SCREAMING IN AGONY

SCREAMING IN AGONY
A Simple And Practical Guide To Choosing A Major

by Paul Astin

Your major is a very important part of your college experience; so much so, in fact, that when meeting other students or adults who know you’re attending college, the first question you’re asked—even before your name—is “What’s your major?” Linguistic purists may attempt to show their superiority by instead asking the more correct “What are you majoring in?” Should you encounter such a person, sprint in the other direction, or beat them off with your CD collection. Pop, rap, and country CDs are particularly effective.

If you do answer either form of the question, judgments will immediately be made concerning your character, and people around you will act accordingly. Should you declare yourself a math or science major of any sort, you will immediately be invited to study groups, as you are apparently very smart and more than used to doing the jocks’ homework after they beat you up and take your lunch money. If you declare yourself an Engineering major, it is assumed you are male and will be making lots of money. Prepare to be stalked by desperate females, and jocks who want you to do their homework. There is also a BYU-specific major that serves as an equivalent to the Engineering major, but for girls; it is assumed that a woman majoring in Marriage, Family, and Human Development has no interest whatsoever in education; she is here to find a hot guy. She should prepare to be stalked by creepy males. Should you say that you’re majoring in Philosophy, you will experience a long, awkward silence. If you listen closely enough, you can hear your social life yelling for help as it is flushed down a toilet.

The absolute worst answer, however, is to say that you are an open major. If you say this, everyone around you will know that you are timid, indecisive, scared, and wasting your parent’s money at college. People will assume that you hide in your dorm room playing pinball on your computer, only emerging into the bright light to eat in the cafeteria and to go to general ed classes. Other freshmen who know exactly where their life is going, including but not limited to their major, all their classes, their entire career, how many millions they’ll make annually, when they’ll get married and who they’re marrying, when their first child will be born, what college their children are going to, when they’ll have their midlife crisis, and when they’ll retire, will look down on you and avoid the poor, foolish loser. Open majors. Pfeh.

As you can see, it is important to pick the right major, and to pick it NOW, before ANYONE knows that you’re an open major. This is, admittedly, a very hard process known to cause catatonia in freshmen. You, however, have this unique and valuable guide, made by a clueless student for other, equally clueless students!

PAUL’S PATENTED STEP-BY-STEP PICK-YOUR-UBER-MAJOR-NOW PROCESS

Step 1: Get a list of all the majors at your university. Print out two copies of this list and set one aside. You will need the spare later.

Step 2: Look at the list and consider each major. Cross out anything that you have no chance of going into. Keep in mind that freshmen have no idea what they’re going to; because of this, you have to expand your criteria a bit to take into account that you’re useless and ignorant. For example, if you have absolutely no interest in biology, and have never taken a biology course, or if you have taken a biology course and unequivocally hated every second of it, you would normally cross it off the list. Knowing, however, that you’re probably wrong, you should only cross of biology as a major if you have never, and probably will never, encounter anything that has a biological system. By the same token, only eliminate engineering if you have never been near a building, music if you are absolutely deaf and dumb, humanities if you’ve never met one, and psychology if you haven’t learned to discern between yourself and other people, et cetera. Viciously slash philosophy out; it isn’t worth it.

Step 3: Now eliminate any major that doesn’t lead to a job you may find enjoyable. Keep in mind that many jobs, such as engineer, nurse, or architect, absolutely require a major in that specific field. Any other job besides those three either requires grad school, in which case your major doesn’t matter, or can be obtained with any major. If you haven’t already, apply a slightly diluted acid to the area of the paper where “Philosophy” is hiding under all the ink blotches.

Step 4: Look through the list and highlight those that you would enjoy now. For example, if you enjoy reading your English textbook, highlight English. If you think people are interesting to observe, highlight Psychology. Slash out everything you’ve highlighted. Majoring in it would only make you hate it, so why ruin a good thing?

Step 5: After eliminating all majors that don’t apply to at least one person on your planet (step 2), those that don’t lead to some sort of job (step 3), and anything you actually enjoy (step 4), examine the classes required to receive a degree in each remaining major. Your list should be fairly small by now, perhaps around ninety or so possibilities. Attempt to plan out your next two years worth of classes, taking all the basic courses for each major you are still considering. After experiencing the basic level material for each of the few majors you may enjoy, you should be able to “get a feel” for which one truly suits you.

Step 6: Realize that you’ve booked your next four semesters with 178 credit hours each. Realize that a week only has 168 hours. Cry.

Step 7: Retrieve the extra copy of the list of majors. Put it on your dorm’s tack board. Throw a dart at it. Whatever it lands on is your new major. Commence asking people, in a very smug voice, what their major is.



Now, wasn’t that easy? You may be somewhat concerned that you just picked a major using a completely random process; don’t worry, that’s how all majors are initially selected. You’ll find your REAL major after switching your field of study six times, wasting thirty-five thousand dollars in tuition, having several mental breakdowns, and finally being bullied into something your advisement counselor’s Magic 8 Ball says you’d be good at. Until you feel those mental breakdowns coming on, however, feel free to avoid study, because the classes you’re taking have absolutely NO relevance to where you’ll end up.


Open major, in catatonia, and proud of it! 8-)

~Paul