I think your line of thinking is correct. At UF, you typically don’t have to “declare” a major until you apply for an upper division college. However, each college has different prerequisites for admission. To be in engineering, you need to take math and chemistry pre-reqs during your first two years. To be in journalism, you don’t. At a minimum, they will help you choose freshman classes appropriate for the desired major at Preview, UF’s freshman orientation program.
Theoretically, you could take pre-reqs for “liberal arts” and not choose a major within that college until after acceptance into the upper division liberal arts college.
Where things get tricky is when you change paths after taking specific pre-reqs. If you have three semesters of chemistry classes and then change your major to History, you have “wasted” time and money.
UF doesn’t require you to declare a major right away, but to get through on time, it helps to have a plan.