University of Washington Seattle

Office of Admissions

• Freshman
• Transfer
  • Plan Your Transfer
    • Equivalency Guide
    • Academic Planning Worksheets
    • Transfer Credit Policies
    • Plan for a Major
      • Tools for Choosing a Major
    • WACAS
  • Review Requirements
    • Core Subjects
    • The Transfer GPA
    • Enrollment Goals & Priorities
    • English Proficiency for Admission
    • Homeschool Policies
  • TAP: Transfer Admission & Planning
• International
• Postbacs

Consider these ideas when making a decision about your major:

• Explore and examine your interests
  • What courses and areas of study sound interesting?
  • What classes do you enjoy the most?
  • What types of jobs or careers appeal to you?
  • Pay attention to your passions.
  • What do you value in work? Examples: helping society, working under pressure, stability, working alone or with groups, and having a positive impact on others.
  • Many college career or counseling centers have a variety of tests to help you answer these questions – Check them out.

• Assess and examine your abilities
  • What are your strengths?
  • What are your challenges?
  • What kind of skills to you have?
  • What have been your best subjects?
  • What extracurricular activities do you participate in?
  • What kinds of things have you learned from part-time or summer employment?

• Take a proactive role in exploring possible majors.
  • Read about different majors at the UW in the online Catalog.
  • Investigate careers. What majors lead to them?
  • Talk to professional in fields you find interesting.

• Start Preparing
  • Take classes required or recommended for your major. See Academic Planning Worksheets for each major.
  • Plan a program of study with your advisor.

• Reality Check
  • Honestly evaluate your options. Example: Do you value medicine and have an interest in being a doctor, but have little skills in science?
  • What will you do if your first-choice major doesn’t work out?
  • Develop a back-up plan, if necessary.

Tools to help you explore

The Undergraduate Advising Center, the Gateway for premajor and preprofessional advising, offers the following major and minor information:

• Choosing a Major – Information on UW majors and minors

• Double Majors and Double Degrees – How majors and degrees work at the UW

• Preprofessional Programs – Information on Premedicine, predentistry, pre-veterinary medicine, and prelaw

Transfer eNewsletter

• Transfer eNewsletter – A quarterly electronic newsletter for transfers

Career Tools

• Making the Most of Your Major – UW Career Center information sheet

• What Can I Do With A Major in… – UW Career Center information sheets representative of career paths associated with majors

• U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Outlook Handbook – Training, education, earning, and working conditions for hundreds of jobs