What Major Should I Choose? Quiz: Your Interest Code and Three Major Families to Explore

The quiz has 36 statements in three parts. Part 1 asks how much you would like 18 everyday activities, three for each of the six interest areas. Part 2 asks about 12 courses and workplaces, two per area. Part 3 asks how much you agree with six statements about what you want from work, one per area, which is the work-values layer: pay against purpose, structure against freedom, visible results against hard problems. Every statement is rated from 0 to 4, and your score in each area is the sum of its six statements, shown as a percentage of the maximum.

Your leading area is the one with the highest percentage, and its interpretation names three major families to explore. Your interest code is simply your top three bars in order, written as letters: an S-I-A code means Social first, Investigative second, Artistic third. The second and third letters matter. A Social-Investigative profile points toward nursing, public health, or psychology research; a Social-Artistic profile points toward teaching the arts, art therapy, or communications in a nonprofit. Read the bars, not just the headline.

The six-item groupings are our own and are balanced, not weighted. A near tie between two areas is common and is useful information in itself: it usually means a major that combines them will fit better than a pure version of either. If two areas tie exactly, the result says so and shows both interpretations.

John Holland proposed in the 1950s that most people's vocational interests cluster into six types, and that work environments can be described with the same six. Realistic people like working with tools, machines, plants, and animals. Investigative people like observing, analyzing, and solving. Artistic people like unstructured, expressive work. Social people like informing, helping, and teaching. Enterprising people like persuading, leading, and selling. Conventional people like organized, detail-focused work with clear rules. The model is public, has decades of research behind it, and underpins the free O*NET Interest Profiler run by the US Department of Labor.

A code describes what you tend to enjoy. It does not measure ability, and it does not predict grades. A quantitative summary of more than 60 years of research found that interests do predict performance and persistence, but modestly, and mostly when the person's interests match the environment they are in. Interests also shift, especially between 18 and 25, as people try things they had never been exposed to. Treat your code as a snapshot of what draws you now, written in a vocabulary that advisors and career libraries already use, so the conversation can start from the same page.

This quiz is not the O*NET Interest Profiler and does not reproduce its items. We wrote our own 36 statements on the same six areas and added a short values layer, which the Profiler does not include. If you want the official version with its own norms, it is free at mynextmove.org. Both tell you about interests; neither chooses a major for you.

A major is a decision with many inputs, and interest is only the first. Ability and preparation matter: a strong Investigative score does not make a chemistry major easy if math has been a struggle, though it may make the effort worth it. Cost and time matter: some paths require graduate school, and the careers under each family below say so. Labor markets matter, within reason; the same role can be scarce in one region and plentiful in another, and five years is a long time in any field. Your constraints matter: caregiving, work hours, a location you cannot leave, or a visa that restricts what you can study.

Then there is the practical question of what the major is like day to day. Interest in helping people is not the same as interest in anatomy exams, and interest in writing is not the same as interest in deadlines. The single most useful thing you can do after this quiz is talk to two or three people who are two years into a major you are considering and two or three people who are five years into the work it leads to. Ask what a bad week looks like. Ask what they wish they had known.

This page is written for adults, including returning students and people changing fields at 30, 40, or 50. If you are choosing a second career, the work-values layer will often be more informative than it is for an 18-year-old, because you already know what you are not willing to trade. If you want a direct read on your current job rather than your studies, our Career Aptitude Test quiz and Should I Quit My Job? Quiz are built for that question.

Take your top area's three major families and look up each one in your institution's catalog. Read the required courses in the second and third year, not the first, because that is where majors diverge and where the real content lives. Cross-check with your second letter: if your code is E-C, lean toward the family that overlaps both, such as accounting or finance rather than pure marketing. If your code is A-S, look at the families where expression meets people, such as education in the arts or design for health.

Then book an appointment with an academic advisor, bring your PDF, and ask three questions: which majors here fit this code, which of them lead to the careers I named, and what is the cost if I change my mind after a year. Many programs share a first year, and advisors know which ones. Finally, test the fit cheaply before you commit: one elective, one club, one informational interview, one summer. A real afternoon in a lab or a classroom tells you more than any quiz, including this one.

If you want more inputs before deciding, our Work Style Test quiz looks at how you prefer to get things done, Multiple Intelligences Test and Learning Style Quiz look at how you learn best, and Personal Values Test asks what you want your life to be about. Together they round out a picture that a single interest code cannot give you on its own.