My Major Today Versus My Major Tomorrow

In the podcast and every day I talk to students and parents about the importance of a major.  But I want to backtrack just a little.  It’s not so much the importance of the major as it is the importance of what you want to do in life.  A lot of times students will pick majors because it “sound interesting” or they have a friend that it is majoring in it right now.  These aren’t the ways to determine what the right major is for you.  Am I saying that what you pick is going to be perfect? Not at all.  But it allows you to aim at something right out of the gate.  A recent Gallup Poll stated that 36% of people that finished a college degree, switched their major at least once.  I was one of those people.  I started college thinking that engineering was the right path for me and quickly (one semester in) realized that I had no business in that major and that I was better suited for business and education.  It happens, don’t beat yourself up if you make a mid air course correction on what you’re going to school for.

A lot of articles will make this about right or left politics or liberal arts versus trade school.  In my opinion none of those really matter.  At the end of the day it’s all about what is right for you and your future.  One of the main beefs that I have with higher education as a whole, is the disastrous student loan crisis.  Although many tout that “college is the place to find yourself and what you want to do”, going blindly down that path could end you up in college for six or more years and you may or may not even graduate with a degree.  The equals a ton of student loan debt if you weren’t proactive on the front end with scholarship.  At our core, we all have ideas of what we want to do.

A formula that I came up with a long time ago for my students (and I’m going to be putting a free worksheet together on it) is how to pick a major that is pretty close to what you want to do long term.  The first step is to take out a piece of paper, write down what you’re good at.  Use your imagination and ask people around you.  The next step on a fresh piece of paper is to write down what you like to do.  This will have some variation from your first list.  Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you want to pursue that long term.  Now look at those two papers and see where there is overlap.  The next step is to take the items that overlap and make a list of what jobs are available in the workforce for them.  Now circle which one’s you could see yourself doing.  The next step is research.  Do a little research on these jobs and see what type of education and major you need to pursue to get there.  These simple yet time intensive steps will help you develop a major that is more than likely going to be right for you.

By being intentional with your search, you will set yourself up to hit the ground running at college.  If you get into it and realize that you don’t have the commitment or competencies for it, than maybe picking another major isn’t a bad idea. Just remember, the longer you are in school the more potential for that scary student loan debt to keep multiplying.  Being intentional with your decisions will pay the greatest dividends.

As always… Dream It, Believe It, Do It and Win It!