Maybe this is melodramatic, but I think I was emotionally scarred by my first tour of the Brandeis campus.

I'll always remember my tour guide, stocky with a Jew-fro and wearing linen harem pants, booming about how ambitious Brandeis students are as we rounded Usen Castle. He boasted that over 50 percent of Brandeis students pursue double majors and, grinning suggestively at the group of intimidated high school juniors who stood beside me, said that we could even triple major here if we so desired. Yippee. I've heard similar stories from other people who had the same experience when they first came here. Brandeis boasts about the ambition of its students in consistently choosing multiple majors, but my personal experience here hasn't led me to feel that this should necessarily be a point of pride.

If I could offer one piece of advice to the Class of 2015 (and those undecided sophomores still deliberating), I would tell them to stick to one major. Brandeis offers a lot more than most liberal arts schools do in terms of academic course variety. It's big enough that it offers students plenty of room to explore different subjects and classes they may not have known they were interested in. Students should use their time here to take a wide array of classes and pursue different interests instead of taking on an extra and unnecessary major.

The truth is that double majoring is not as impressive as we tell each other (a student adviser I talked to at the Hiatt Career Center recently confirmed this). Employers usually care more about internship and job experience than double or triple majors. Extra majors can add information about a candidate's personality, but they won't necessarily help you stand out. Instead, applicants may be better off listing a few courses on their résumé that show experience relevant to the job they are applying to. As a junior planning on going abroad next semester, I'm much too aware of the fact that my time at Brandeis is short. I only have two semesters left on campus to take advantage of everything that is available to me here. There are still professors I've been dying to take a class with and entire subjects I've never studied. One of my worst fears is that I'll take an Anthropology or Sociology class next fall and realize that I would have loved to have majored in another field.

I may end up avoiding these subjects entirely just because I don't want to open this window for potential regret. I realize that makes me sound pretty neurotic, and I'm aware of the fact that I probably care about these things more than most students do, but I don't think I'm alone in having anxiety about my major. Brandeis students are passionate and ambitious, and what we study matters to us.

Ever since I crossed the halfway mark of my college career, I've been thinking about this more and more, and I've tried to be more careful not to let opportunities pass me by.

I knew even when I started college that I wanted to major in Philosophy. Through my first-year and sophomore years, though, I met ambitious students who were set on double majoring.

I started to think that everyone who wants to be successful becomes a double major and that I should as well. I didn't enjoy any other subject as much as Philosophy, so I chose History because I was good at it and I loved the first History class I took at Brandeis. I don't necessarily regret my History major—it's a great department with a vast amount of classes offered. However, in hindsight, I sometimes wish I had stuck only to my Philosophy major and explored more classes in other areas before I declared my double major. I don't think there is an institutional "fix" to this problem. Brandeis can't change much more about its major requirements to make it easier for students to explore different areas, because it already does a lot to give students the flexibility to study many different subjects.

Ultimately, it comes down to a personal and completely subjective decision. I just wish students were given more time to think about what they want to study and what their interests are before they settle down into something they might regret later on. There is too much internal pressure on Brandeis students to prioritize their résumés over their personal happiness. Four years go by far too fast. Brandeis students should strongly consider making the most of this time by choosing only one major to allow time for exploring other courses and departments.

Don't be afraid to break away from the flock of multiple majors and use your time here to explore yourself.