Research Question:

Why are there so many students in universities with undeclared majors and why should we help
them?
Research shows that 20 to 50 percent of freshman students have not selected a major
course of study in universities. I want to know why there are so many incoming freshmen that
have no idea what they are going to do with the rest of their lives. Most of these students that do
not select a career pathway end up leaving the university. These students feel lost and
pressured to quickly choose a career that may not like in the future. It is key to choose a career
wisely. These students will then have to sit at a job they don’t like for at least 40 years because
no one helped them find a career that they really enjoyed. These careers are our future. How
would you like it if someone who wasn’t passionate or well-educated in their job were to help
you? It just doesn’t sit right with me that there are so many students that don’t know what they
want to dedicate their life to. They shouldn’t be afraid to experience different career options or at
least ask for help in searching a career.

Researcher Intentions and Positionality:

I personally had a difficult time choosing what I wanted to spend my life doing. Years ago, I had
what I wanted to do in mind, but things changed and it was hard to tell myself that it was okay to
change my plans and my mind. After that, I thought I was set when I chose my major. I was
confident that my plans weren’t going to change and that I finally found what I was going to do.
However, it never really sat right with me. This past semester, I sat through these classes and
found myself bored. I had a completely different idea of what it was in my head and what I was
doing was boring to me. My high school career pathway made it fun, but the university made it
feel more realistic and less fun to me. It was a difficult pill to swallow knowing that I had to
change my plans again. I had already thought my life out and told my parents and family
members what I was going to do and it felt weird knowing I was going to change my mind again.
I always thought that changing your mind looked unprofessional and stayed away from it. I also
realized that I chose this career for the amount of money that came with it, not the passion that I
had for it.

Research Terms:
I do not think there are any research terms that need to be clarified.

Research Methods:
I intend to research several reasons why there happens to be so many freshman students
without a designated course of study. I want to elaborate on the research that I find. I want to be
able to add to the research with my personal experience on why I felt lost without a career
pathway for some time. Most of my research will consist of textual analysis meaning most of my
research will be from books, online articles, basically anything that can be read. I want some of
my research to be from sources that I know. I can conduct a survey to help with my research. I
also plan to hold some interviews from students that I know to help with my research. I can
conduct research on students that are currently undecided, students that were formally
undecided, and adults that wish they had chosen a different career pathway when they were
young.
Importance/Significance of Conducting this Research:
As I’ve said before, this is important to me as I was once lost and undecided on which career I
wanted to choose. This can have such a negative impact on your life. This affected me
everyday I was undecided. I felt as if I was never going to find anything that I would like or even
find anything at all. It is so discouraging when you see every person at the university
accomplishing things you feel like you’re never going to have. I know that when I was
undecided, I felt as if time was escaping from me. The more time went on, the more
discouraged I felt. I would lie awake thinking of different careers and deciding if I would like
them or not. If I decided I did, I would Google questions relating to the career just to check if I
wanted to pursue them or not. Most of the time, this would come to a dead end. I rarely found a
career worth pursuing and when I did, I would sit on the idea and it wouldn’t feel right. I would
go back to thinking I should give my career another shot, but I was already convinced it wasn’t
for me. It was only when I wasn’t looking for the answer when the answer found me. I was
actually on the phone with my counselor when I was telling him how much I loved being around
my nephew and how much patience I had for him when my sister had none. I told him that even
when I was small, my aunts and uncles would leave me their children for me to take care of and
I loved it. I loved playing teacher when I was younger. None of this clicked to me until he told
me, “you know, you would make a great teacher.” When he said that I got excited. I mean, how
come I didn’t think of that myself? I would love to be a teacher one day. And who knows maybe
I’ll change my mind again in the future, but I have never been this confident in a career for
myself. I want to research this question further to help students who are undecided now and
need a little bit of help or even students in the future. These careers are our future and they are
not given an ounce of help with deciding.

Works Cited