A quick guide on what to do if you’re feeling stuck when it comes to choosing your major, from a fellow student.

It’s your first year of university, and you’re confronted with a random checklist consisting of foreign suffixes like “isms” or “ologies.” Some may seem familiar, and even primed to you from previous exposure to high school classes like biology, chemistry, physics, history or English. Yet, some are undoubtedly foreign – like who in their right mind has heard of hydrology or paleobiology before coming to university?

So you ask: which should I choose?

Well, the good news is that choosing a major can be an easier task than you think. But to do it well, you will need to put some effort, thought and research into tailoring the best fit for yourself. This will help you in not wasting time and money, like the many students that have decided to switch majors partway through a degree.

First, I advise students to decide between the two fields of STEM and Humanities, because their introductory classes vastly differ. Switching between subdisciplines is easy, but making a leap between these two main fields will be much harder. 

Next, go look at different majors to check out the required courses. On the Arts and Science website there are links to every course, and inside is embedded their catalogs and syllabi from previous iterations of the class. Click through a few of the syllabi and check out  the content learned in each class.Do some further reading on what interests you. Another great option is to browse through one of the wonderful open publications you can access through your USask account, such as JSTOR. Glance through these and see if anything jumps out at you.

Once you find content that is of interest to you, it’s a sign that the field would be a prospective one for you to engage in.To do something long-term and to do it well, most people need their job to be at least mildly enjoyable and mentally stimulating.

However, it’s important to weigh other considerations for your major, because additional factors may supersede the importance of interest; namely, money.

In an optimal world, money and interest shouldn’t conflict; it would be nice to attain high amounts of both, and if you have, then kudos to you. But unfortunately, in our market-based economy, where certain jobs are just at a low demand, you might need to sacrifice pay for interest, and vice versa. Which one needs to be prioritized is up to you – that’s the part where you need to engage in self-reflection.

Ask yourself: is job security and a larger paycheck more important to you than interest? If so, that probably means you need to opt for a career that yields a high-employment rate post-graduation – even if your interest isn’t as high there. The majors with the highest employment rates include medical professions, while Arts degrees land on the other end of that spectrum – much to my dismay as a political studies major.

Once you have narrowed it down to choices that align with what you seek in a career, it’s time to try out the required classes for the major. 

And pro-tip from someone who has been through hard classes: make sure you try your absolute best, because your maximal personal performance can test whether you will actually excel and develop in the field with your current intellect and skillset. 

For example, if you don’t do well in physics, despite trying your hardest, you may want to cross out physics as a major if you are using it as a stepping stone for grad school (sorry, just being pragmatic). 

Lastly, take my comments with a grain of salt. After all, Ijust finished my second year of university, so I’m still figuring out how to navigate  the scenery of post-secondary studies as well. But these are some lessons that I have gone through, and I hope they can help you if you’re feeling stuck. 

I hope this helps you in deciding on a major. And, most importantly, welcome to your first year of USask!