Undeclared to Unstoppable: Meet Daria Brandt
by Sarah Reid
Sometimes God leads you to a place and then reveals the plan. That’s what senior Daria Brandt found to be true when she was an undeclared student. “It was a little embarrassing to say I didn’t know what I wanted to study, but I had to trust that God would use me as long as I pursued him.”
Daria knew George Fox was the school for her, and she was confident she’d find a major where she would thrive. Here’s how she tackled her decision:
- She enrolled in a course called CPAS 214: Discover Your Calling, which is taught by the IDEA Center and intended for students who are undecided. She loved getting to hear from the panel of students who answered questions and talked about navigating majors and calling.
- She took general education courses her freshman year for two reasons: You need them to graduate AND they offer a taste of all the majors so she could assess what brought her joy and what didn’t.
- She sought out the opinions of people who knew her well from coaches to teachers to parents to friends.
After spending thoughtful time investigating her options, Daria landed on a psychology major. The professors were a strong draw, and she loved how applicable the field is no matter the profession she lands in someday.
“The concepts that I learned in many of my early psychology classes were things I could apply no matter where I go, what I do or where God calls me,” she says. “The content has been challenging and applicable and Christ-centered.”
She is coupling her major with a ministry minor because of the ways her classes have continually pushed her relationship with God forward, and because they’ve revealed the presence of Christ not only in things that are considered sacred, but in those things considered secular, too.
Looking back on her experience as an undeclared student, Daria wouldn’t change a thing. “ I would actually encourage people to come into college undecided if the y don’t know what they want to major in,” she says. “Don’t just pick a major because it’s the major to pick or it sounds easy. Pick it because God is calling you to it and it brings you life. College reveals what you’re really passionate about!”
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