Kill off your basic courses (Mathematics, composition, science, etc) until you know for an absolute fact what you'll be pursuing.
I lost two years of my life in Mathematics. It was a subject I loved until I ran into Calculus III and the remaining 2/3s of Discrete Mathematics. It was killing me, I couldn't handle the proofs (my brain isn't wired like that), so I bolted. My entire pre-major and science sections of my A.A. requirements were obliterated instantly because I switched from Mathematics (Science), to History (non-science). At my college, non-science and science majors have different requirements for the science portion of the core curriculum.
Spent a year flipping around trying to meld my interest in the Middle East and writing. By the Lord's grace a solidified plan came to fruition, but at the cost of 3 years of financial aid and time. If things had gone to plan, I would have been graduating this spring with a B.A. Instead, I get to walk out with an A.A.
Lessons to take from this:
1) Focus on core-cirriculum. If you don't know what to major in, find what you spend the most time on in your life, and take one elective class per semester in those fields along with your core-cirriculum. If you do know what to major in, use those electives I mentioned to fulfill your pre-major/major requirements. If you're in the former and you feel like you're wasting your time taking electives, almost all colleges give you at least two or more classes in which you can pick ANY course you are qualified to take out of the course catalog in your degree requirements (B.A. only).
2) Do not go slow unless you have reason to. I did not crack 15 credit hours/semester until this coming semester (Going for the Presidents list with 18...basically going to leave with a bang). The slow start was a mistake because it took FOREVER to get a degree. This was a strategy that I was advised to do by my parents, and about a year ago, we both concluded that it was a mistake to both give and take that advice.
3) Do not go easy on yourself. Remember, you are there as a disciple of Christ to learn for the glory of God's kingdom, not to get a piece of paper that says you learned something. We're beginning to see in the business world that people are retreating back to people with little or no college education for their employees because that paper says they learned something when they really didn't.
We're called to work, not sleep, and it makes absolutely no sense taking classes with professors whereby you practically sleep through class, do nothing, and get an A, especially if its a class that you had no prior knowledge coming into. I'm not asking you to kill yourself with the difficulty, nor am I asking you to challenge yourself more than you can handle, but make sure you keep yourself on your toes and keep things interesting.
4) If you can kill a class (i.e. you're an outstanding writer, good at US history, or a powerhouse in college algebra and precalculus), see if you can CLEP it. It's better off to pay $100 or so dollars and get credit than spending several hundred (if not thousand) dollars to take the course. I never took an AP class in high school, and didn't learn about CLEP until last year (which I intend to use to take out a Lit requirement for my English minor next year). I wish I had taken AP classes and I certainly wish I had known about CLEP in August of 2008. If there is not a CLEP test available for a school requirement, ask your school's Testing office if they have a testing-out procedure. This is how most schools handle core-requirements involving basic computing classes.
Before you test out, make sure you know if the school in question will accept the test, and if they do, what the minimum score is to earn credit.
5) You're getting a third job, but it won't be too bad. Unless someone is paying your way through, or you're on scholarship, this job will be you spending a few hours every week hunting down and completing scholarship applications/entries.
6) This is my personal opinion, but if you're looking into going after some sort of specialization....say...Childhood psychology, your best best is to pursue an undergraduate degree in the general field the specialization is under (in this case, psychology), then go get an M.A. in Psychology, and use that to specialize. If you specialize in your undergraduate studies, you stand little chance of getting a job in another field if something goes south.
For example (and those in the know will find this highly unrealistic, but work with me). If you want to become an Actuary, the poorest decision you can make is get a degree in Actuarial Science. If something goes wrong and you can't get a job in that field, it will prove to be of little use in regards to other prospects. The best decision in this case is to major in mathematics (concentration in statistics and probability if you can), and minor in Business administration. If being an actuary goes south, you'll have the credentials to get a teaching certification, you can work in a business, you can tutor, you can do all sorts of stuff.
As a clarification in terms, concentration is when you level about half of your requirements towards a certain field in undergraduate school. Specialization is when you focus the overwhelming majority of your requirements on one specific field.
To answer your original questions:
I'm currently a History major (World History concentration w/ an emphasis on Middle Eastern history), and an English minor. I'll be pursuing graduate studies in Journalism and Middle Eastern Studies in the hopes of being a foreign correspondent in the Middle East for a major network or newspaper someday.
