By Blake Hollingsworth | Reporter
So, you’ve decided to attend the Hankamer School of Business. Welcome aboard! Now, here comes the hard part: choosing one of the 13 majors that best suits your interests, skills and personality. The business school offers a wide variety of specialties, including various types of management, marketing and selling.
While having an abundance of options is certainly a positive, it can also be overwhelming for those who haven’t discovered their passion yet or those who are interested in multiple areas of the business school.
Two of Baylor’s HSB advisors, Amy Rhodes and Shelly Chudej, as well as Baylor alumnus Shawn Thakkar, who graduated with a degree in marketing, shared how they recommend freshmen handle the seemingly daunting task of picking a major.
The most important part of choosing a major is to enter freshman year with an open mind, as many students — business students included — don’t major in exactly what they thought they would when they first stepped foot on campus. According to Rhodes, 62% of HSB students either double major or minor in something, combining various interests.
Chudej said it’s OK to major in something you may not have even thought about yet.
“One of my other jobs, in addition to advising, is working with prospective students that are visiting Baylor,” Chudej said. “And so I talk with a lot of high school students, and my feeling is they only know the tip of the iceberg. So I just think having an open mind is really important, because their frame of reference is what they’ve done in high school or maybe what their parents did.”
Additionally, there is no need to know your major immediately. Freshman year is meant to be a time to experiment and simply soak in information to use when finally picking a major. In the business school, because there are 13 majors and three certificates, Rhodes said it’s almost impossible to know what you want right away.
“I think sometimes students today feel this pressure to figure that out even before they arrive, and really, the process hasn’t even started, because so much of what you’re doing is gathering information while you’re here on campus but also just seeing what material really resonates with you and what you feel excited about,” Rhodes said.
Part of the experiential nature of freshman year is the classes themselves. In the first two semesters, HSB students typically take BUS 1101 and BUS 1201, both of which offer practical knowledge about the world of business and a taste of all of its many facets. Additionally, one can discuss options with an academic advisor or head to the Career Center in Sid Richardson for additional resources, such as career assessments.
Most importantly, just relax and enjoy your freshman year. The right major will present itself to you as long as you pay attention. Plus, even if you have a change of heart, the core business classes are virtually the same for all majors. As long as you pivot to that new major rather than forcing yourself to stay put, it shouldn’t delay your graduation date.
“Obviously, try to first pursue what you like because you want to enjoy what you’re doing,” Thakkar said. “But at the end of the day, don’t stress too much about your major because you can easily change within the business school. You’re taking the same core classes for the most part, so just go with your gut because there’s a lot of flexibility.”
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