A ‘blind box effect’ appears in freshmen’s professional perception: 87.5% feel there is a discrepancy between reality and imagination

Freshmen have been attending classes for some time, and their understanding of the major is gradually changing from a name on the application form to real experience in classes and assignments. For some freshmen who didn’t know much about their major before, this feels like opening a major “blind box”. How do they feel about this?

Recently, a survey of 1,334 first-year students conducted by the China Youth Daily Social Survey Center (wenjuan.com) showed that 87.5% of the first-year students surveyed felt that there was a discrepancy between the actual professional situation and their own assumptions, and the contrast was most obvious in terms of learning difficulty and depth of knowledge (48.6%).

A quarter of the first-year students surveyed said that the actual situation of their majors is very different from their expectations.

Qiu Tong, a freshman at a vocational college in Jiangxi, had her first choice to major in law, but due to a slight difference, she was transferred to the social work major. "When filling in the major, except for my favorite law, I mainly relied on the advice of my brother who was studying in college and the high school teacher. I didn't know much about it." Before the formal class, her understanding of social work was still based on the stereotypes of "social worker" and "good old man who persuades peace". "After studying, I found that the dimensions of career development are multi-dimensional and three-dimensional."

Zhang Lulu, a graduate student at Jinan University, majored in tourism management for both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees and has plans to apply for a PhD. It is hard to imagine that the major she is now pursuing in her academic career was not her first choice at the beginning. "Tourism management was the last 'fill-in' major I filled in that year. Before enrolling, I saw a lot of information on the Internet asking people to quit. I wanted to change my major, but after taking the class, I found that I was quite suitable for this major."

Zhou Jing, a sophomore at Sichuan University, majored in history in her freshman year, and majored in archeology in her sophomore year, both of which she liked. "I used to think that I could learn it well if I liked it. But later I discovered that studying history and archeology requires reading a lot of documents, and you have to be calm and calm. Since I have an outgoing personality, I have to put in more effort to learn it well."

Opening the "blind box" of majors, 87.5% of the first-year students surveyed felt that there was a discrepancy with their initial assumptions, a quarter of them bluntly said that it was "quite big", and one-eighth of the first-year students surveyed felt that it was "basically consistent."

There is no perfect major, look at major selection rationally

Qiu Tong admitted that she had always felt that social work was not very professional before, but after studying it, she discovered that "it involves many subjects: sociology, history, psychology... It is not easy to learn it thoroughly."

What aspects of the major you are studying make freshmen feel that there is a contrast between what they expected? In the survey, learning difficulty and depth of knowledge ranked first (48.6%), followed by professional core research areas (43.5%). Others include: classroom teaching format (36.4%), requirements for independent learning ability (36.1%), matching with personal interests/personality (35.3%), subjects involved in majors (34.1%), basic knowledge requirements (32.2%), etc.

Jiang Jianrong, an associate professor at the Zhou Enlai School of Government at Nankai University and an expert on career planning for college students, pointed out that students in high school know little about careers and fail to establish career aspirations. They choose majors based more on social evaluations. When you get to university, the learning environment and methods are completely different. In addition, some students are influenced by the concept of "just go to college" and mistakenly believe that studying in college is easy. However, the reality is that college still needs to solidify theoretical knowledge and apply theory to solve real problems. This creates a contrast between expectations and reality.

Zhang Lulu once specifically understood the school's policy on changing majors, and also carefully checked the basic information on Chinese International Education, Chinese Language and other majors. After learning more about it, she changed her mind. "I found that every major has people who want to quit, and some of the reasons are the same. This made me suddenly realize: there is no perfect major." As a "experienced person", she reminded the freshmen that every major has advantages and disadvantages. If you blindly reject it just based on other people's voices or stereotypes, it is easy to fall into another "trap." "A 'good major' in the eyes of others may not be suitable for you."

Among the first-year students surveyed, 32.2% came from “double first-class” colleges and universities, 55.4% came from ordinary undergraduate colleges, 10.5% came from higher vocational (junior college) colleges, and 1.9% came from others.

(Shao Yuqian also contributed to this article, Zhang Lulu and Zhou Jing are pseudonyms)

China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Du Yuanchun