Choose your college like it matters. Pick your major at your own risk!
We all know certain colleges are well-known for particular majors. Harvard University for medicine or law. Northeastern University for law and nursing. Emerson for cinematography or film/video production, Boston University for business and marketing. NYU for economics or acting and directing.
These are a few of the most popular majors from these particular schools and, yes these are five of the biggest and more well know schools on the east coast. (There are many others across the country of course.) All good majors and schools for somebody. But for who?
The truth is, the majority of incoming freshman to any college don't know what they want to major in, much less "do" as their career for the next fifty years of their life. What about two years later going into junior year? Yet, we are expected to pick a major as freshman or by the time we're juniors at the latest that might be what we do for the rest of our working days.
Their is a small percentage of people who know at 18 or 20 years old what they want to do as a career. These are the ones that walk onto campus with a love of horses so go to William Woods University for Equestrian studies (a friend of mine's niece) or the doctor who as a third year med student picked a specialty that he just retired from 40 years later (a former doctor of mine). These people seem somehow lucky to me. For no other reason than they always knew what they wanted to do.
But a much larger percent of people start looking at colleges with a general idea of their interests and maybe they know what they're good at (if your lucky), the decision about where to go to college though generally comes down to other factors.
Access, (what schools you can get into)
Money, (what school can you afford to go to or get loans and scholarships from)
Location, (what part of the country you live in/want to live in)
Personality, (fit to a school (does your personality fit the school)
Here's the thing: where you go to college matters and what major you choose REALLY matters. I learned this the hard way.
I didn't know what I wanted to do as a career, I knew what I didn't want to do (I am terrible at math and foreign language, hated science...). Going to college I certainly had some general ideas about what interested me (journalism, communications, music, writing) but had no concrete knowledge of what I am good at or how I was going to create a productive long lasting career in one of those fields.
I went though several majors in college trying to find a fit, be good at something and find my place. I don't think I found it.
You pick something too specific and you will struggle to get a job in anything but that major. You study a major that's too broad (English) , too peripheral (philosophy), or has now changed (radio) in the job market you will also struggle … suddenly your degree becomes nothing more than an irrelevant piece of paper.
Your major MATTERS. What matters almost as much as your major though are the transferable skills that you learn in college. You may have a major in one industry, but you need to gain transferable skills that are applicable if you don't create a career in your chosen field.
What if the industry you majored in changes (or disappears)? What if you change industries by choice? Transferable skills include computer software, problem solving, writing (resume, business), job networking, interviewing, even personality tests about yourself are all ones that are good to have and go with you no matter the job/field or industry you're in or going to. In theory that's done in a well rounded college education but if that were the case why do employers say there are no qualified candidates when we have high unemployment.
During a person's lifetime, informal surveys have shown that a majority of people don't continue to work in the major they studied or that they have a degree very different than the industry they are working in decades later. (For me I wonder if this applies to never worked in your major as well.) These give me hope.
So your major and degree matters, at least for the first decade after you graduate...make them count...pick a major that means something to you, pick a major that you can use in good times and bad, pick a major that will give you a career not just a series of jobs. But know that as the years go by your major and even what degree you have may matter less.
Your interests may change, industries change. What your resume looks like over time may have nothing to do with your major or your degree (by choice or by circumstance).
Pick your college like it matters. Pick your major like it REALLY matters.
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