undeclared no more!
Of course, odds are a lot of you first-years are not yet certain what major to choose. If this applies to you, here is a brief breakdown of what the various majors entail to help you narrow down the field.
English – Contrary to popular belief, this major is not about living in London and talking with a cool accent – instead, you read books about people who live in London and talk with cool accents. Every once in a while you have to submit a paper where you think up a fanciful explanation for what's going on in the books, and the more crazy your explanation is, the better grade you get. If you can come up with harebrained analyses on a regular basis, you might want to major in English.
History – The point of history is to learn that events repeat themselves. Using this knowledge, you can learn the lottery numbers for the past few decades, pick the ones that have repeated, and thus have good estimate on what numbers to try. If you become a history major you are not allowed to take a class on statistical probability.
Philosophy – Philosophy is the major where you sit around and conclude that your version of red is what I consider aquamarine, the meaning of life involves some sort of sandwich, and cumbersome things like reality do not exist. You should probably major in this if you are failing all your other classes because of drug use.
Psychology – You should major in psychology if you like rats, brains, or even brainy rats. You will spend the next four years of your life systematically concluding that you have every single psychological disease you study. Finally, after you graduate you will get a job where you have to deal on a daily basis with all the people you made fun of in college.
Pre-Med, Pre-Business, Pre-Law – I hate to break it to you, but pre-professional status is not actually a major: it's a state of mind. A lot of people seem to confuse the two and it's starting to annoy me, which is why I mention it here.
Engineering – You should major in engineering if you have an interest in either building bridges or things to destroy bridges. Upon graduation, you will get an awful lot of money because there is always a need for someone to rebuild all the stuff that got destroyed, build more things to destroy the new things that just got rebuilt, rebuild the rebuilt buildings…you get my point. It's an insidiously cyclical system. Engineers are clever like that.
Astronomy – A major in astronomy is for you if you want to spend the rest of your life explaining to people no, you are not a Pisces and no, you don't do horoscopes. This is also the major for you if you can look at a field of randomly distributed points, draw a line through it, and exclaim at your wonderful correlation.
Chemistry – Chemistry is for everyone who is a closet pyromaniac but doesn't want to be charged for arson. I'd say more, but that really does sum it up perfectly.
Physics – Physics is a major for those people who want to sound a lot smarter than they really are, and who want to kill themselves but do it with a bit of style. Further, if you think it would be nice to pass your classes despite knowing only half the material you are responsible for and at times understanding absolutely none of it, be sure to consider physics!
I think that's more than enough to get you started. Just remember this: don't sweat choosing your major, remember that it's more than okay to switch after you've declared it, and enjoy your intellectual romp through academia while it lasts. After all, once you graduate you'll have a regular job complete with bills and loan payments, and who wants to deal with stuff like that?
When not doing something else, Yvette Cendes is a fourth-year physics major.
