Every year, 20 percent of freshmen at Iowa State enroll as open-option students. Many others enroll within various colleges, yet still undecided on the exact major they want to declare.

With the end of the 2018-19 academic year approaching, many undecided students are coming to a turning point in their decision-making process.

One student, Katilynn Peterson-Stoenner, a freshman studying both child, adult and family services and psychology with a pre-occupational therapy focus, enrolled at Iowa State this past year with a few options in mind. 

“I knew I wanted to do something with people with disabilities, but I was also interested in studying medicine,” Peterson-Stoenner said. “I was going to declare special education, but they didn’t have that as a major, just an endorsement.”

Among the range of courses taken as an undecided student, American Sign Language was one of her favorites, said Peterson-Stoenner. 

“It was nice to be able to take interesting classes to decide what I wanted to study versus just taking general education courses … doing so helps you discover areas you’re interested in rather than just studying the basics,” Peterson-Stoenner said. “I really loved the LAS college advisers as they helped me combine my two interests of special education and medicine and helped me declare my career path.”

Shaive Reza, a sophomore studying aerospace engineering, began his career at Iowa State as an undecided student considering a future in both engineering and computer science. 

“I took courses towards engineering,” Reza said. “I think that decision was made [subconsciously]. All my life I have been around people who are engineers, so I thought ‘this is something I wanna be in the future as well.”

After realizing that studying computer science wasn’t what he wanted to do, Reza then tried his hand at a handful of different ventures.

“I started working at Tesla as a machine operator,” Reza said. “[I] met Elon Musk [a] couple times, and after two years of working there, I realized I [didn’t] want to limit myself to one thing or major.”

After exploring many areas of both study and work, including starting his own business, Reza has decided to study aerospace engineering.

While some undecided students come into their first year with little-to-no idea of what they’d like to study, others come in with too many ideas. 

“I was all over the place with my interest,” said Heather Wolf, a freshman studying English. “I thought about being a designer, going into science, trying out engineering, doing something in English or being a buyer for a clothing company. For me, I had too many ideas while some open option students have no idea. I think I was lucky in that sense.”

She took a variety of introductory-level courses while continually returning to the drawing board to consider what it was that excited her before deciding on English as her area of study.

“With the help of my family, I researched things I could do related to those things [that excited me] and came up with a bunch of ideas,” Wolf said. “[I] researched what was required for schooling for those careers, and it came down to communications, English and journalism. I’m focused on English right now, and I’m seeing where that takes me.”

Whether they enroll with a variety of ideas about their potential area of study or are not so sure, Iowa State’s open-option and undeclared students are making headway in the decision-making process.