review of literature
The concept of being undecided about ones major, after graduating from high school is becoming increasingly common. Moreover, a study showed that more than half the students who come in with a declared major tend to change their major at least once in there four years of college. Therefore it can be inferred that even the declared students aren’t sure of there paths. This shows that the two groups of students are somewhat similar. However, there is a major difference in the personality traits between the two groups. According to a study, the undecided students are considered to be more anxious, dogmatic and dependent, also they have lower self-esteem and grades than the students who have already declared there major. (Gordon)
Another research showed the two factors that were related to indecision were “locus of control” and “fear of success”. (Locus of control means when individuals attribute the occurrence of events to internal factors i.e. ability, skill and effort or external factors i.e. luck, chance and fate). This study showed that students who were undecided had external locus of control i.e. they felt powerless to control events and felt that ‘vocational plans’ where dependent on luck or chance, thus spent less time in gathering information about their courses of interest and making decisions related to their major (Karen M. Taylor).
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Another interesting discovery I have made during my research has been that students with declared major do not necessarily know as to what career path to take up (Orndorff and Herr). The study also showed that that most students, especially freshman and sophomores didn’t have enough self-understanding and career awareness to make educated career decisions. Taking this study in consideration I feel their is a need for career development assistances in colleges to make students more aware of the career opportunities available to them.
The third prognosis made by me during the research has been that a lot of time the students that are coming in with decided majors have had the decision made for them either by parent or society pressures and this tutored decision can lead to stress and can be overwhelming for the concerned student. A study conducted by Virginia Gordon, found that pre-commitment to a particular course before coming to college due to parental or societal pressure, deprives the student from going through the important developmental stages that are involved in decision-making. At this juncture I would like to quote Steve jobs, who in his commencement speech at Stanford said, “Stay hungry, stay foolish” by this he urges the students to keep looking for that one thing that they are most passionate and should not be pressurized by external factors like family and society to chose ones major or career path. He concludes by saying that everyone should keep looking for what they truly like and should compromise for nothing less. |