Freshman Center
First-Year Insight
Spring 1999
Helping Your Student With "Major" Choices
A Realistic Look at First Semester Grades
Helping Your Student With "Major" Choices
For most freshmen, second semester is considerably less stressful than first semester was. Most of the big questions: "Can I handle the work?" "Will I make friends?" "Am I going to fit in?" have been answered by now. Still, for many freshmen one important question remains: "What will my major be?" As of this writing, 121 freshmen are listed as "undeclared." Not reflected in this number are the many students who declared a major upon enrollment but have since had second thoughts about that decision. As we approach the spring advising period, these students will be soliciting advice from their peers, professors, advisors, and families. When you discuss this matter with your Berry student, keep the following in mind.
Don’t assume choosing a major means choosing a career. What do Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and astronaut Sally Ride have in common? All three have undergraduate degrees in English. The conclusion to draw from this bit of trivia isn’t that you should major in English if you have ambitions of someday presiding over a major entertainment conglomerate, sitting on the highest court in the land, or traveling in space. Rather, the point is that an undergraduate major isn’t the surefire predictor of future career that many people think it is. It’s true that some majors are better preparation for certain kinds of work than others; however, relatively few undergraduate majors lead directly to a specific career. Career goals should certainly be one consideration when choosing a major, but by no means the only one. And be advised that employers in any field will be as interested in what a potential applicant can do as in his or her college major.
Skills Matter. When thinking about a major, students should consider not only their interests but their skills and talents as well. How will the major help them capitalize on their natural talents and develop skills that may be weak? In a recent survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, employers ranked communications skills as the most important personal characteristic they sought in potential employees. Other important characteristics included work experience, motivation/initiative, teamwork skills, leadership abilities, technical skills, analytical skills, and ethics. Students considering a major should ask professors and upperclassmen how the major will help them develop as writers and speakers. They should also inquire about internship and co-op opportunities in the major, and projects that will give them practice working with others and using the latest technology in the field.
Think of a major as an intellectual home. When students enter a major, they begin a concentrated course of study that will become increasingly focused and increasingly demanding. They’ll be going to classes, working on projects and probably socializing with other students as well as with professors in that discipline. It’s important, therefore, that they enjoy not only the work but also the people with whom they’ll be spending so much time. If a student is drawn to a major because of genuine interest and curiosity about the subject, chances are he or she will feel at home with peers within the field; on the other hand, a student who enters a major not out of real interest but because he or she thinks it will lead to a high-paying job, for example, or to fulfill parents’ or teachers’ expectations, may feel out of place and uncomfortable.
A good choice is an informed choice. Encourage your student to make use of the information resources available on and off campus. Berry professors and advisors are always willing to share their expertise. Upperclassmen in the major can offer a student’s perspective. The Career Development Center in Krannert Center holds a wealth of information about majors and career planning as well as tools and services to help students assess their own interests and abilities. The Center will conduct a workshop in March called "Making a ‘Major’ Decision." Any undecided student would do well to attend.
A Realistic Look At First Semester Grades
Of all the adjustments students undergo during the first semester of college, becoming accustomed to new academic standards is surely one of the most difficult. Over 65 per cent of the class of 2002 had a high school GPA between 3.5 and 4.0. After one semester, just XX per cent fall into that range. Students and their parents may have been surprised by fall semester grades somewhat lower than they’re used to seeing on high school report cards. Be aware that a decline in grade point average is not unusual. A national study of individual student’s grades found that almost half of them earned lower grades in college than in high school, one in three earned the same grades, and only one in five students earned higher grades.
The reason for this decline is explained in part by the fact that the demands are greater in college, and the competition is stiffer. Students used to being at the top of their classes now find themselves in a group of equally capable, hard-working, and serious peers. The very qualities that may have made a student a standout in high school are now considered "average."
A second factor behind the difference between high school and college grades is the pervasive national problem of grade inflation. The tendency to assign higher grades for lower performance may give many high school students an unrealistic idea of what is required to do well in college. In 1966, college freshmen who had high school averages of C or below outnumbered those with A averages by 2 to 1. In 1998, just the opposite was true; twice as many college freshmen reported high school averages of A- or higher as those with C’s. Before we conclude that today’s freshmen simply took their high school education more seriously than did previous generations, consider the fact that in 1966, college freshmen reported studying an average of XX hours a week during high school; in 1998, freshman reported spending just 2.8 hours each week doing homework.
The problem of grade inflation is not limited to high schools, of course, and professors at Berry face the same pressures as their colleagues at other schools to assign B’s and even A’s for mediocre work. Most Berry faculty, however, are committed to setting high standards for their students and grading them realistically on their performance. "New students seem to think that if they turn in the assignments on time, attend classes, and demonstrate a reasonable effort, they’ll get a ‘B’," according to Dr. Emily Wright, assistant professor of English. "I tell them right from the beginning that I consider that average or ‘C’ work. To earn a ‘B’, they have to do better than average, and an ‘A’ means exceptional work--beyond my expectations." For Dr. Wright and other Berry professors, maintaining high academic standards is a way to ensure that students get all they can from college. "I’ve found that the more you challenge students, the better they perform," says Dr. Wright. "I set high standards in order to elicit their best work."