Would it cost money to change your major before actually starting it?

Hi Sheree,

I'm not sure how far along you are in your college education, but how soon you change your mind can make a big difference. There's a lot of General Education requirements that all students need to take regardless of major. Typically that's about 1-2 years of your initial college education for most programs. I highly recommend starting with your General Education classes and perhaps taking one or two courses related to majors you're interested in. This will give you time to figure out what you really want to major in! I recommend checking your graduation and GE requirements for your college and state. My experience is based off of Pennsylvania and California.

Once you actually start pursuing courses in your major it can get a bit trickier. If you're changing majors to a similar field you might be able to transfer lots of your credits over so you don't lose any progress. The most expensive changes in major will happen when you've already taken a couple semesters AND you're changing to a completely different major where none of your credits will transfer. I changed majors a few times, so it took an extra year for me to graduate! Luckily when I switched from Military History to General Studies in Arts/Humanities, a lot of my credits still transferred over.

If you change your mind before starting you should, in most cases, be okay! If you're changing schools too though, that can really impact cost too!

Gina

Sheree,
I found myself having the same question when I was thinking about my major. Here's what I would say, based on my experience - it honestly depends if it will cost money or not. I had originally thought I wanted to be a physical therapist and applied to a number of programs at various schools. As it got closer and closer to having to make a school choice, I decided I didn't know that I wanted to be locked into that choice. I opted to turn down any school that had "locked me in" to a program/department as a part of my admissions acceptance. That left me with more liberal arts based schools to choose from. I ultimately decided to get a business major and having the ability to use my first year to get general credit courses made this easy to then get specialized after I had thought further about what I wanted. My parents always told me I could study anything I wanted and take as many courses as I wanted, but that I had to graduate within 4 years. There were some semesters that were busier than others, but I was able to study what I wanted and take additional courses without it ultimately costing me more. Looking back, I think it would have been much harder to have started in a very specific program field and then changed my mind and would have come with additional time at school that would have meant more money for my education. I hope this helps!
Christa