More than 70 of the majors offered at Iowa State will be on display at the majors fair Tuesday.
Strategically placed during the mid-point of the semester, the fair gives students, especially underclassmen, a chance to check out the majors offered across Iowa State’s six academic colleges before registering for the spring semester.
“As we get into registration, it seems like the perfect time, because freshmen generally have still two or three weeks where we could move them over to a new major and they could get advised by the new adviser,” Erin Valerio-Garsow, assistant director of academic advising for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and unit adviser for the open option team, said.
The class registration period for sophomores and freshmen is after the first week of November, allowing students time after the majors fair to do more research.
Valerio-Garsow is in charge of a section of LAS 101, an eight-week orientation course for open option students.
Students in the orientation course have had an opportunity to view majors across the university, and the majors fair gives students the opportunity to see an array of them again before finishing the half-semester orientation class.
LAS 101, in short, is to make sure students understand what the majors are and what they entail. “I would say a good 40% to 50% pick their major by the time we’re done with the majors fair,” Valerio-Garsow said. “What we’re trying to do is give them opportunities to see as much as we can.”
The majors fair, which has about 70 majors slated to attend, is an opportunity to explore the majors offered across campus and to meet those who know the most about each major,” Valerio-Garsow said.
“[Departments] bring their teams and the students can kind of wander through and talk to people about, what is it like to be a business major… what the nuances are, is this the right major for me?” Valerio-Garsow said.
Iowa State has more than 110 majors and more than 110 minors, with more on the horizon.
“We just really want to get in front of them all the awesome things the six colleges offer at Iowa State,” Valerio-Garsow said. “We’re not just engineering or business, we have a lot of different opportunities and we want to make sure people know what they are.”
The majors fair is for anyone to attend, even those who have decided on a major. Some students learn more about minors or additional majors at the fair.
“Anybody can come in, because who’s to say there’s not somebody that’s a junior and is like ‘I think I want to get a minor. Well I don’t know anything about this.’ Well, this is your opportunity,” Valerio-Garsow said. “Anybody can come and go talk to people, and frankly, I would love to see other people there because it tells me that we’re providing a service that can be useful to people outside of the LAS 101 community.”
Valerio-Garsow’s class has more than 300 students and she expects more than just open-option students to attend the fair, which she called a “one-stop-shop.”
Students often attend the majors fair and realize they are only a few classes away from a minor, or maybe a couple more away from a major, Valerio-Garsow said.
As an adviser, Valerio-Garsow said she has heard concerns from open option students about graduating in a reasonable amount of time or if they are on the right path.
“I think the biggest concern is ‘am I doing this wrong?’ Absolutely not,” Valerio-Garsow said. She encouraged students to learn more about majors and take the necessary time to choose one. “If you’re going to be doing this for the next 30 years why not be happy with what you pick.”
In addition to resources such as LAS 101 and the majors fair, Valerio-Garsow expressed the importance of finding mentors and asking questions, “I think Iowa State does a nice job with setting students up with a lot of places they can ask questions, including each other.”
Asking questions and learning more about the paths others have taken is important, Valerio-Garsow said, “I always think it is very smart to talk to people who are going down a similar road, and or something that you’ve never even thought about, but maybe there’s something in there, a nugget, that you’re going to pick up that you like. Everything can be a resource.”
Ultimately, the fair is about finding success and helping those who have not decided on their major, “I think it is really cool when we can hold hands with the other departments and other colleges just to say it’s just as important for us that these students find success but find their major, it doesn’t need to necessarily be in LAS.”
