I’m a senior at a small high school, and I’m a National Merit Semifinalist, but I’m the only one in my current year who has qualified, and cannot contact the qualifier (who ultimately won the scholarship) last year. However, I want to study cognitive science as a major, and there is no mention of it on the list given for selection. Should I call it psychology? Linguistics? Biological sciences? Computer Sciences? The occupation choices are similarly lacking (I want to be involved in software engineering, but more as a consultant than an actual engineer) but I’m really agonizing over the major choices. Knowing that whatever choice I pick will not be accurate, which one should I use?
Do you have a school in mind that offers this major? What department is it in? Use that designation.
Don’t sweat this…the choice doesn’t matter AT ALL for the NMF process. You can put Psych if you want…or whatever. No one holds you to it. Don’t agonize…just choose whatever you think might fit best for your major and career goals.
Seriously, you could put nursing or art history and it wouldn’t matter.
Well, I want to go to MIT, but I’m fairly sure that they put it into the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department. I’ve also looked at Rensselaer, and it’s under its own category in Humanities and Social Sciences.
Interdisciplinary fields that are more often graduate areas of study do not have to be decided in advance. I would put Bio, but you could put psych or any of the other areas. CS didn’t used to be an undergrad major either, it was math or EE, so pick one. As they say, don’t sweat the small stuff. No one becomes a consultant except by underlying experience or getting hired. You don’t know what you will get hired for or if one thing leads to another. Maybe there is a box for future CEO or something?
I’m also a NMSF planning to major in CogSci, and I just selected “Other” because it wasn’t listed (& because I plan on a double major). If you don’t feel comfortable selecting a major you don’t actually plan to pursue, you can always do that.
Okay, thanks! It’s nice to meet someone else into CogSci… Where are you applying?
My top choices right now are Smith (they only have Neuroscience, but there’s a CogSci certificate program with the 5-college consortium), RPI, and Oxy.