"How a Flu Epidemic Helped Me Choose My Major"

How did a chance encounter during a week-long case of flu my first year in college
help me find my major? No, not life sciences, premed, or public health, as you
might think. At that confused point in my college career, I was struggling with
first-year physics, macroeconomics, and social psychology and had absolutely no
idea what to choose for a major: French literature? Constitutional law? Sociology
and demography? Or more practical might be pre-journalism?

By lucky coincidence, a flu-ridden third-year history major in the bed next to mine
in the campus health center advised me to take a course on Asian politics and
hinted which were the most brilliant and exciting history professors to work with.
When I recovered and had to pre-register for second-year courses, I figured why
not follow this advice? My Asian politics professor helped me land a summer
internship in Tokyo; my history professors inspired me to concentrate on U.S. and
East Asian courses and guided me in a senior thesis on Japanese democracy. They
then dispatched me to Cal for graduate school and onward to a career teaching
Japanese history. This shows the value of speaking with fellow undergraduates, as
well as with faculty advisers, when picking a major. And the role of plain good
luck amid a vicious flu epidemic. Stay healthy and follow your intellectual
passions as you choose from Cal’s rich variety of academic offerings, unmatched at
any other university.