This article is an excerpt from the book Guide to College Majors

You've got the college application in front of you, complete and ready to go . . . except for the one glaring blank space meant for your intended major. Your stomach sinks. Your hands get clammy. You have no idea what your major will be. Are you going to have to lie?

Relax. In most cases, you won't be required to declare a major on your application. In fact, most colleges won't require you to declare a major until the end of your sophomore year, giving you plenty of time to explore some possibilities. Seem simple? Well, sort of. Problems arise when you are thinking about majoring in a program that limits its enrollment—meaning that if you don't declare that major, you might not get into that program later on.

What we mean is that many programs—especially career-oriented programs like business or engineering—restrict the number of students they accept. So if you think you want to be an engineering major but you put "undecided" on your application, someone else may take your spot. This isn't to say it's impossible to major in engineering later on if you're accepted into the college in general, but in this case you might have been better off declaring engineering. If you enroll as an engineering major and then change your mind, however, you can easily transfer into another, less-selective program.

There's another tricky situation you should be aware of that's sort of the flip side what we just described. Sometimes students declare a major on their application that they believe will boost their chances of getting into a college. For example, they might declare a major in a university's school of arts and sciences when their real goal is to attend the school of business. Because there are more slots in the school of arts and sciences, they think they have a greater chance of being admitted to the university in general. Once enrolled in the school of arts and sciences, though, these students run into trouble because they don't really want to be there. Why can't they just switch to the school of business, which is where they want to be in the first place? Well, it's not always that easy. If you were trying to switch majors within the same school—say, from English to philosophy—you wouldn't have much trouble. The trouble comes when you try to switch from one school to another—from the school of arts and sciences to the school of business. Switching between schools isn't always easy, or sometimes even possible, because of enrollment restrictions, funding, and other tricky admissions problems. These are good issues to bring up with admissions counselors at the colleges to which you plan on applying.

Another thing to consider is whether the school you're applying to offers scholarships to incoming students with certain majors. Some departments have money set aside for this reason. If you're leaning toward a major, and your financial situation dictates it, this might be reason enough to declare it.

Finally, don't feel anxious about declaring yourself undeclared. Jay Leno once joked, "Undeclared is the one area you can concentrate on in college when you want to throw your parents' money away," but that's simply not true. Being undeclared means you're simply weighing your options and wisely waiting until you find the right major.

One more thing. Since so many students tend to want to say "undecided" or "undeclared" at first, some schools offer "undeclared engineering" or "undeclared arts" so that students can at least narrow it down a little bit. ("Undeclared engineering" students, for example, will take more math and science courses so that if they choose engineering, they won't be too far behind their classmates in their course work.) If you're leaning toward putting "undecided" on your application, be sure to check out whether your prospective colleges offer an undeclared option within your broader area of interest.

Although you probably won't have to declare a major until your sophomore year, this doesn't mean you can rest easy until then. You need to be actively thinking about your decision from day one. This is because some majors have a strictly regimented order of courses you must take, and if you fall behind, you may have to extend your college stay for a semester (or two or three or four). Career-oriented degrees like engineering, education, and business usually have these rigid structures. You generally have more wiggle room in the liberal arts.