Journey Mapping

For this blog post I interviewed Mallory Jones about her journey to pick a major. For her, the process has been full of ups and downs and she thinks she had more trouble with it than most people she knows, who really didn’t switch majors half-way through college.

Mallory is a current Marketing senior from the Woodlands. She is the oldest of three siblings and her parents are both attorneys. She is 21 years old and is very involved in school through different organizations. She is high achieving, type-A, and smart (not just book smart, but street smart too). She is well liked, and she used to care a lot about what people thought of her. In my opinion, that has changed a lot since freshman year when I first met her.

Below are the results from the interview. I have taken my notes, analyzed them, and grouped her experiences into four stages. I will explain these stages and how they fit into her overall journey.

Young Dreams

This stage includes everything before beginning the process of applying to college. From dreams of becoming a veterinarian to play with puppies all day, to some more serious thoughts of becoming a doctor to save lives.

For Mallory the first serious consideration she gave to a major was when she decided she wanted to do pre-law. It was only natural- lawyers on TV were incredibly successful and so were her parents. She felt fairly confident in her decision, which makes sense since the decision is far away. It really is just a dream and the reality of what it entails had not sunk in yet.

College Decision

As things started to get more real and time to apply for college came, Mallory started to change her mind. Law school seemed like a great goal, but a liberal arts undergrad just didn’t seem like the smartest decision. She didn’t know how committed she was to grad school, and if that was the case, her bachelor’s would not be very valuable in the current economy.

So she threw herself into research. Once she decided to come to UT, she looked at rankings, and salary statistics, and lots of numbers that led her to the decision to major in business at McCombs. At the time she was feeling very confident in her decision- she had spent a lot of time researching and had the data to back up her decision. And as a plus, she could still apply to law school later on if that’s what she wanted. At this time she wasn't thinking of a specific major within McCombs. Majoring in "business" seemed to satisfy her and everyone around her. 

Go with the Flow

This is an overwhelming time for Mallory and it spans from her first to her third semester at McCombs. She is getting used to college life and feeling a lot of pressure from her peers and McCombs (whatever that means) do declare certain majors. She applied to BHP, because she realized how big of a deal it was. When she was not accepted into the program she thought that the only way to remain competitive was to major in Finance.

Influencers during this time period are varied. One one side peers who major in BHP/Finance (they tend to be the majority and/or the most vocal), then there's Career Services highlighting great Finance jobs, there’s the structure of the honors program that made her feel like a second-class citizen when she did not make it, and you have her own insecurities and worries. All of these make her forget about what she really enjoys doing, or what she will enjoy doing after graduation. This is a stage where Mallory is not in touch with what she really wants, but is more concerned with what she SHOULD be doing.

Re-evaluation

This stage is full of anxiety and big decisions. The main influencers here change. Peers are still important but she starts listening to other peers, who may be fewer, but talk to her about things that interest her and start open her eyes to new possibilities. Professors are also a huge influencers during this stage ,as are the classes she’s taking- both for positive and negative effects on her journey. Her first Finance, Marketing, and MIS class happen during this period. For Mallory this stage happened between her third and fourth semester.

Her confidence level here is at its lowest point during the journey, she is re-evaluating her entire four-year plan.

The Switch

Mallory takes the brave decision to switch majors, and it’s a stressful process. She has to answer questions from everyone about why she changed. Professors and the course curriculum (taking her first Marketing class) are again, big influencers in her decision. She goes through recruiting successfully, but now without a fair share of frustrations. Her confidence level increases but is still not at a 100% and it’s still an adaptation process and an acceptance one as well.

Developing a Passion

Through her upper-division classes, having an internship and throwing herself completely into the study of Marketing, Mallory reaches complete acceptance and confidence in her major decision. She has a clearer idea of why she picked it, why she loves it, and what she wants to do with it. Furthermore, she’s an advocate for it.

Influences shift from being mainly internal to her world to completely external- that is media outlets, online publications, blogs, news, internships etc. She proactively looks for influences in her life that inspire and help her learn more about the subject she's passionate about.