What are my chances of changing my major from undeclared social science to education?

Its extremely easy to change your major. Just a form and a couple of places to go on campus. Sometimes its as easy as clicking things on a computer. Your friends are full of crap.

Yeah, I agree with @klutzaroo. The college is not going to care…it just means you’ll be spending more money there because you will have more classes to take. More money=happier college. Good luck!

@yankeetooter This kid hasn’t even signed up for classes yet, they’ve just applied. So there won’t be any extra money as of yet. And its still extremely easy.

Ah…

The only reason I can think of why you might have trouble changing your major would be if the desired major was impacted. And I doubt Education would be. I wouldn’t think hordes of people would be rushing to become Education majors these days… ;-)

Erm… it’s your education, you can study anything you want.

Changing your major is as easy as talking to your academic adviser and filling out the proper forms. Helping you through the process is what they are there for.

Just enroll in classes geared towards your new major. It’s not difficult at all. I know people who changed their sophomore year, and their junior year too. They’ll just have to spend an extra year to finish. If you’re a freshman no one is even going to care.

Changing your major now would only be an issue if you were switching Colleges within the University.

UC Davis has four colleges; you will be in the College of Letters and Sciences. It would only be problematic if you were trying to switch to the College of Engineering, the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, or the College of Health Sciences.

When you start in the fall, get your classes, find your way around, and second or third week of the quarter, wander over to the Dean’s office and file a change of major.

Do yourself a favor and never listen to your friends on stuff like this. They have no idea what they’re talking about. There are too many people at the college who know what they’re talking about, whether they’re faculty or staff or senior students who have been there a while and done most everything there it to do, to listen to those who don’t. Also, the college website is often very helpful and has loads of information.

@zenvelo So then is it not simply an issue of paperwork if you’re changing colleges within the university?

At UCD, you’re accepted into a college. Some let you transfer in, others are a bit more restrictive. But @hsjh is considering different majors that are in the same College. That’s easy peasy, just file the paperwork.

@zenvelo And then transferring into a college is basically reapplying like you did the first time around?

@MyNewtBoobs Not necessarily, because you are already enrolled at the University. But it depends on what you are wanting to transfer into.

At other major Universities, changing colleges is about as easy as changing majors. They’re not all like UCD. At most universities, you’re accepted into the school itself as a whole. Generally, being accepted into a college, or changing a college, is just as easy as changing a major.

Sometimes, however, whether you’re accepted into a major (or a college) has to do with the level of demand for that major (or college). Even with high demand majors, all a student is really doing for the first two years is clearing core courses off their plate so it hardly matters what the major is declared as just so long as prerequisites are being taken. Being accepted into an individual college sometimes isn’t even possible until the junior year. For example, at the University of Georgia it is nearly impossible to get into Grady, the journalism school. You have to apply once you have completed a certain number of hours, you can’t just walk in and declare what journalism major you want (you can be pre-journalism until then). But it isn’t even an issue getting into the College of Ag, the College of Arts and Sciences, or most others on campus because they’re not restricted. At other schools there are other things that are hard to get into. Nursing, for instance, at many schools is difficult to get into. But most majors, and colleges, at most schools are not.

Most students start out in a college they think they want to be in or the general Arts and Sciences college. There are very few people who don’t consider (or actually change) their majors throughout college. Its not hard at all to do, even if you’re changing colleges unless you pick a high demand program.

@klutzaroo So how to you find out if a university lets you change colleges like majors, or is like UC Davis and is more restrictive?

@MyNewtBoobs The college’s website. There’s a whole FAQ section on most of them, sometimes found by clicking “help” or sometimes by going to the registrar’s site. Depends on the site. You can also call the general college number and talk to the person they’ve got transferring calls. Or pretty much any departmental secretary on campus. There are about 100 ways to get this information if you just look.

thanks everyone for the responses! :)