I have talked to a lot of first year and above college students, and I have seen a lot of material from colleges, and on of the things that is really interesting to me is the character of the undeclared freshman. The freshmen that I have talked to generally fall into two categories; the first group is made up of those who go in dedicated to one discipline (many of whom change that discipline half way through their freshman year.) In the other group fall those Undeclared freshmen, the image of a lost sheep among other, seemingly more dedicated sheep who will eventually go on to rule the surprisingly complex sheep society.
These freshmen are almost always looked down on very subtly by their superiors, who condescend to them ever so slightly with phrases like 'It's fine, most freshmen find themselves undeclared.' The subtext of this phrase, however, puts the student in a subpar group of freshmen that, while it includes most freshmen, does not include the leaders of the future. When I said they generally fall into those categories I left out another, far rarer group; there are those who do not go to college to find their career as soon as possible and train. These students are actually content not knowing exactly what they will do with their lives. They see the academic side college not as an extended training course, but as a time full of possibilities. They build skills and knowledge for their own sake, but are put into the same class of wandering souls - the undeclared. That is the group I always identified with, but I always felt uncomfortable saying that I was one of those undeclared freshmen. It made me feel like my life had no direction; I hope that students can be able to be comfortable with enjoying the exploration time of college without feeling somehow inferior.