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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Mon Jun 4th, 2007 05:00 pm |
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| Just wondering if anyone has or has had a kid struggling with choosing a major. What advice would you give someone facing this choice?
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Wstrdg
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Posted: Mon Jun 4th, 2007 05:32 pm |
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For my eldest, who was good at everything, the selection began by eliminating things that he knew he DIDN'T want to pursue.
Summer programs, jobs, volunteering -- these are all good ways to explore careers or subject areas in greater depth. Exposure is what you're really after, rather than resume-building.Last edited on Tue Feb 5th, 2008 04:10 am by
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limner
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Posted: Mon Jun 4th, 2007 06:57 pm |
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| My suggestions don't spring from experience (except for my own--not my child's). However, I do think that one of the factors in her choice should be to do what she loves--or at least enjoys. She also might want to check out the careers counseling office. At my university, you could take some tests to help figure out the types of things you like. Are you an extrovert? An introvert? Do you like working alone or with people, etc.
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binx
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Posted: Mon Jun 4th, 2007 07:32 pm |
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I can share my thoughts, but since I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, or if I even want to grow up, my ideas are not yet tried and true.
My D is undecided for her second major, but thinks it will be something to do with languages. One of the reasons we encouraged her to choose a larger school over some of her other options was because it had a lot more majors, and a wide variety of language and related offerings.
At least she has narrowed her interests that much. But within the "languages" umbrella, she is interested in foreign languages, including German, Spanish, Chinese, and Ancient Greek (all of which she has already studied to some extent) as well as a few more she would like to study, eg. Russian. Then, she is also interested in creative writing. Linguistics. Perhaps speech therapy, or communications. Maybe International relations.
This morning she and I sat down and went through the Miami Ohio website, and copied out all the core requirements, division requirements, music major requirements, etc. She will be creating her schedule in a couple weeks, with an advisor from the school, but without a parent (no parents allowed.) The advisor will most likely be a music school advisor, and I don't expect him/her to have a lot of insight into language or linguistics major, etc., or have a lot of interest in helping her explore outside the music program. So I wanted her to go in "armed" with knowledge.
We went through the core requirements, and highlighted options that fulfilled the requirement while also allowing her to explore another area she might be interested in. For instance, in the math and reasoning requirement, one of the options is "Intro to Linguistics." In the Humanities core, some of the options are also requirements for the creative writing major.
I am trying to help her become familiar with the wide wide world of choices out there, so that she can advocate for courses that actually interest her, rather than courses that simply let her check something off. We didn't attempt any sort of "schedule" - just created a long list of possibilities.
We are hoping that college will be a great "experience" for her - in terms of experiencing different subjects, career ideas, activities. Maybe she'll fall in love with something she does as an extracurricular? Theater, or journalism, or ???
And we believe there are some things she hasn't yet considered that she would be good at: perhaps computers or something technical.
I want her to work hard, but not so hard she doesn't have time to explore things out of curiousity, or for the fun of it. I confess I am scared by the "work hard / play hard" atmosphere some have described. I don't want her to work hard / play hard. I want her to explore, dabble, try out, taste, and have time to process it all.
I'll let you know in 4 years. Or 5, or 6.
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WestrnMom
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Posted: Mon Jun 4th, 2007 11:29 pm |
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My kids both have very strong interests, so I don't think deciding on a major will be too difficult for S, although I could be wrong. D went into college with one major in mind and changed specialties. S has 3 or 4 choices, any of which would be a good match. His school makes an effort to help students select the right major.
I would say study something they are passionate about, even if there is no career goal in mind, with the idea that once they find their life's purposes, they may need to go on to grad school and study something else. I majored in subjects I liked, but I didn't find a passion until grad school. However, that proved to be a poor choice in terms of careers and job skills, and didn't get me where I wanted to be.
If career is the most important factor, then they should spend a lot of serious time with a career planning counselor at the school, and choose the major to follow the career. Any student who wants to end up with a career in sciences or the health care industry should choose a complementary major. For other fields, like law, journalism, just about any interesting major that boosts critical thinking and writing skills would work.
From my own experience, choosing the "wrong" major as an undergrad isn't a mistake, any degree is valuable to one's growth, but it adds years to the total education needed for a career that is degree-dependent.
Is that as clear as mud?
I almost forgot, didn't you send me to http://www.mymajors.com? Join, answer the questions and they spit out major and career options.
Last edited on Mon Jun 4th, 2007 11:31 pm by WestrnMom
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Tue Jun 5th, 2007 01:24 am |
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| This is sad, but I honestly don't remember deciding on a major. I did, of course, and I even transferred to another school for that specific major, but for the life of me, I can't remember how or why I arrived at the final decision. Must have made sense at the time, but thirty-plus years later, I haven't the foggiest idea why I went the route I did. Maybe that's what I should tell my daughter about choosing a major: Thirty-plus years from now, you won't remember. LOL! Last edited on Tue Jun 5th, 2007 01:25 am by CarolynLawrence
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limner
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Posted: Tue Jun 5th, 2007 01:32 am |
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| Carolyn, I was thinking along the same lines (but I'm on a deadline and didn't have time to articulate it--argh!). I know there are stats out there somewhere about how many people change careers--maybe more than once. So, she should obviously give the decision some thought but shouldn't rake herself over the coals about it, because in 30 years she's likely to want to do something else!
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Wstrdg
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Posted: Wed Jun 6th, 2007 06:19 pm |
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https://uccp.collegepath.org/
My kids did all of these assessments early last year. It was a good (free  ) introduction to aptitude/personality tests, if nothing else. I'm sorry to see that the project is ending. Note that although the home page says the project will terminate in August, one of the link pages says that assessments will no longer be availabel after June 15, so if you are interested, make haste!
You do have to register, but you can do so anonymously.
There are (or were  ) six aptitude tests in all, including short versions of Gardner’s multiple intelligences, Myers-Brigg MBTI, and Holland’s occupational. These tests are so widely administered by human resources departments that exposing kids to a benign, no-harm-no-foul version can only be beneficial.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Thu Jun 7th, 2007 05:07 am |
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| The UCCP site is great. The College Board site also has a section that you can access that has some terrific career assessment tools. You need the code from the PSAT score report to access it though.
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mathmom
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Posted: Thu Jun 7th, 2007 09:13 pm |
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I agonized about majors. I went into college thinking I would major in history and lit and hated all the history and literature courses I took as a freshman. I just had no patience for being an intellectual! I took a freshman seminar in printmaking and decided to major in visual and environmental studies which is just a fancy name for art along with a bunch of architectural history and film courses. I had a great time and ultimately decided to go to grad school in architecture.
One thing I would suggest is that if one is in a major that has obvious internship possiblities try to get one. I had a college friend who was an archeology major and discovered the summer before her senior year that there was nothing more boring than being on a dig. She just hated it.
Another friend of mine ended up switching to anthropology (animal not people) when she discovered that she really enjoyed doing animal observations as a summer job.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Sat Jun 9th, 2007 05:45 am |
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Wstrdg wrote: I'm sorry to see that the project is ending. Note that although the home page says the project will terminate in August, one of the link pages says that assessments will no longer be availabel after June 15, so if you are interested, make haste!
Wstrdg, I didn't catch your comment the first time. It's my understanding that the UCCP page is going to be redesigned to be more focused on serving low income and first generation students, so that's probably what the message on the site means. I suspect that the change is related to the UC system's outreach goals.
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DesperateDad
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Posted: Sat Jun 9th, 2007 02:40 pm |
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This is sad, but I honestly don't remember deciding on a major.
Fortunately, (or unfortunately), I remember my reason vividly. I was working nearly full-time (still graduated in four years) and found a department where I could amass relatively easy A's, so I assumed that must be my calling. It took nearly 20 years to get into a field that is better suited to my personality type -- ironically, in a field that I found an initial college class extremely boring, but that had more to do with the fact that it was taught with a lack of political diversity and not the subject matter per se. (When I took a similar class in grad school but a more objective professor, I was hooked.)
Thus, I've told my kids not to (necessarily) take the easy path to a piece of parchment paper unless its a field they truly enjoy.
Last edited on Sat Jun 9th, 2007 02:40 pm by DesperateDad
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Thumper
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Posted: Sun Jun 10th, 2007 12:08 am |
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I began college as a music major....switch to music education (all this happened the first half of my freshman year). I then decided that majoring in music was not smart..I could NOT play the piano. And I was much to big a chicken and had much too bruised an ego to make it as a performer. SO...I transferred schools and had to find something else interesting. I knew I didn't want to ever take another math course so I looked in the book for courses of study that did not require math. I saw speech pathology (and was too young and stupid to realize that I would be doing a LOT of statistics with that major). I decided to take four courses in the major and if I liked them and did well, I would continue. I did, and I did. Tada...major chosen.
DD, OTOH, has a bit of a disconnect between what she loves and what comes naturally to her. She LOVES science and math....but has to work quite hard in both. But she loves them and today (this is all subject to change) she is leaning towards a degree in general engineering with a concentration in biomedical engineering. She is fascinated with the field. We'll see. We sent her to a LAC type school with an extensive core course requirement so that she would have to try different things. She has another year to declare a major...unless she chooses engineering, which she must begin now to be able to fulfil those requirements and the core requirements. The reality is that life sciences come very naturally to her. It will be interesting in three years to see what her degree is actually IN.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Sun Jun 10th, 2007 04:02 am |
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DesperateDad wrote: (When I took a similar class in grad school but a more objective professor, I was hooked.)
Isn't it amazing how a good teacher can change the course of your life?
I think your point about not taking the easy way out is also a good one. Although, sometimes if you're fighting an uphill fight in terms of not having the skills to make it through the requirements of a particular major, it also makes sense to turn off onto a different path. 
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binx
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Posted: Wed Jun 13th, 2007 02:43 am |
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The process of deciding upon our majors has led to some differences in parenting between my H and I.
H is the son of an engineer, and knew he wanted to be an engineer also at a very early age. He is one of those lucky ones who loves what he does, and is good at it.
I wanted to be a writer, but my mother wanted me to be employed. Same thing with my second choice, teaching. I scrambled around trying to decide what to do, attended some career programs in my HS. There was a cute boy in the physical therapy program, so I chose that. Followed him to college, too. (He's a teacher now!) At orientation, I learned that PTs had to dissect human bodies, and I didn't think I could handle that. I went home frustrated, and lost. After discussing writing and teaching again, my mother said she wasn't paying for that. So I said, "Fine, you pick." And she chose nursing.
I hated it. I'm a lousy nurse (except my chart notes and care plans are better than most.) Funny thing is, after needing something that was "employable" - I worked as a nurse for exactly one year.
So, when my kids began thinking about what to do, H lobbied for something practical. Actually, he lobbied that they all become engineers, and it is to his great sorrow that none did.
And I lobbied long and hard for them to do what they loved. Because my H knew my background, he at least understood where I was coming from. (He gave me an electric typewriter/ word processor for graduation!) My mom doesn't say anything, but I suspect she's horrified that two of my kids are studying music. However, she apparently told one of my sisters that one of her biggest regrets is not letting me study writing.
Last edited on Wed Jun 13th, 2007 02:44 am by binx
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Mezzomom
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Posted: Tue Feb 5th, 2008 12:52 am |
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| My daughter finally got the news she had been hoping for, so I decided to revive this thread since she will now have her very own (individualized BA) major. She presented her proposal to the curriculum committee today, and after making a few minor changes, her proposal will be accepted. She will be majoring in Global Music and Cultural Relations (the new name is one of the changes she's making). I should have known that she would end up creating her own major; this is the kid that never, ever did things just like everyone else!
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mackinaw
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Posted: Tue Feb 5th, 2008 02:45 am |
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This may not be directly responsive to your question, Carolyn, but in addition to the suggestion that a young person can use a process of elimination to some extent, I think it helps for them to relax about the decision in one important sense: for the vast majority of life careers, this choice of undergraduate majors isn't determining. Get degree, travel-work in area that interests you, get another degree if you desire to later.
At the same time, I am a fan of their training or majoring in something; IMO a multidisciplinary major doesn't work well at undergrad level if it doesn't have actual disciplinary bases. Dual or double majors are fine, IMO; but a "multidisciplinary major" is a lot less useful because you don't get deeply enough into any particular field.
My son wanted to major in political science in college. I discouraged that because I thought, given my own background, he might end up going into that field after getting an advanced degree, and I thought an undergrad degree in economics would lay a better foundation. He came within a couple of courses of getting a double major in econ and polisci, however; but most importantly he got a good all-around core undergrad liberal arts education. In the end, he decided not to get an advanced degree, but he definitely uses tools that he acquired in economics and statistics as an undergrad; and I'm guessing that eventually he's going to end up writing about politics (on top of his regular job, he's now doing just that on a politics blog -- but not yet for pay).
From her sophomore year in high school my daughter was set on studying art, and at an art school specifically; that's what she did. In the process of getting that degree (in industrial design) as well as her subsequent work for pay and as a volunteer, she discovered and nurtured a strong interest in environmental design. After 4 years working "in the economy," she's on the verge of entering business school to earn an MBA that will allow her to work in business in green design strategies and processes. She will draw on her artistic and perceptual skills, good math aptitude (not used in art school), and leadership skills that she discovered in college and afterwards.
These are long-winded examples of how the original base education can be turned into many things. For my son, when he went off to college, aside from discouraging him from majoring in polisci (even as a way to do that as a career), I asked him to "give natural science a chance," because he had the aptitude to do just about anything. But basically he knew he'd be going into social science after finishing his "core" courses. And so he fairly quickly eliminated science as a field, but he was too much of a numbers fanatic to move into humanities. For my daughter, we caved (so to speak) to her desire to attend art school, never imagining that she'd end up wanting a business career later, but there is an organic connection between her earlier choice and her current choice. (We hope it works out.)
Last edited on Tue Feb 5th, 2008 05:51 am by mackinaw
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warblers
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Posted: Tue Feb 5th, 2008 03:28 am |
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I tried to create my own major (my school calls it Program II), but it was rejected because they thought it would fit in an existing major. Fast forward a year, and I'm having trouble getting courses approved for my major...my advisor rather irritably told me that he only approved my courses because there wasn't any other department they'd fit in. 
At the same time, I am a fan of their training or majoring in something; IMO a multidisciplinary major doesn't work well at undergrad level if it doesn't have actual disciplinary bases. Dual or double majors are fine, IMO; but a "multiciplinary major" is a lot less useful because you don't get deeply enough into any particular field. I think this is particuarly true for those planning to go to graduate school. It's important to start planning early and build a rapport with profs in that department. I kinda went my own way with my major, and it's made planning for grad school a headache.
Last edited on Tue Feb 5th, 2008 03:29 am by warblers
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WestrnMom
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Posted: Tue Feb 5th, 2008 10:06 pm |
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Looking back now that S is halfway through freshman year, I'm realizing that they tend to fall into a major sooner or later. It's not that important until the school requires them to declare as long as they take classes in freshman year that might lead to selection of a major. There are some (hard sciences, music, maybe others) where they must begin as a freshman in order to get all the classes they need, or they may end up having to go 5 years instead of 4, but otherwise, it's not usually necessary or even desirable to go into college with a specific major declared.
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scoop
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Posted: Thu Feb 7th, 2008 03:44 am |
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| I started college as a physical therapy major. I pictured myself watching someone take their first steps after my skillfull and compassionate care One semester of chemistry and math burst my bubble. I went down the hallway to a friend and said "I need to find a new major". She was a year ahead of me and suggested speech-language pathology...you still got to help people. I had never heard of the major but decided it was more suited to my likes than sociology..my fall back plan. I ended up enjoying it and did quite well in the science required...no dissections, no labs. Sometimes things just fall into your lap. I went on to get a masters and had a nice career as a school speech pathologist before I started staying home with my kids. My regret...I wasn't confident enough to take the student teaching positions/internships that were outside my comfort zone. I regret not having done a hospital internship. Should have taken more chances.
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