When I joined Ashoka University in 2014, I was sure of majoring in economics. However, while asking my colleagues about the same, many of them said that they were unsure of what they would pursue. Some of them had multiple options in mind, while the others wanted to explore various courses before deciding on their major.
The concept of switching majors after starting college sounded alien to me since I had never heard of universities in India providing such an option to their students. Most colleges and universities in India do not allow students to change their majors. Once a student chooses a particular stream, they have to continue with it throughout their graduation, irrespective of whether they wish to change courses later or not.
“Any effort to change streams meant starting all over again. As a result, even in moments of doubt, you could do little about your choice. I believe that it is better to make mistakes during your undergrad and amend them, rather than after your masters or midway through life,” says Ayushi Gupta, a student of Delhi University.
However, the emergence of several liberal arts colleges and private universities is slowly changing the scenario. Institutions, including Ashoka University, OP Jindal Global University, Shiv Nadar and FLAME University, provide students with the option to change their majors.
At Ashoka University, students have the option to explore different subjects through the various foundation and gateway courses offered. They only have to declare their majors at the end of their third semester. Akbar Surani, a final year undergraduate student at Ashoka University, explains why he switched from computer science to sociology and back to computer science, “Though I really liked the intro to programming course, I did not have any background in computer science, unlike my other batch-mates. Therefore, I decided to pursue sociology. However, midway through it, I realised that sociology was not what I had expected it to be, along with the fact that the sociology department was not great, along with poor career prospects. Thus, I changed back to computer science.”
Public universities too, are following this trend. Jadavpur University, IITs, NITs, Delhi University, and Cluster Innovation Centre provide students with the choice of changing their streams after their first or second year. While the Cluster Innovation Centre (which offers degrees in engineering and social sciences) gives its students the autonomy to design their own degree, Jadavpur University, some IITs and NITs allow students to switch their branches even after the completion of two years, which is conditional on their grades.
Overall, I believe that universities in India should provide their students with the choice to switch between majors, besides also giving them the autonomy to study other subjects as well. The majority of the universities in the US not only allow students to explore various courses, but also to pursue multiple minors and double majors as well.
While it is true that switching between majors may delay graduation and initially affect career prospects, in the end, the benefits will probably outweigh the costs of education if a student finally pursues what they really want to.