College at Northwestern is already tough. The course load, the fast pace, the clubs. It's a lot. Now imagine figuring out your career path on top of that.
Yep, that's pretty tough. From the Daily Northwestern, I'm Erica Schmidt. This is Digital Diaries, a weekly podcast following the college experience and asking students a question about life at Northwestern. Welcome to the first episode of season two.
We hope you had a restful break. This week's question is, what's your experience with picking a major? Sophomore Brian Barrens is an undecided transfer student from Loyola University Chicago. Barrens says he sees a silver lining in being a transfer student.
I've already been in the trenches working towards a degree that I do not want or like I'm not interested in. So that has helped kind of shape my viewpoint and mindset in that regard. But he still sometimes feels like he is at a disadvantage. I'm not going to be here for the four years that everyone else is.
And I don't think I can reap the benefits of the quarter system as much as students who are going to be here for four years will, because it's another thing that's advertised is the academic flexibility of the quarter system. After two years at Loyola and Northwestern combined, he is still unsure what exactly is the right major for him. I feel like there's a certain pressure that we have to know exactly what we want to do with our life despite our life not even being a quarter of the way over. Hopefully, knock on wood.
And it definitely makes it more difficult going to college because you feel like you're working for a degree that doesn't exist because you don't have a major. It gets very disheartening when people are like, oh, you have so much time to choose. Like you, you're gonna be fine. Why is it so disheartening for Barrons?
Because of its popularity at Northwestern, Barrons is now considering economics. Before, he only considered political science or Spanish. We have 12 percent of our whole school getting a degree in economics. And I couldn't help but think, why can't I do that?
But then on the other hand, it creates the question of, well, because so many people are doing it, how am I going to stand out? How am I not just another white male in econ? So that that's really kind of like the two sides of my brain firing off. And I think the culture has definitely contributed to that because I wouldn't have ever considered an econ major before coming here.
Never, ever, ever, ever. Like economics probably wasn't even in my vocabulary before I came here. So my only requirements are anything but STEM. That's my little like catchphrase.
Sophomore Lizzie Desois is also undecided and wishes she knew her major. I really envy the kids who know like exactly what they want to do. Like some of my friends last year, like in my dorm were like hard set with engineering. You guys didn't know what I want to do.
And I did feel pressure last year, but I definitely think it's eased up this year because now I have like a more solid idea of what I do want to pursue. Her struggle to pick a major is partially due to high school, a time when she never got to explore her passions. I didn't really take classes, like in high school that were kind of geared towards, like kind of my interests. I didn't really know what they were, but more towards like getting into college, like taking APs and stuff.
It's like a lot of kids at Northwestern also like did, you know, a bunch of APs. So coming to college, I thought going in and declared was the best decision just because I had no idea what I wanted to do. Over the past year and a half, Desois satisfied her distribution requirements while also weeding out her major choices. Last year, I started taking like STEM classes, like computer science.
I thought that could be a good route just because I thought I was interested in it and I was like good at math and like science. That's kind of like, that was kind of my thing in high school. But after taking a couple of computer science classes, I thought maybe this is not for me. Like Barron, Desois is impacted by Northwestern's intense pre-professional culture.
Like sometimes at Northwestern, the mindset is kind of geared towards like the money that you make after college rather than what you're actually passionate about. Despite the push to declare majors that typically lead to high paying careers, Desois is most likely declaring a major in English by the end of this quarter or in the spring. Do you have any advice for students on campus? If you're going to be doing something that you're going to hate for the rest of your life, don't do it.
If you're doing it for the money, don't do it. You have one go around on this planet. And even though I'm in crisis, like nine or eight days out of seven days in the week, I am comfortable knowing that when I do choose a major, that it will be something that I enjoy. Desois says it might be beneficial to take the time you need to decide your major.
I would definitely say, especially for freshmen, if you don't know, definitely just take your time to explore different things because it just, it really helps because you're going to find stuff that you really like. And like, again, more importantly, things that you won't like. So I think even like eliminating things is easier than like choosing something. So to anyone who may not know their major yet or wants to change it, you are not alone.
From the Daily Northwestern, I'm Erica Schmidt. Thanks for listening to the first episode of season two for The Daily's Digital Diaries. This episode was recorded and produced by me. The audio editor of The Daily Northwestern is myself.
The digital managing editors are Joanne Hainer and Ella Tunji Osho-Williams. And the editor in chief is Alex Perry. Make sure to subscribe to The Daily Northwestern's podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or SoundCloud to hear next week's episode on Monday.