Grace
What are the most important things to think about when choosing your major?
I hear about people all the time who get a degree in something completely different from the job they have. Is having a major for the profession you want really important? It it better to get a specialised degree, or something more general? How are we even supposed to decide on a degree? There are so many to choose from! Do we need to think about the job we want to have, or what we enjoy, or what we think will give us the most options? #college-major #career-choice #career-path #decision-analysis
2 answers
Destiny Abercrumbie
Destiny’s Answer
What's important is that the major you have is something that you love doing and that you decided to choose this field of study. You have a passion for this major and the career that comes with this major is something you want to do
Hillary London
Hillary’s Answer
That is a tough one and a very good question. For some fields, like engineering and medicine, starting your bath early is not imperative but fairly important given the technical nature and amount of material that you will have to learn.
I myself probably changed my majors every 24 hours during our declaration week to the point that my mom told me to stop calling until something stuck for two days. I settled on an Environmental Science degree and enjoyed it very much. It was challenging and fun, but I never used it directly during my professional career. I was a coach and athletic administrator for 11 years before switching to television production.
What I did gain from my collegiate career was the ability to speak to many topics. I chose my major because it excited me and I would encourage you to think about it from that perspective. What do you really want to dig into, what will keep you interested when you really want to be doing something else? If you are driven, you can take any major and parlay it into a career. But spend some time to figure out what you value and go from there. Be prepared for that to change over time. What you value in your 20's might not be what is important to you when you are 30. And that is ok. There is no way for you to predict everything.