Reply to What to major in?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "What to major in?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]So, I agree with PP that while 14:20 certainly has provided information definitely worth noting, I would not consider his comments gospel nor expert. You must have to get in there and do the legwork for any area of interest. One individual, no matter how well-intentioned, just doesn't take the place of checking things out for yourself and really delving into your interests.[/quote]

14:20 here.  Obviously, I can only speak with authority from my own experience, which is in chemistry/biochemistry world.  These observations are volunteered on an anonymous site as nothing more than observations of my peers.  I have friends who are in all the fields above who have shared their experiences, and with linkedin and facebook, it's easy to watch people's career trajectories.  We also tend to discuss our struggles in these various fields, because honestly establishing our careers in this economy is tough for our generation, period.

Some of what I said were vast generalizations.  I can already think of several exceptions off the top of my head about what I said about some of these areas.

In reality, there are just so many paths that people take to find career success.  People get so hung up on majors--and love to bash the liberal arts.  I don't think that an English degree from Yale or Swarthmore is necessarily going to leave you with no options.  The job market is changing very rapidly, and in response, I don't think that direct vocational training is always clearly the answer.  Parents in any competitive career tend to think that whatever it is they did is the hardest, worst job market out there.  My dad is a lawyer with an English degree (who has been very successful in what he does, although it's been hard work) and he thought the magic ticket for his kids was STEM.  Well guess what?  It's not.  It's one of many difficult pathways to a professional career.

[b]What I have noticed, really is that the people who do the best tend to be aggressive self-starters and opportunity grabbers. [/b] Good grades and prestigious schools will always help, but in this economy as a recent grad, you cannot wait for opportunities to come to you.  I think there tends to be a certain attitude of complacency in a lot of kids who are good at school, where they feel like if you follow the rules and get your As, it will all pan out and you can apply to a handful of jobs and it will be fine.  It rarely works like this.[/quote]I couldn't agree more (bolded).  My kid majored in languages (three critical) BUT added on some journalism, business, science, and international relations courses and aggressively marketed to the government, media, medical interpreting, etc, extolling all academic virtues.  I can't even remember all the businesses but there were a bunch.  This resulted in several varied job offers.  You can study your passion but find out what you can add onto it to become as marketable as possible.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics