A student’s choice of major can shape the rest of their lives — and yet research shows their picks can be swayed by something as simple as scheduling a particular class too early in the morning.
Students bring their belongings into Elkton Hall at the University of Maryland in 2018. By Andrew Van Dam Andrew Van Dam Reporter focusing on economic data Email Bio Follow March 29 When you pick a college major, you’re setting the trajectory of your entire career. Yet this life-altering decision can be altered by something as trivial as what time of day you took the class, or what you happened to be studying when the deadline for picking a major arrived.
This held true regardless of how well a student did or how much they liked the course, according to the economists’ analysis of U.S. Military Academy class data from 2001 to 2015. Their database included grades, class times and students’ opinions of the course. It allowed them to control for factors such as students’ hometowns and racial backgrounds.
Given how easily a first choice of major can be swayed by accidents of timing and environment, it’s perhaps not surprising that 37 percent of students eventually switch, according to a new paper from University of Memphis economists Carmen Astorne-Figari and Jamin D. Speer that will be published in the journal Economics of Education Review.
Where do they switch to? Students tend to switch to less competitive majors. But the breakdown by gender and test scores reveals a surprising divide: “Men and higher-ability women are not deterred by competitive majors, but lower-ability women are,” the economists write. “If anything, lower-ability men are less deterred by competitive majors than higher-ability men are.”
Why do they switch? Major-hopping students aren’t just seeking a better match for their academic strengths. We know this because switching doesn’t improve students’ grades, even when they’ve moving from a competitive subject to an easier one.
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