No longer a freshman, and no longer the least experienced person on your college campus, you no doubt returned to campus with more confidence and less anxiety than you did last fall. Nevertheless, you face a significant challenge as you start your sophomore year.
By your sophomore year, the expectation is that you will have determined at least a general direction for your studies from all that exploration. Indeed, for some majors, particularly those in the hard sciences, you need to start knocking down requirements and prerequisites by the fall of sophomore year, as many of these requirements, such as physics, organic chemistry, and physical chemistry, are full-year courses.

Now, it's time to se some new goals for the coming year to follow up on what you've already learned about yourself and your wants and needs.

We've divided the workshop into six categories: (1) academic and ca­reer goals, (2) social goals, (3) extracurricular goals, (4) physical goals, (5) financial goals, and (6) spiritual goals.
Your Sophomore Year Academic And Career Goals

So what did you learn about yourself academically last year?

What courses did you take and love, and what classes did you have trouble dragging yourself to attend every time? What distinctions can you draw from those experiences? Did you love your large lecture classes or hate them? Or did your enjoyment depend on the subject area or the professor? What introductory courses or subjects did you enjoy that you might want to explore more intensively? Did you hear about any other subjects that your roommates or friends explored that you might want to check out?

This is the semester when you really ought to be thinking about choosing a major. Are you there yet? If not, think about which courses and subjects really moved you last year. Were you engaged by your political science class, but utterly uninterested in your philosophy class? Fascinated by psychology, but bored by economics? In love with a foreign language and desperate to explore more about it and its affiliated culture? What courses were you excited to read for, and what were the classes you didn't want to miss? Draw every distinction you can from your experiences last year, and write them down. Worry about the practical application later. Let's try and find your passion!