high schooler not sure of college major

[Anonymous]

My child is not sure of college major yet. he/she is in junior year in high school.
definitely not medicine field.
maybe computer science or chemistry subjects.
school guidance counselor is not give appointments to parents and always says she is busy.
makes student wait entire lunch time and speaks for 5 minutes and mostly not helpful.

Not sure how to determine the college major subject and ideal colleges for that major.

[Anonymous]

I don't think a high schooler needs to know their college major. While it might be helpful to have some general direction to be heading, they're still a long way from having to declare a major.

When I started college as a freshman, one of the speakers welcoming us pointed out that many of us had no idea what we would major in, and those who had decided on a major, would probably change their minds. I found that to be true.

[Anonymous]

Hey I wasn't sure of my major until I was a college junior.

Best advice: go to a bigger school so changing majors is easy. Don't go to small, specialized school.

[Anonymous]

I changed majors 4 times during college. Essentially once a year. I turned out okay.

[Anonymous]

Even the ones who *are* sure at that age\stage generally turn out to be wrong. Agree with the poster who says going to a large school generally solves this problem. Look for lots of choice and strength/solidity across the board. And remember that, in HS, most kids haven’t really be exposed to many of the fields they might study in college.

CHEM/CS combo plus not pre-med makes me think your kid is mathy. If so, s/he might want to learn a little more about mathier careers outside of STEM and see if any are of potential interest. Lots of enthusiasm about “big data” these days across a variety of fields.

[Anonymous]

Don't you remember not knowing what the heck you wanted to be at this age? Why have we all forgotten this? Why do we let people tell 16 year olds that they need to know what they want to do with their lives? This mentality just adds to the enormous amount of stress kids are feeling.

Most colleges offer a ton of majors and don't require students to pick right away. There are SOME that admit to major, but they aren't the majority by a long shot.

[Anonymous]

I didn’t know my college major until sophomore year of college. One of my DCs switched majors 3 times during college. The only downside of that was not being able to do a study abroad because DC had to stay on campus to complete the final major. My other DC is double majoring and didn’t decide to do that until second semester sophomore year. The consequence of that is that every class junior and senior year has been upper level classes in one of the two majors-0 fluff.

Other than engineering or nursing none of the schools my kids applied for required applications for a particular course of study. Even undergrad business is often something you apply for for sophomore or junior year.

[Anonymous]

I'm always skeptical of HS students that have already decided on a major.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like your kid may be interested in a STEM major. For those majors, it's more important to have an idea about your major earlier because so many of the classes have to be taken in sequence. That said, it probably doesn't matter if they are interested in chem, biochem, physics, CS, etc--most of the core classes are the same for at least the first year. It's just harder to switch to STEM and graduate on time if you start as a music, art or English major.

My suggestion would be to have your kid start doing some research, but not necessarily decide on a major. Look at lists of required classes for each major from potential colleges? Which classes sound fun? Is your kid interested in getting a PhD? If not, then perhaps nix majors like chem and bio where advanced degrees are more necessary. Majors like CS or environmental engineering are less likely to require grad school. Talk to career services at potential schools to see where grads in those majors typically end up. Talk and daydream about possibilities. Try out electives or watch TED talks in the areas of interest. Eventually one path will feel right. Your kid has lots of time to decide, but it doesn't hurt to start thinking. There are lots of majors and occupations that probably aren't even on your radar that may be the perfect fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hey I wasn't sure of my major until I was a college junior.

Best advice: go to a bigger school so changing majors is easy. Don't go to small, specialized school.

Do this OP. Worst thing you can do is finding out you want to major X two years into college and the college doesn't offer major X. I have seen it. It's not good.

[Anonymous]

I went in with my major all set (a STEM major). Partway through the semester my English prof asked me if I had decided on a major and if I had not I should consider writing. Well, as it turns out I was dying in calculus and seriously regretting my decision, and I was thinking of doing a writing minor anyway. Off to the English department I went! Eventually double majored with history. A nice liberal arts education.

I went on to do my MA in International relations.

Not the end of the world of your kid doesn't have a major all picked out at 16.

[Anonymous]

No worries at this time! The students have a few years of basics anyway, and can decide along the way if they go to a school with many options. The statistics show that students change their major 2.5 times!

[Anonymous]

Since when did it become a requirement to know what your college major is going to be when you’re only a junior in high school?

[Anonymous]

It is not a requirement to know when you're a high school junior but: (1) many large schools with restrictions on certain fields of study really do want you to apply to a specific major; and (2) you're not graduating in 4 years if you just take a well-rounded liberal arts curriculum for two years and then decide you want a B.S. major with 74 credits in the major with a lot of pre-reqs, required sequence of classes, and upper level technical electives. These majors don't have 60 credits of general ed/core requirements like a history or English major would.

[Anonymous]

I wanted to be an archaeologist at 16. I majored in it and became one. It took until my mid-20s for me to learn enough about how the field works as an industry to realize that may not have been the best idea. Why do you expect a 16 year old to have that kind of knowledge?