Exploratory Areas for Undeclared Major Exploration
No Major? No Problem!
To guide students' academic choices and help them investigate majors that align with their interests, strengths and goals, the Advising Resource Center (ARC) at NDSU has developed five Exploratory Areas: collections of academic majors that can lead to a variety of careers in a related field.
Students who do not have a declared major are academically advised by professional staff in the ARC and enroll in a first-year experience course with other students interested in the same Exploratory Area. The student's academic advisor is almost always the instructor of that first-year course, allowing students and their advisor to get to know each other over the course of a semester and beyond.
NDSU's five Exploratory Areas are:
- Business Studies
- Health and Life Sciences
- Liberal Arts, Communication & Design
- Social Science, Human Services & Education
- STEM
Within an Exploratory Area, students are advised to take a variety of general education courses that tend to cover requirements common to most of the majors included in the Area. Additionally, students work with their advisor to identify and enroll in a course that can serve as an introduction or a foundation to a major that might be of interest.
