I transferred from Arts and Sciences to Engineering

 I like to tell people that it was my dog, Mischief, who chose Tufts for me. The night before deposits were due, I took a shirt from each school I was still considering and threw them across my living room; Mischief brought back the Tufts shirt. While I had been leaning towards Tufts for some time, it took this “sign,” albeit a seemingly meaningless event, to alleviate my indecisiveness just enough to pull the trigger.

It was this same indecisiveness that resurfaced when I was confronted with declaring my major, only one month after transferring into the School of Engineering.

The transfer itself was a relatively seamless process: I submitted my application during orientation week to give myself the option of transferring, spent the first semester deciding whether or not I wanted to go through with it, and confirmed my acceptance over winter break. In comparison with the number of engineers switching into the School of Arts and Sciences, it felt almost like that scene in every action movie where the protagonist pushes through a crowd of fleeing people, heading towards the danger.

For the most part, life in the School of Engineering has been the same as it was in Arts and Sciences. I’m busier this semester, but as a result of more extracurricular activities and putting more effort into my courses, not the change in schools. My social life hasn’t stagnated, I’m involved with plenty outside of the classroom, and some nights I manage to get more than six hours of sleep. The stereotypes about the life of an engineering student—at least the ones that existed in my mind—haven’t held true.

There is, however, one glaring difference between the schools, and that’s when students are required to declare their major: second semester sophomore year for Arts and Science students, second semester freshman year for engineers. The disparity makes sense, as engineering students have enough requirements specific to their major that they must begin taking them first semester sophomore year. In fact, second semester sophomore year is the threshold past which it becomes near impossible to switch engineering disciplines.

For those lucky enough to enter college knowing what they want to pursue, this isn’t much of an issue, but for the rest of students who are less certain—or, in my case, who decided to pursue engineering just a month prior—the gravity of such a decision begs the question: do Tufts and the American schooling system as a whole do enough to provide us with the knowledge and tools to confidently make such a choice? Is that responsibility even theirs to begin with?

The answers, I believe, are no and somewhat, respectively. Tufts offers first semester engineers a range of specialized electives, each focusing on one or two distinct engineering disciplines. While I loved my ES-93 course, it helped me decide my major only by demonstrating that civil and environmental engineering were not for me; valuable knowledge, certainly, but seeing as this was the only formal academic exposure to different disciplines, I was left just as unsure about the rest of my options as I had initially been. I finally settled on a major after discussions with various faculty members and my own research, but even as I write this I’m unsure if it’s the right path for me to pursue.

Acknowledging that I’m an indecisive person at heart and taking responsibility for my own education, I don’t blame Tufts for this uncertainty, yet I feel like the university could offer more guidance towards this decision than it currently does. For example, the value of having an ES-93 course that focuses on just one or two disciplines is evident, but one that offers exposure to most, if not all, majors could be equally beneficial, even if it views each field on an extremely macro level. Additionally, the school offers correspondence with different departments—through dinners and open houses– much more this semester than last, while the opposite would have been more helpful.

All this being said, one’s major is by no means a binding contract or even an accurate prediction of their career. It is, however, a big decision in the academic life of every college student, and therefore one that calls to attention the services a university provides towards making that choice.