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Writer's pictureAswan Harris

Here’s Why You Should Volunteer As You Declare Your Major

It’s that time of year and fall semester is coming upon us. You happily took a gap year and you're excited about your first year in college, or maybe your well into your college journey already, but you have yet to declare a major. You desperately want to be sure your picking a field that you would enjoy, after-all, We all dream of having lustrous long-term careers don’t we?. You want to have more than a job, right? Isn’t that why you chose to further your education in the first place, in hopes to earn a degree that would eventually pay for itself, and then some? Declaring your major without a doubt will have a tremendous impact on your life. Whether you know it or not.

Most students declare a major, sometimes pressured by their peers, or parents for that matter, just to find out later down the road, they don’t enjoy their major or no longer feel they want to be in the career of their major; so, they switch their major, often 3 or 4 times before deciding to stick with the third or fourth choice. Volunteering isn’t just for people who purely want to do good deeds, or feel good about themselves. It’s often a good place to start when you as a college student, simply are not sure of what you want to do or be as you start adulting.



Trying to decide on a college major
A stressed out college student

If you're anything like me, or hell, most people in this world, more than likely you have a wide variety of career fields, activities and subjects that interest you. The good news is, THAT’S NOT A BAD THING! There is one key element that I truly believe if you go in with the right intention, it could pay dividends in keeping you from wasting time taking classes that you end up not needing and will keep you from switching your major every semester. What key element am I referring to? . . . . . Volunteering of course.

The Benefit of Volunteering

4 amazing things happen all in one act, when you decide to volunteer.

  1. You end up doing a good deed in your local community.

  2. You gain real life experience.

  3. You become a step closer to picking a major.

  4. It makes you employable.

As you can see, although you may be volunteering for a selfish reason initially, the mere fact that you are giving your time away to a cause is still considered to be a good deed; and quite frankly something you should be proud of.

Furthermore, volunteering your talents in a potential career field allows you to not only see the day and the life of being in that respective field, but it also allows you to obtain other talents. After volunteering a few times, you might see a slight shift starting to occur in your perspective. You will come to find yourself reverting back to a tactic that you have committed every time you took a quiz or test (Process of elimination). What’s the best way to eliminate anything that you know not to be true, and in this case, something you don’t want? By dabbling in it to see if you like it or not, I mean, that’s really what you're doing when you decide to volunteer at a company that has jobs that is currently interesting to you.

You go in, you do the job, then ask yourself, is this the kind of work I can see myself doing day in and day out, and if you don’t see yourself living that kind of life, then you know more than likely, you can scratch that major off your list of possibilities; then you move on to the next one, and then the next one, until you hopefully come upon the major that educate you in a career field that you will be ecstatic about having.

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers staff (NACE), “nearly 91 percent of employers responding to NACE’s Job Outlook 2017 survey prefer that their candidates have work experience, and 65 percent of the total group indicate that they prefer their candidates to have relevant work experience.”

For more information on this, read “Employers Prefer Candidates With Work Experience

The Hypothetical Scenario

Let’s say you go on to graduate and you receive your Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in dental hygiene, but you decide you now want to go into social media #marketing. If you chose to volunteer in the social marketing field throughout your college journey, that would have instantly given you a leg up on the other college graduates that applied for the same job because they chose not to volunteer in the social media marketing field. Although you spent 2-4 years obtaining a (BS) degree that is “rendered useless.” By essentially doing your homework (due diligence) you still put yourself in a position to succeed. this should be motivating.

At The End of The Day


You’re going to need to declare a major regardless, so why not kill the 2 proverbial birds with one stone? You’ll gain some real work life experience that employers like to see on a resume, and you graduate sooner by discovering your major more expeditiously.

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