Seven Tips to Pick a College Major
Picking a college major can be hard. For me, it took my entire freshman year of college just to decide on a major. That whole year was a learning process where I was able to get a taste of how hard certain majors would be, and what I was interested in.
Here are my seven tips for any prospective or current college student:
Understand what you value.
Understand what things you are good at.
Pursue the things that you are interested in light of 1 and 2
Do appropriate research.
Find the best institutions for you that offer majors in what you want to pursue.
Understand your motivations to go to college.
Make sure your return on investment outweighs the cost of attendance.
Understand What You Value
Understanding what you value is important because it will determine what you will tolerate in your life. For example, if you grew up without a lot of money it could be that you value earning money more highly and you choose a challenging profession known to pay well like a lawyer or doctor. The thing is people have more than one value and sometimes they change, so it is not so simple. It could be that once your five years into being a lawyer you are tired of your profession because it demands too much of you (not enough work life balance) and you want to open a bookstore. Work life balance is a huge buzzword these days, but it is a value and it needs to be weighed with your other values when choosing a career and college major.
Determining what you value is not easy either. You might know a few of your values for example, honesty (like me) might be a value you have but you may not know all of them. Knowing all of what you currently value is important because it will allow to make the best possible decision with the knowledge you have in that point in time, which is all you can really do. If do not determine what you value it could lead to a job that that conflicts with a value that you have, and can lead to job dissatisfaction and frankly misery. For example, if you value collaboration and you have a job where the work can be all be done alone like a Patent Agent then you will very much dislike the independent nature of your job. This is avoidable!
My recommendation for finding out your values is taking a online career test or value test (there are a few good ones), or simply looking at list of values and pick five or more that stand out the most to you. This will ensure that you have a basic understanding of what you value and that you can make a important decision most true to who you are and not be lead by what other people think you should do.
Understand What Things You are Good at
Let’s face it, none of us are good at everything. Most of us only have a few things that we are good at. Although, some of us may not know what we are good by 18, all of us know what we are bad at. For example, I have always been bad using my hands. Even, if I was really into art, I could never be a oil painter because my fine motor skills are awful. Alternatively, my gross motor skills are great so I am great at sports. For you, it you could be that your really good at math (like my old friend Jackie) or problem solving (like me). Although, if you truly have no idea what you are good at think about what you are good at relative to everything else and start there. You may just need to develop your strengths further. For example, let’s say your bad at math but better at writing, writing is a skill that can developed (not saying math skills can not be developed, but I think it’s much harder if you are not analytical). Eventually, you could work your way into being an a great writer and maybe a journalist.
Really, figuring out what your good at is like connecting the dots except in your life. The above two tips are the foundation that you start to develop what your interested in.
Pursue the Things You Are Interested in Light of 1 and 2
This is a straightforward tip. After you have determined what you value and what your good at, start to identify some things that fall inline with what you previously identified. For example, if you are good at math and you have a passion for science, physics may be a good choice for you. Physics combines both math in science and is foundational to other disciplines, so you could narrow your interest if you wanted to do something like biomedical engineering if your passion for science is something more specific like biology. Identify three major choices or more that fall in line with 1 and 2 above and that you are actually interested or intrigued by, and start to do research.
Do Appropriate Research
There are two things I think you should research before you decide to actually pick a major.
First, look at the career associated with you major’s job outlook. For example, is the job as a Biomedical Engineer in a growing market where employers are hiring more and more people each year. The concern is if you were to pick a career like a lawyer, in general, (the job growth is relatively low) there will be heavy competition to get jobs and it will make your life more difficult.
Second, look at job satisfaction. If the job satisfaction for a career is low there is a reason for it. Usually the job satisfaction is lower for jobs that have some aspect that is undesirable, like work environment. For example, if you are a petroleum engineer, it is possible that the job satisfaction is lower because you are working on an oil rig (as opposed to an office), and that would take time away from your family. Plus oil rigs can be dangerous.
Find the Best Institutions that Offer the Majors You Want to Pursue
This is a really a continuation of doing your research, but it is very important. You need to define what the best institutions are for you based off of characteristics like what quality of education you will receive, their location, the campus environment, cost of attendance, the size of the school etc. It is not necessarily about going to the best institutions, what are perceived as the best institutions. It more about school fiit than anything thing else (the school you love may not offer your major so what then). This once again will come down to what you value. You will have to weigh, what matters more to you, your major choice or the institution choice. What I am saying is the mentioned characteristics and probably more should be at least thought about.
I am not trying to give you a headache, but if you do not know what to do initially, you have to do the work to be in position to succeed because college is supposed to be hard.
Understand Your Motivation to go College
It is also important to reflect on why you want to go to college. Are you going to college because it is a logical next step in pursuing your chosen career of being a doctor. Maybe, your parents have been pushing college since you were a young child and you feel like you must go. What I am saying here is that understanding the motivation of why you want to go to college may prevent potential pitfalls when you are college. For example, let us say you get into a good college and your parents have admirably or not so admirably pushed you to get to that point. When you get to actually get to college you could lose all motivation to study because it is not really something you personally want and that’s a problem. When I was in college I have seen some people who were good students in high school focus on things they probably should not have because they were in college because someone else wanted them there. Personally, I think if you pursue something, you should sincerely desire to do it. That way if things do not work out the way you hoped, at least you have no regrets.
Make Sure the Return on Investment Outweighs the Cost of Attendance
Seriously, it is important to have a plan on how you are going to pay for your education. Unless your going to an undergrad where your alumni is Michael Bloomberg and tuition is basically free you should have basic plan on how your education should be paid for. It is possible that your parents could pay for it if you are 18, but many parents can not afford to pay for their child’s education. If you are in the latter description, all I am saying is have a plan. If the scholarships reduce education prices then good. Even better is to have major or an eventual career that will pay for the education that you will recieve. I am not saying that engineering or a high paying major is the best major, I am saying that there are alot of majors that will lead to jobs that will be a good starting point for your career. Make a decision that will hopefully get you to be self-sufficient and making your loan payments when you complete your education. Students today who do not pay their loans because they disagree with the system, are morally corrupt.
A Bar Graph Comparing Different Types of Fields of Study
Conclusion
Picking a major is not a easy decision for most. These tips were designed to help a prospective college student make a good decision at that point of time based off my own experiences. By doing the work, the fact that you do not know what you want to do will be solvable problem. I believe that picking the right major, or knowing the majors that you are most compatible with you is the best way to combat American’s college retention problem. The problem that significantly less than 50% of college students graduate from 4 year colleges, and it varies by ethnicity with African Americans with the lowest college graduation rates. By following these seven tips you are in a better position to position to be successful in college, and that is great.
