College is all about finding yourself and your passion in an almost endless pool of possibilities. A major aspect of that development is declaring a major. For a lot of people this can be difficult and take time, especially for first-gen students because we do not have a family or generational route that we can take and instead we must carve our own. The best advice is always choose something that you love and are highly passionate about. Do not choose a major solely because it will help you get a high paying job. The saying rings true that you must find a job that does not feel like work. So, the first step in doing that is finding the right major for you.
I was lucky enough to choose a major that I fell in love with in my freshman year. I met with my counselor in the summer before my first fall semester and declared myself a biology major. I thought about this choice a lot since biology is very challenging. I made this decision based on a few things that I found important. I did some research and found out that a biology degree was a pretty versatile one for career opportunities, and there are a lot of concentrations you can pair with it such as health sciences, environmental sciences, teaching, biotechnology, and more. I also went off of my high school experiences in my classes, I was good at AP biology and writing. You may not think that writing is very important for biology, however lab reports an scientific article assignments would prove otherwise. For all of these reasons, I concluded that I would try biology for my freshman year and if it was too hard or I just was not all that interested I would talk to my counselor about other options. Luckily, I found myself fascinated with the biology and chemistry lectures and labs and could not imagine liking anything else, especially since I had gen-ed (general education) classes at the same time that I was not as interested in, except for my Writing and Rhetoric class. I knew going forward I made the right decision and I still feel that same way as I go onto my senior year.
My suggestion is to think about a few things that you like from high school and do some research on how those strengths can be applied to a major. In addition to that, take a fair amount of gen-eds your freshman year so you can get a feel for your liking of classes in different majors. These gen-eds will probably entail a writing class, art class, math class, and history class. Maybe you are an accounting major, but you were obsessed with your Intro to Shakespeare class! It is always an option to tack on a minor too, which is very common. There is always a job for everyone so do not fret if you choose a major that is deviating from the path you intended on, just find something you are passionate about.