#121 Choosing A Major At The Naval Academy

The major selection window is now open for plebes, and this decision can feel overwhelming when you're trying to balance future career goals with academic interests. As someone who once sent a 2:30 AM Snapchat saying "should have been a Group 3 major," I understand the pressure and uncertainty that comes with this choice.

In this episode, I share straightforward advice about navigating major selection at the Naval Academy, drawing from real experiences and insights from fellow service academy graduates who've walked this path before you.

What Naval Academy Graduates Wish They'd Known About Major Selection

We explore authentic perspectives from graduates across different majors, including stories from English majors who thrived in technical fields and engineering students who struggled because they weren't genuinely interested in their coursework. These real-world examples reveal patterns that can guide your decision-making process.

The Truth About Majors and Career Paths

• Why choosing aerospace engineering doesn't guarantee pilot slots
• How an English major can still succeed in nuclear school
• The reality of specialized career fields and their major requirements
• Why military recruiters value leadership experience over specific degrees

Practical Guidance for Making Your Choice

Using wisdom from Ted Lasso (yes, really), we discuss how to listen to your gut and check in with your heart when making this important decision. This approach focuses on what will keep you academically engaged and performing well throughout your Naval Academy experience.

A Message for Parents

If you're a parent watching your midshipman navigate this decision, you'll gain perspective on how to support them without forcing specific choices. We discuss why the Naval Academy's holistic education approach means the major is just one piece of a much larger developmental experience.

Whether you're a plebe facing this decision right now or a parent wanting to understand the process better, this episode offers practical wisdom to help you approach major selection with confidence and clarity.

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The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.

This podcast is independently produced and reflects the views and opinions of its creators. It is not officially affiliated with, endorsed by, or representative of the United States Naval Academy or its affiliates.

Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.

He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a residential real estate company that matches service academy families with trusted real estate teams all across the country. Text (650) 282-1964 with any real estate questions.

We are here to be your guide through the USNA experience.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Purpose And Disclaimer
• 0:28 LinkedIn And Call For Advice
• 1:40 The Three Major Groups Explained
• 2:55 Alumni Stories And Lessons
• 5:01 Interest Over Optics
• 6:41 Edge Cases And Exceptions

Transcript

Purpose And Disclaimer

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Starting today, the plebes are able to select their majors, and that window is open until Wednesday evening. And so I wanted to come on and just make an impromptu episode talking a little bit about major selection and just my overall opinion and advice. It's gonna be very simple, it's gonna be very straightforward. But I hope you enjoy the episode. Take a listen, let me know what you think, and as always, feel free to reach out with any questions. Have a great day. Before we get started, I want to make a quick disclaimer to make sure that everyone knows Academy Insider and myself, Grant Premier, are in no ways official representatives of the United States Naval Academy, the Navy, andor the Department of War. What I'm doing here again is just trying to provide a little bit of context, perspective, and understanding to the Naval Academy journey. But my use of the Naval Academy and conversation about them does not imply endorsement from the institution. You ever have any questions directly for the Naval Academy, I encourage you to reach out to them directly and the public affairs office. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. And I hope you have a great listening stuff. So I made a LinkedIn post today. And if you don't follow me on LinkedIn, I encourage you to follow me on LinkedIn. I probably get the most unfiltered information. And again, if you ever have any questions for me, probably get the most direct access to me on LinkedIn as well. But anyway, I made a post on LinkedIn all about major selection. Because what's funny enough is again, I'm 30 now. I don't use Snapchat anymore. But when I was 19 and at the Naval Academy, I used Snapchat. And I had sent a Snapchat to my family, LOL, with me at like 2:30 in the morning, exhausted. And the caption just says, uh, should have been a group three major. And if you don't know what that means, there's really like three schools of majors at the Naval Academy. When I was there, we talked about it in the realm of groups. You were a group one major, group two major, group three major. That terminology still kind of exists, even though they have official names now. You can be a part of like the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, which is what the old like group three major was. So basically a non-engineering major, a non-math and science major. And it kind of led me to kind of think about this because again, a reason I even made the post is I've had a couple of like plebes reach out to me and ask for my advice on picking a major. And, you know, it's a pretty complex discussion on some different topics because there's a lot of different pathways and branches of impacts and kind of stuff down the road that may or may not have an impact by the decision that you make as a plebe of the Naval Academy when it comes to your major. But with that, I just wanted to read some of the responses. Because what I did is I asked and I encouraged a bunch of Service Academy graduates to kind of put their advice of what they think plebs should be thinking about when it comes to picking their major. And, you know, I'll read some of these responses, but I think what generally it comes down to, which I think will be the common consensus, is choose something that you are interested in. Whether or not there's so many ways that this could go into the future, that the best decision that you can make is just choosing an academic major that you are truly interested in that will make your studies entertaining, that will keep you academically engaged and intrigued, and make the academic side of the Naval Academy as positive as it can be. Because I think a lot of times people kind of get this preconceived notion, like, oh, if I want to be an aviator, like if I want to fly, I should be an aeronautical engineer so I can learn as much about aeronautics and like planes and all that stuff as possible. And so I have one comment on here that says, you know, my professor, my English professor said, get an English major. No matter what you do, you'll have a Bachelor of Science degree. Did I listen? No. I opted for an aerospace engineering degree and barely graduated. The decision definitely changed my Naval Academy experience. I have another one that says looking back, getting a Bachelor of Science in English was one of the best choices I made. It didn't help me much at Nuke School. That was really hard, but it gave me perspective that I value more each day. Then you have some others. Pick a major that you will enjoy. I chose mathematics because I loved it. I had no idea what I would do after graduation, but academics was something that I enjoyed, and it was a great reprieve from the action in Bancroft Hall. Another one said, I told both my West Point son and Naval Academy daughter to pick something they enjoy and excel at it. As a military recruiter in my day job, we hire academy grads for their leadership experience, not necessarily their exact degree. And more along these ideas, right? Again, study what you Ward says, study what you enjoy. I vividly remember some buddies studying Aero because they wanted to be pilots, but because they were miserable, they performed poorly and struggled to get spots as pilots. Whereas as an English major with minors in Spanish and French, I was able to dive headlong into literature and culture and all my non-core classes. I love these topics and as a resort performed well. These things, uh, like again, what it comes down to, in my opinion, when it comes to all this stuff, it is exactly what is being articulated here. Like, pick a major that you want to study. This is gonna make everything better. Now, are there edge cases? Always. I think I'm kind of giving, and I think a lot of the general consensus that you'll hear from people is for the majority, right? If you want to be a doctor, if you want to be the few midshipmen who get a spot to go join the medical community, yes, like you need to major in something very specific. If you want to go and get one of the few like maritime cyber warfare officer billets or CW billets, would it be beneficial to have some kind of cyber electrical engineering computer science major? Yes. Does it mean you can't get one of those spots if you're an English major? No. Like you totally still could, right? And so again, I think midshipmen at times get over concerned about their major selection. And, you know, my advice if this is a midshipman listening, my advice genuinely is pick something that you are going to enjoy studying. Like that is gonna lead to the best experience of the Naval Academy, lead to best performance, which is gonna give you the best opportunity to service select what you want and kind of go down the career and life path that you'd be interested in. And that's about it. You know, for parents who are listening, I would encourage you just to be there and just to listen. I don't force them to do a specific thing. Again, the the Naval Academy experience is less about a major and more holistic whole person education. And again, going back to what's going on, the life experiences that they're gonna develop, the things that are gonna happen in the classroom, out in the field, just a part of their experience is what makes the education so special. So, yeah, I just wanted to get on here and just kind of like put that out into the world. May the odds be ever in your favor. But if you're if you're in this spot where you're still trying to figure out what you want to do, I would just encourage you. It's my favorite quote from Ted Lasso. It's my favorite quote from Ted Lasso, which is if you're gonna make this decision, listen to your gut. And on the way down there, check in with your heart. And between those two things, you'll know what's what. Right. And if you listen to your gut, you check in with your heart, you pick what you actually want to study. I think you're gonna put your best foot forward and have a better time academically at the Naval Academy, and that's what it's all about. And so, so yeah, like that's it. Again, I joke, I, you know, I sent that Snapchat probably after a long, a long night saying I should have been a group three major. But I love the fact that I was a cyber major, which was a group two major at the time, right? In the in the school of engineering, uh, maybe. Um, but uh yeah, again, I like for me, being a cyber operations major was incredible because that was academically intriguing. I really enjoyed it. I loved the blend between the technical classes and also the social and policy classes that were associated with this buzz term of cyber. And so, you know, I loved my major and I just encourage people to do exactly that. Listen to your heart, enjoy it, check in, listen to your gut, and pick a major that you're gonna enjoy because that's gonna be the best thing for you in the long run. And yeah, thank y'all so much. I hope you enjoy it. This Sunday, this coming Sunday, we're gonna be returning to the Academy Insider series here with a commissioning 101 event. So for all of my parents in the class of 2026 with Machim in the class of 2026, we're gonna be breaking down commissioning week and talking about it. So make sure to check in and check that out. I appreciate it. Hope you have a good day. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Academy Insider Podcast. I really hope you liked it, enjoyed it, and learned something during this time. If you did, please feel free to like and subscribe or leave a comment about the episode. We really appreciate it to hear your feedback about everything and continue to make Academy Insider an amazing service that guides, serves, and supports midshipmen, future midshipmen, and their families. Thank you.