<p>In the Princeton Review book, it says that you shouldn’t go to Wash U if you’re undecided. Is this true? I was 99% sure I’m going there, but then I read that which makes me a little nervous. Thoughts?</p>
<p>EDIT: I mean completely undecided as to what major I want to pursue.</p>
<p>Well, I’m going there, and I’m pretty much undecided (I know I want to study some part of life sciences, nothing more specific than that). From the impression I received on my campus visit, it seems fine. Plenty of advisors, and you don’t need to declare a major for a while. Sorry I can’t give a more first hand response…</p>
<p>Are they talking about undecided about the school or major? WUSTL expects you to go to a specific school when you go there.</p>
<p>@Texaspg, it wasn’t very specific. From what I’ve heard though, it’s easier to switch schools at WashU than at many many other institutions.</p>
<p>You have to decide on a school, but transferring in between divisions is very easy. I would say that at least half of my friends changed their majors once they got here, so you don’t have to be dead set on something before you come at all.</p>
<p>I know sooooo many people who came in undecided.</p>
<p>It really isn’t an issue.
I don’t know where princeton review is getting that from (for what it’s worth, I’ve read a lot of really not true things on pr before).</p>
<p>Thanks @Johnson 
I’m considering switching to engineering from artsci, but I can take classes in other colleges right? Can I maybe take an intro engineering class or two before switching?</p>
<p>The thing is, my friend who is a freshman at washu switched to engineering during the summer the switched back to artsci after first semester with no problem. I was very surprised to read that in PR.</p>
<p>You can take classes in any school, regardless of where you’re enrolled. </p>
<p>Personally, I’d suggest switching to engineering if you’re considering it at all. Engineering has a far better support system and advising than artsci does (imo).</p>
<p>As it stands anyway, engineers are actually required to take 18 artsci credits (humanities and social sciences) anyway, and that’s not including chem, math, physics, etc.</p>
<p>If you decide later on that engineering isn’t for you, you can easily switch into artsci. (Engineering also allows you the opportunity to test out of writing 1 - if you switch to engineering now, you may be able to avoid that stupid class; if you switch to artsci later, it’s not a problem… you’d just take writing 1 as a non-freshman).</p>
<p>To further elaborate, freshmen engineers pretty much all take the same classes:</p>
<p>Calc, Physics, Chem (bme, chemE; others take it sophomore year).
And potentially the intro engineering class, depending on which engineering discipline.</p>
<p>There is definitely room for humanities/ss classes your first semester.</p>
<p>I completely disagree, I think WashU is fantastic for someone who is undecided!
I came in probably one of those most undecided freshmen ever, lol. Over the summer I thought I wanted to do Bio, when I registered I though I wanted to do Economics, by the time classes started I was in Archaeology, and by second semester I had transferred to the engineering school, where I am now very happy in my major and dont plan on switching haha. Washu makes it really easy to take a broad range of courses like I did so you can find what you want to study by trial and error, and transferring between schools is easier than most places.</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, that Princeton Review thing came from a part where they were talking about the student body - they were saying how sometimes it feels like everyone here is pre-med/has major life goals/knows exactly what they want to study. Which is true for some people, but on the other hand there are still tonnnns of people who are still figuring this out.</p>
<p>If you have any questions about this or transferring between artsci/engineering feel free to pm me</p>
<p>I would argue that if PR says that, they probably don’t have much credibility. It is incredibly easy to switch majors here. I have a friend (who graduated on time) who started in architecture for ~2 years, decided he didn’t like it that much, and then switched to BME. He is now getting his PhD elsewhere. It takes like ~1 day (perhaps less) to switch majors (I hear there’s a form), and there are no real quotas (I guess a soft quota would be fitting a section, ie. a lab section, into a schedule). I remember hearing that engineers for example, used to declare physics major to get into 197 (before the class was expanded), then redeclare to get advisors within their departments. I’d agree that you can start either way, but that it benefits you to start engineering. Most engineering departments have more prereqs. No matter what, you can easily switch Sophmore year or partway in Freshmen year etc. and still finish on time, but your senior/junior schedule might be so packed, it’d be difficult to take uber cool electives. Versus if I a sophomore engineer were to jump to art sci (say to be a chem major instead of a BME) I could almost graduate early (there’s a few reqs that would keep me here with an easy senior year in my theoretical scenario).</p>
<p>I just want to straighten out the difference between the colleges/schools and majors, being undecided, and what this means for freshmen at Wash U… since I have a feeling that a lot of people just don’t know how things work, or are getting misinformation from random places.</p>
<p>Wash U has five colleges. Architecture, Art, Art Sci, Business, and Engineering. They have separate deans, separate faculty, and separate course listings. As you will see, there is a high degree of interaction amongst them. Personally, I’ve had one Econ teacher that also teaches in the Law School at Wash U, and am going to be taking another course taught by a B-School professor who teaches in Art Sci, too. All five colleges are on Wash U’s main campus, although they have their own little quads and each’s buildings are generally clustered together. </p>
<p>You are not accepted into a specific Major. You are accepted into one of the five colleges, but you aren’t like accepted as a pre-med student or as an Econ major. You choose your major(s) based whatever classes you choose to take during freshman and sophomore year that interest you. In Art Sci at least, you declare your major(s) no later then 2nd semester Sophomore year. It’s probably roughly similar in the others. Declaring your major is simple. You basically fill out a form, stating a very general “plan” of what courses you intend to take, and have your advisor sign off on it.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to double major, you can at the very least take classes in another one of the colleges. Wash U allows any student to take any class – of course, some have prerequisites, but they tend to be for logical things (i.e., you wouldn’t want to take a 500 level Bio course if you weren’t a Bio major, and you wouldn’t take an advanced Painting class if you hadn’t even taken intro art classes yet). The course registration system is exceedingly simple in this regard. You don’t need special approval to sign up for classes in other colleges. </p>
<p>You can have more than one major at Wash U. Again, this is because your major ends up being whatever you say it is after you’ve taken some relevant classes in Fresh and Soph years. There are very few limitations on double majoring — the only one I’m aware of, is that if you are not primarily a student in the Engineering School, the only second major you can have within Engineering is Computer Science. Other Wash U students can correct me if this is inaccurate of if there are other limitations. Generally this doesn’t pose a problem on campus that I’ve ever heard of: Art Sci is the general liberal arts college, so if you wanted something more specific (i.e., any one of the other four colleges), you probably would be primarily in that specific college by common sense anyway. You can completely switch out of, and into another, college. Anecdotes show that this is easy to do. </p>
<p>It should be clear that this means it is rather easy, and commonplace, to be undecided at Wash U. No one comes in with a major declared or imbedded into their person. Thus, all Wash U freshman are undecided in that sense. I came in wanting to major in Econ and International Studies, but am pretty sure I’ll end up doing Econ and Poli Sci, possibly minoring in something else in Art Sci or business generally. You don’t have to tell anyone about changing your mind, as you were never anything to begin with. </p>
<p>Hope that cleared things up a bit.</p>
<p>Flashmountain, that did clear a lot up or at least clarify what I already thought was true before reading PR. Thank you so much! I think I will most likely be attending WashU next year, but I’m still going to visit Tufts this week :P</p>
<p>I also wanted to clarify real fast that you can change your major even after second semester sophomore year when you have to “declare” a major. And you can easily still graduate in four years if you do that, ESPECIALLY if you have really diverse interests. I started out as a music major, then switched to bio, then switched to chem, then switched to international studies - and because of the flexible ArtSci distribution requirements (Language and Arts (LA), Natural Sciences (NS), Textual and Historical Studies (TH), and Social Sciences (SS)), by the time I even switched into my International Studies major (in which classes are mostly TH and SS), I had already completed my LA and NS requirements. ALSO, I’ve still been able to take a TON of extra NS and LA classes my senior year just for fun Oh, and I studied abroad for a semester. </p>
<p>I also have tons of friends who are cross-majoring between schools or who have switched between schools.</p>
<p>I’m probably reiterating a lot, but in my opinion WashU is one of the BEST places to go if you’re undecided because of our really flexible distribution requirements. If you’re still concerned, feel free to PM me, though. The only thing I’d be concerned about if you’re undecided is coming up with a plan for what you’re doing once you graduate - but that’s more self-discipline and learning how to be more decisive in general about life than anything else - at least that’s my own personal issue that I’m currently confronting now that I’m a month away from graduation and still don’t know what I’m doing with my life. Good luck to all of you and of course I hope you come here!</p>