The Path to Academic Success Starts Here: Where Will Yours Lead?
Exploratory Philosophy: What We Believe About Choosing a Major
In Herbert, we want students to embrace lifelong learning by starting with the vital process of exploring majors during their college journey. Essential components of this exploratory process are curiosity, self-discovery, growth mindset, authenticity with them self and others, persistence, and being proactive. We believe in students’ ability to pursue, define, and construct their own learning experiences to feel empowered in achieving their academic, professional, and personal goals. As a Herbert Exploratory student, they will go beyond choosing the right major and engage in a reflective endeavor that aims at helping them better understand what is important and meaningful to them.
Outcomes: What We Hope you Gain from this Process
- Self-knowledge – Students will articulate their own interests, skills, values, morals, and other important aspects of their identity as an individual through self-assessment activities.
- Life-long Learner – Students will adopt a growth-mindset to continue learning, changing, and developing as a student, professional, and person.
- University resources – Students will utilize university resources related to self, major, and career exploration to enhance their self-knowledge.
- Networking skills – Students will build relationships and communicate with advisors, faculty, peers, and alumni to enhance their networking skills.
- Decision-making skills – Students will demonstrate their ability to make decisions by applying information they know about themselves with information they learned about majors and careers to choose a major.
- Critical or Analytical Thinking Skills – Students will apply analytical thinking skills to examining their how their interests, values, and skills align with potential majors and careers.
- Career paths – Students will create a list of possible career paths based on their self-knowledge to assist in selecting a major.
- Major Choice – Students will declare a major that aligns with their identity and goals.
The Process: How You Will Explore and Learn
With this information in mind, you will now proceed through the 3 phases of the process: Self Exploration, Major Exploration, and Major Selection to ultimately declare a major. We encourage you to track your process, including what you learn about yourself and Herbert majors, using a method that works best for you. You can write notes in a journal or on your phone/laptop/tablet, create a mind map, draw or sketch, or keep audio/video recordings of your progress. What you learn will be vital in choosing a major and/or sharing with your advisor later in the process!
To start with the first phase, please click here – Phase 1: Self Exploration
