Major, Double Major, Minor, Double Minor? Or Honours?

As my second year here at UBC draws to a close, I am confronted with a difficult but honestly, kind of exciting predicament. I.have.to.choose.a(or two).major(s). While in reality, it is not a big deal, since a)I can always switch and b)all it will say when I get my diploma is “Bachelor of Arts, x major” and since Arts (and other faculties too!) are so interdisciplinary, where I can get an Arts degree and get a job in the Commerce department (and vice versa), it doesn’t really matter. However, at this point in time, I feel that it is a big deal-I will be paying for this education and spending a huge chunk of the next two or three years of my life on.

There’s good and bad involved with being here at UBC, which is an amazing school with a vast number of departments, and hence, freedom to choose. When I first entered UBC, I thought that I was going to definitely major in History, because that’s what I loved (and still do!). But high school social studies exposed me to only a little of what the social sciences encompasses. Last year, I enrolled in the Global Citizens stream of the Coordinated Arts Program (CAP) because it appealed and interested me most. Courses included Geography, Political Sciences, Arts Studies, and Sociology. I really liked it and people who took Anthropology 100 kept telling me that I would really like it. Guess what? I took some Anthropology this year and fell heads over heels for it. Now, instead of following my end-of-year-1 plan of majoring in Political Sciences, I feel torn because of Anthropology and I’ve been taking some Sociology too! Plus, I really like Human Geography. At the same time, I’ve been recently talking to people (unintentionally) who are in Honours programs and having to write 30-something pages and spend long sessions working on a thesis and paper sounds pretty exciting to me.

The choice is going to wind up being the one I make-people can help guide me (like my friends, acquaintances, Arts Advising) but I’m the one who will fill out the application forms and press submit. But one of the lessons I’ve learned here at UBC is that sometimes, the most overwhelming, loneliest experiences of your life can wind up being one of the best paths or doors that open for you. And even if you feel like you failed, just pick yourself back up again. Just ask that girl who walked into her first Political Sciences, Anthropology, Sociology, African studies, and Geography classes not knowing a soul and feeling that no one wanted to talk to her. That girl is me.