If you’re anything like me you’ve recently been doomscrolling on coursetable trying to craft your schedule for next year. You’ve also probably come to the horrifying realization that maybe it’s time to think about choosing your major. But fear not, I’ve laid out a simple step-by-step guide that outlines the process of crafting a four-year-plan. Coincidentally, it looks a little something like the five stages of grief…

• Denial: Think you have a clue 

You probably came to Yale with one of two plans: you thought you knew exactly what to major in or you were ready to brave the liberal arts exploration, expecting to find your passions here. I arrived firmly believing that I’d be an English and Theatre double major, and it seemed entirely straightforward. So I took Directed Studies, basked in my humanities-only schedule, and put no real thought towards my academic trajectory. I skimmed over the list of other majors, I collected pamphlets at the academics fair that ended up in my recycling bin. The logistics and requirements of a major slipped from my mind. After all, why should I even think about my major, I’m just a first year! Inevitably, you tell yourself you’re on track and think you have all the time in the world.

• Anger: Realize you, in fact, have no f**king clue what you’re doing

On Monday, March 24, I get an email:

“Yale Course Search is Open for Fall 2025.” 

I think, “How delightful, I can peruse next year’s selection of interesting and fun courses!” 

How ignorant I was. 

Yale course search quickly descends from a leisurely browse to an academic spiral. You’ll find a course that looks fascinating, but you haven’t taken its prereq — ok just take that course instead — no wait, that prereq has its own prereq. Don’t forget about fulfilling your distributional requirements! You’ll look for a gut in one of the skills you’re missing but for some reason they all have 2.0 ratings, are capped at 12 students, and are at 9:00 a.m… on Fridays… on Science Hill. Nevermind that, what about getting your major requirements out of the way — but are you sure you actually know what to major in? 

This stage is all about the crashout. Sorting out your classes will start to feel monumental, and somewhere in that chaos the deeper anxiety will set in: picking a major feels both impossible and imperative. It reaches a peak when the What Ifs hit: What if I end up hating my major? What if it’s unemployable? What if I’d be happier, more successful doing something, anything else? Everything is falling apart. 

• Bargaining: Try to make things work

In response, you’ll start to get crafty. This is when you’ll have twenty tabs open: all the roadmaps for majors you’re interested in, a plethora of courstable ratings and Canvas syllabi. You’ll add a million things to your worksheet, maybe even have a Google Sheet to catalog the major and distributional requirements you need to fulfill. You’ll question everything you thought you’d decided on and convince yourself that you’re capable of doing anything. You like animals enough, what about E&EB, no wait, psychology, everyone likes psychology! Or what about a double major, would that make your film degree more marketable? Or should you get a certificate? At one point you’ll decide to make your own Special Divisional Major — but then you look it up and lose all interest. You tell yourself: this isn’t spiraling, this is planning. 

• Depression: Giving up 

Now you take it all in: your Coursetable is an utter mess, your dream classes are impossible to get into, every schedule you’ve made would either academically or emotionally kill you and declaring a major is still looming over you. To make matters worse, when you finally close all of your course selection tabs in defeat, you’re left with all the homework that you put off. Even worse, you’ll remember that finals are in three weeks. That seals the deal, time to give up! How could you put thought into next year’s classes when you haven’t even survived the hardest part of this year’s?

• Acceptance: An epiphany hits

Finally, the panic will settle. Not because you’ve figured anything out, but because you accept that maybe you aren’t supposed to quite yet.

I spent high school following the philosophy of always living in the moment. I had no dream college, or dream job, or grand plan. I worked towards maximizing everything I had going at the present time. I didn’t go to Bulldog Days because it would mean missing some important last few days of high school. I don’t regret it. That way of living brought me joy and landed me here. 

However, I’ve since learned that living purely in the moment isn’t sustainable, especially as you get older — but neither is mapping your entire life out. Both will leave you lost, one floating, the other frozen.

So, here’s my advice: don’t have a four-year plan but do start to ground yourself in reality. 

Talk to upperclassmen you know, reach out to professors, shop classes, take stock of the courses that excite you and that you need to take. Don’t get married to any major after one date, be comfortable to let it change — maybe even several times. Accept that you’ll miss out on things you wish you could study but also will fall deeply in love with the things that you do. 

You don’t have all the time in the world, but you do have a lot more than you might think — 

unless you’re a second-semester junior looking to change majors, reading this piece in an attempt to bring yourself comfort — in which case, I do recommend you maybe start panicking a little more.