Quote Originally Posted by BKS
Maybe someone can explain something about American universities to me-do you not have to decide what you're going to do your degree in before you start the course? Can you change it part way through? This is what deciding on your major is about, yes?
The degree doesn't really have to be declared for a while. For most people, they have to take general requirements for what ever college they're going in to: such as Letters and Sciences, Music, Business. These requirements are pretty "general"() and can be met in many ways. So, a lot of people only have a vague idea of what their intended BA or whatever is going to be in. BA's or other degrees have certain requirements too, some general and some specific classes. Otherwise, you can mostly take what you want and there is a wide variety of ways to meet your requirements. In this system, you can take a lot of classes that are unnecessary for your intended major. I like it, because I can take things that I'm interested in like physics, chemistry, economics, and astronomy which are unrelated to my majors, philosophy and political science, although for some people, there are requirements in their college's schools, L&S, Music, etc., which would generally encompass these, but one can test out of general classes, and take AP tests in order to meet those requirements prior to entering university. L&S is generally a huge college that for archaic reasons includes everything from philosophy, poli sci, math, sciences, languages and many other things, but ultimately its up to the universities how to split it up. I'm not sure if that would help answering your question, in case I got it wrong, but my crazy rant is done.