Major Selection

Getting In

In order to continue my education at UW, it was impervious that I get into a major. After going through multiple classes from different majors, I finally found my place within Electrical Engineering and later on in the Physics department. To get to this point, there was a lot that I needed to work on, especially myself, and the whole process taught me a lot about myself and my values.

Being a part of these majors required a lot of work and dedication towards academics, but even more so on myself. Getting to this point has helped me build organizational skills, professionalism, time management, and responsibility among others. Having the opportunity to learn from the best will help me absorb as much knowledge as I want while having multiple opportunities to put theory into practice. This knowledge will help me prepare for grad school and eventually for when I enter the work force. Furthermore, the importance of lab work in these areas of study has helped me work on my leadership skills and helped me work on understanding group dynamics. Through the obstacles that I passed to get here, I believe that I have helped others learn, be more mature, and made those around me better and more prepared.

The experience of getting in has helped me develop skills like :

Research – Having to go through multiple STEM majors to hone in on these two required a lot of time and understanding on where I stood academically and where my goals lie. Making the most of all the resources available for students required selecting when to go to which advisor and when, and which classes to take to show my commitment and my strengths. For example, making sense of all the different advisors and what each can offer me was a tough task but after asking people about it and looking into department-specific advisors, it helped me find the advisor that could guide me best based on my interests and goals.

Evaluation – It was important that I understood what I can achieve and where my strengths lie. Looking at what classes I did well in and where I struggled and understanding how to make the most of my abilities through the years required a lot of evaluation which lead me to see where my strengths lie and where I can make the best use of them. For example, knowing that I have done well in the introductory calculus classes, deciding that I want to take more calculus classes was an integral part of how I got into my majors.

Self-Understanding - At the start, I didn’t know what I wanted to do or what I will be studying, but that was not a sustainable way of thinking. Taking different classes and being honest with myself about what I enjoy, what pushes me, and what strokes my curiosity was an important step to understanding what I wanted to do and how I want to do it. Learning more about myself was the first step that I needed to take in order to be where I am today.

Receiving Feedback – Hearing back from professors, advisors, and peers from class helped me develop an understanding of what I need to do better and the areas that I am good at. Understanding the perspective others have of me helped me align myself with my goals and see the ways that I can improve. One example of this is when my professor in EE 215 told me how I could be better at analyzing circuits and before this I thought that I was good, but listening to the things that he said helped me see the mistakes that I could potentially make and made me better at a crucial part of the class.

Productive Relationships – It was important for me to get a taste of what life was like within the majors, and the best way to do so was to talk about it with those already in it. Getting to learn more about the lives of those who study, teach, and know the ins and outs of the majors played a big part in my decision and why I made it. Talking to advisors in the Physics department and learning about all the opportunities that it can bring me built a solid foundation as for why I chose to go into Physics and not another major like Informatics. Even though Informatics was a major that I though was cool, talking to students in the major helped me realize that it would be hard for me to achieve my goals within he major and this pushed me to a better path.