So What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?
There is a great misconception among students (and especially their parents) that a student’s major determines her career. Rarely is this true.
What determines your career—and what employers look to see in college graduates—are the qualities that a college education hones: the capacity to think critically, the ability and desire to problem solve by learning new things, excellent communications skills (both oral and written), and a commitment to success. Did you see economics major listed anywhere in there?
Of course, there are some jobs where a specific major is all but required: it is hard to be a civil engineer if you didn’t major in civil engineering. But increasingly in the information age, the line from major to career is a dotted one, with lots of curves thrown in for good measure. Even graduate schools will accept promising students from outside the “traditional field.” So the title of this chapter may be catchy (it caught your attention, right?), but it is deliberately misleading. Repeat this mantra: a major rarely makes a career.
In selecting a major, the best approach is for a student to pursue her passion and then to perform passionately well, thus demonstrating her desire and ability to succeed. If that is clear enough for you, skip to the next chapter. Chances are, however, you might still have a question or two—we are certain your parents will—so keep reading.
The theory behind a liberal arts education is that exposing a young-adult mind to a variety of fields and asking it to synthesize and analyze that information helps develop the character and intellect of that person. If a liberal education were about getting a degree that would immediately, directly, and narrowly translate into a career, you’d be attending a vocational college. Please don’t misunderstand: vocational schools are a great thing; in fact, the modern world depends on them. But their goal is different from a more traditional university, and it’s critical you recognize the difference going in.
The rapid pace of change in the information age puts a premium on learning, relearning, and retooling. Think of how many variations of computers or cell phones you have used in the last decade, and how they continue to get smaller, thinner, lighter, and more complex. You had to learn anew each time you upgraded. Properly done, a college degree is supposed to certify that you know how to “learn anew.” The certification of survival skills for the twenty-first century has an exotic name: bachelor of science or bachelor of arts. You may think the premise is nutty, but it has helped make US higher education the envy of the world.
A student should major in a topic that excites him rather than the topic that looks like it might lead to the highest starting salary.
You will need these skills because it’s very likely that you will engage in multiple (maybe more than a dozen) career shifts in a lifetime. You would either need more than a dozen separate qualifying degrees, or you need one (with maybe a graduate degree thrown on top) that demonstrates you can learn, relearn, and retool.
If you are still skeptical, don’t take our word for it. If you have a particular career path in mind, it’s wise to do some research and see if it requires any specific undergraduate major. The betting money—and given tuition rates, you are betting a lot of money—says there are many majors that might end up on that same career path.
Hopefully this will come as a breath of fresh, minty-clean air. Bluntly, what we are saying is that students are freer to pursue fields of interest than they (and their parents) may have realized. True, it may require a bit more from the art major than the econ major to get an interview at the bank. However, once he has that degree and if that art major has a stellar narrative (that is, a transcript of well-chosen courses plus complementary extracurricular activities), his profile could stand out in a uniquely positive way. It might even garner more attractive job offers than a more pedestrian profile would.
A student should major in a topic that excites him rather than the topic that looks like it might lead to the highest starting salary. A student who picks a major merely because it implies a job will be less motivated and may end up doing poorly—ironically making himself less employable than if he had picked a different major in which he would have excelled.
The value of a liberal arts education can be hard to fully appreciate up front when you’re eighteen and you’re looking at a complicated matrix of distribution requirements (or if you’re a parent and all you can imagine when you hear “cultural anthropology” are dollar signs and a giant sucking sound), but in the fullness of time all of the seemingly disparate pieces of the puzzle somehow fit together. The result is a broadly educated human being capable of responding to the complexity of the modern world and to ever-changing circumstances.
Hans—recent grad, Duke U
Most of the advice in this book is premised on the idea that students are by nature inclined to be too casual about their college experience. This chapter assumes the opposite. For some reason, choosing a major is the one activity that arouses undue anxiety—even for slackers.
One metatheme of this book is that students should spend less time worrying about what college they get into and more time working to get the best out of the college they have picked. It also applies to majors: spend less time worrying about the job at the end of your major or the major you need to get that job, and more time enjoying and creatively developing the major you have picked.
The bottom line is to pursue your passion studiously even if it cuts against the well-trod career path. We tend to be most successful in areas that intrigue or fascinate us; if not, human beings would reduce to human “doings.” So choose a major that makes you look forward—for at least three years—to going to class, reading your texts, and, dare we suggest, even writing your papers.
What this means practically is that if Kelly is interested in a career in international economics but is fascinated by psychology, she should major in psychology. However, being a psych major doesn’t prevent Kelly from taking classes in other fields. The wise student who is willing to take a risk in her major for the sake of pursing a passion will hedge her bets with a well-chosen minor or a well-crafted set of auxiliary courses that weave a narrative of breadth and potential. In Kelly’s case, a few courses in economics and international affairs are a prudent complement to her psych major.
As long as you excel in whatever major you pursue, and as long as the major is respected as one in which you truly worked for your grades as opposed to one in which you merely warmed a seat each week, you should be in good shape. In fact, it’s almost better to stand out with the odd major as long as when you stand out, your academic record truly shines.
I have no idea what kind of job I want or what I should major in. Guess what question my relatives ask when I see them? You’ve got it. In my case, rather than just saying I’m undeclared or undecided or that I just don’t know, I’ve started asking them what their major was and started talking about their career path. I asked that question at my family’s Christmas parties and learned about all sorts of majors that I didn’t want to pursue, and also a few that sounded interesting. Take advantage of the knowledge and experience of those who surround you.
Brian—freshman, U of Oregon
Of course, if you haven’t done well in the major, and by lacking excellence your major is merely odd, that could significantly slow or deter your progress in winning the career of your dreams. We won’t lie to you: a so-so economics major has more options than a so-so art history major. Whether or not that is as it should be, it is what it is. However, a stellar art history major probably has at least as many options as a so-so economics major. Okay, we admit it. The stellar economics major may have even a few more options. But how many people do you know who can actually stay awake through four years of economics courses well enough to succeed in them if their principal motivation is simply to get a better job? Plus, whom would you rather take to Italy?
Please don’t misunderstand. We are not suggesting you major in scuba art just because you know you can get an easy A. There are some fields that are more respected than others—and we’d be flogged if we listed them here, so do your own research. Don’t be fooled—grad schools and employers do consider your GPA, but they couple it with the rigor of the major in sifting through applications. While we wouldn’t dare hint that you should choose a major just to build your resume, you don’t want to be naive about the fact that there are a few majors out there that have not yet garnered the respect of the professional world. If you really must take classes in scuba art and your life will forever be marred by regret if you don’t, then consider it as a minor (at most) or immerse yourself in as many supplemental courses as your schedule will allow.
If you have always wanted to be a consultant or a politician or a _____ (fill in the blank), how do you know which major is “the one”? Here are a few questions to help guide your thinking:
• What section do you turn to first in the newspaper? (Okay, after the sports section, what section? If it is sports and more sports, there are good careers there: sports writing is a noble profession, not to mention sports medicine, coaching, or teaching adaptive physical education.)
• Where do you go first when you have twenty minutes to kill in a bookstore? (If you spend the whole twenty minutes deciding which scone to buy, you’ve got bigger worries than your major and we probably can’t help you.)
• What subjects excite you most frequently into discussion or even debate?
• Other than fantasy football, what gets you reading articles online or talking around midnight pizza in your dorm?
• What makes you eager and willing to attend class multiple times a week for multiple weeks a year for multiple years?
If you get stuck answering these on your own, don’t hesitate to get professional help. Most colleges offer two resources to help you find a major. The first is the formal premajor advisory system. It is called by many different names, but it functions basically the same: it assigns students to an advisor who—in theory—is knowledgeable about the array of majors and so can help students plot their way. (Once students pick a major, they get another advisor who—in theory—is knowledgeable about the array of opportunities within that major and can advise accordingly.) In practice, it is a mixed bag. No one can truly understand all a modern college curriculum has to offer, and so advisors tend to specialize. If you know the area in which you are interested, you can get an advisor who knows that area and how the system works. If not, it is hit-or-miss.
Which brings us to the second resource (da-da-da-dum!)—the career center. Appearing this evening in resplendent sequined bulletin boards, the career center offers testing to help students narrow down skill sets and fields of interest; with abundant staff who are eager to help and sure to impress your next dinner party, this picture says, “I can do it” (if only selecting a major were as glamorous as The Price Is Right). At the very least, the career center might help you knock a few options off the list based on your personality type and whether or not you see yourself plugging away in the dungeons of the library for the next eight years (which is what some majors require if you intend to pursue the degree to its intended end in a PhD). So you might consider starting your journey there.
Once you’ve narrowed it down to a couple of options as a starting point, research carefully to take the “best” course each major has to offer. (And now that you’ve read chapter 3, you know how to do that.) If you like it, take a second course with a different prof the following term to test your interest as the subject expands. Don’t dismiss the course as not being “real learning” just because it comes to you easily.
In fact, Jasmine did just that. She thought she was a psych major who was taking some English classes for fun. Each semester she found herself battling it out, barely making Bs and Cs in her psych courses while the English As and Bs came easily. Why did it take her until her junior year to realize that she should be majoring in English instead of psychology? She admits that she doesn’t have a good answer. She just thought that since studying English seemed enjoyable, it must not be valuable; she didn’t realize it was easy because she was naturally skilled in that field.
If you are in a preprofessional program, don’t feel the pressure to major in something similar to that subject. No one will think less of you later on. If anything, it will be an asset in that a different major will set you apart. One of my friends is planning on going to veterinary school and he is majoring in religious studies.
Helen—sophomore, U of Chicago
In our experience, most students do not know from birth what is the “right” major for them. In fact, for most there may not be a single right answer. As you narrow your search, here are a few questions to consider.
You could be one of the lucky few who has already narrowed your major options to two or three possibilities. If that is the case, and one department is stronger than the rest, go with that one. You’ll get a better education. After all, that is what you’re paying for. The best professors can make a field come alive, even if the subject didn’t get a second glance from you in high school. College is about expanding horizons. And should you have time in your academic schedule, you can continue to take classes in the other major for the sake of personal interest. (As a general rule, we would shy away from majoring in both, as attractive as that may seem. We’ll explain why later.)
Departmental strengths (and thus the desirability of certain majors) differ from school to school. Find the best departments at your school and consider majoring in them. Sample at least a course or two before you commit to a specific major, because even within departments, the quality of the experience can vary widely depending on the professors you choose.
Are you looking to take your major further, or are you content to get your undergraduate degree and call it quits? If you want to go further, there are two tracks of grad programs: professional and academic. Professional graduate programs (such as law, medicine, and business) rarely require an exact major for entry. A lot of great majors provide an entry into law school (especially if you perform well on the LSAT), and virtually any major can work in applying to business school if a student can prove some knowledge of economics. Most business schools, in fact, care more about your work experience than your major. Medicine is fairly flexible as well, though there are many more course requirements in math, biology, chemistry, and physics. Medical schools love students who have majored in nonscience areas. A career counselor or perhaps even your academic advisor can advise you more specifically.
The academic grad schools, on the other hand, are a bit more demanding in that they expect students to have a strong background in the field (or a close cognate of that field) as their major. While it isn’t entirely unheard of to see students jump majors into grad school (such as having a BA in history and applying to a graduate sociology program), they would need a compelling narrative—such as having taken courses in that area beyond their major track, having worked closely with a professor in research, or having participated in multiple internships—to explain why they are still a good match for this particular program given their major. It can be a bit difficult to choose a grad program before even having declared a major, but if you find your interest piqued by architecture and are curious what a grad program would look like, take a look at the requirements. There is a lot more flexibility in transitioning to grad programs than most students realize.
One final caveat: don’t attend grad school in a subject that doesn’t interest you just because you might pursue a career in that field later. Grad courses are difficult enough, and having a lagging interest will only make the work distasteful.
You never know what classes you’ll find absolutely wonderful until you try them out. However, in testing out a department, try to hold off on declaring your major until you’ve taken courses from at least two or maybe even three different professors within that department. A single professor is not a good representation of what to expect. You may have accidentally discovered the most fascinating professor and topic in the entire department. Or the opposite may be true. Not only will this give you a good idea of the strength of the faculty, it will also give you a flavor of the work and classes available in that major before you declare.
It may not be realistic to take multiple courses yourself, so at a minimum take them “virtually.” Talk with upperclassmen who have had the professors you have had and who have had others in the department, and ask them to compare. But ask several and, if possible, ask a diverse range of students, since individual opinions will vary widely.
Don’t dismay if you take some courses you dislike. Part of the selection process is weeding things out, and it may be that by taking a course that combines statistics, engineering, and science you realize that all three stop your brain waves cold. Consider it a valuable part of the narrowing process, not a mistake. It fits well into your narrative, too, in showing not only your willingness to embark upon new fields but also showing the weight of your certainty.
If not, designing your own major is another option to consider. However, it is not done frequently, and for good reason. Designing a major is not as easy as it may sound. Not only does it require heightened scrutiny by the faculty (because there is the presumption that students designing their own majors are trying to avoid something already being offered that they very well might need), it also requires an unusual degree of clarity from the student in purpose, imagination, and explanation of how courses might fit together. Coupled with this is the significant time investment needed to plot a course and alter it (with permission from the school administrators) as professors or classes come and go. Tack onto those reasons the possibility that you’ll spend the rest of your employment interviews explaining exactly what majoring in Symbolic Structures (or whatever you decide to name your course of study) means, and you’ll see why few students choose to go this route. Still, for some it is the right way to go.
A thumbnail sketch of the process begins with a student who proposes a major as well as its specific course work. A faculty committee reviews that proposal and provides feedback and suggestions or criticism. The student then makes adjustments to the proposal and resubmits it. Some schools may limit the number of times a proposal can be reviewed, but even if not, such reviews can take weeks or months, and most students are restricted by deadlines to declare. What students often find is that, by the end of the process, the major has morphed into an unattractive structure because it no longer reflects their original intent. Don’t be discouraged. You have an entire lifetime to study random topics of interest to you; you don’t need to be registered in college to visit your local library or purchase copies of lectures online.
Of course, there are students who have designed their own majors and gone on to be incredibly successful in them. We know of one student named Lauren who was bored by the usual premed major of biochemistry. She designed a special major in medical ethics and health policy that blended political science, philosophy, and public policy, as well as the more traditional science courses. She went on to do postgraduate study at Oxford and then entered medical school. Designing your course work can be a way to turbocharge your college career (it was for Lauren), but it’s tough to pull off and, except in rare circumstances, probably not worth the effort. A similar effort invested instead into a more traditional major tends to yield a higher dividend.
In most cases, any parental pressure you may receive in declaring your major is well intended. We are fairly confident in saying your parents do love you and have probably sacrificed greatly just to get you to this point. Money gets to talk too.
However, just because your parents think you should major in what they want doesn’t mean you should. After all, you are the one who will be studying the topic for the next four years, not to mention answering questions on the topic at interviews and cocktail parties.
We aren’t suggesting you ignore their advice entirely. After all, they probably know you better than many others you will consult. But we suggest treating their insight as counsel, not gospel. This is an issue on which there are ample opportunities to compromise by altering how you design a schedule with extra courses, including a supplemental minor, or even registering for well-chosen summer internships.
The conversation could look something like this: “No, Dad, I’m not going to be an econ major, but I am going to hold an office in the Young Entrepreneurs’ Club on campus as well as do an internship this summer at a corporation so I can give the field a fair try; I still think I really want to be a philosophy major.” Of course, be prepared for your dad’s counterproposal: “Why don’t you hold an office in the Philosophers’ Club and major in economics?” Look for creative compromises; your folks probably have enough gray hair already.
Arguably the top two majors that give parents cause for concern are music and art history. Parents who hear the dreaded news that their son wants to be a music major (why did they spend all that money sending him to math camps?) picture their little drummer boy being forever consigned to a garage band—and worse, it might be their garage. It’s not that their concerns are irrational. As we mentioned earlier, the more exotic the major, the more will be required of you to make it work in the professional arena once you graduate.
In holding up your end of the conversation, be sure to communicate to your folks that a major that enables you to thrive while challenged (even if it is religious studies) will serve you better in the long run than scraping by in a major traditionally thought of as sound (which really means “diploma comes with a high-paying job”). You may also want to add that college offers you a fleeting opportunity to study a subject you most likely won’t have the opportunity to revisit so intensely at any other point in your life—and you may even be learning from some of the leading minds in the field.
We recognize that the following tip may only work at small colleges, but it’s worth a try: encourage your folks to speak with a professor in your proposed department. Regardless of school size, your parents can probably connect with a few alums who chose a risky major and then succeeded professionally years later.
In all of this back-and-forth about your future, do talk with a few other adults from your parents’ generation about what they majored in and how it mattered to their careers. We’re guessing you’ll be a little surprised to see how loose the connection is. But even if you see an airtight connection, be sure to interview people between your parents’ generation and your own—people who have entered the marketplace in the last fifteen years. The economy is changing its opinion of what criteria are used to hire and fire, so for the immediate future, the major might actually matter. What you’ll most likely find is that the longer folks have been out of school, the less significant their major will have been to their career.
It’s rare, but not unheard of, for parents to insist on a particular major. If you do find yourself in that unfortunate position, it is time for a gut check: how badly do you want to major in art history versus fulfilling your parents’ hope for biology? Enough to foot the bill? Should your parents prove to be more unmovable than Rushmore on the topic (even after you have had the reasonable conversations prescribed above), our inclination is to give in to their demands. If you are strategic in how you organize your schedule and major requirements, you may be able to satisfy your art itch by taking as many courses outside the premed track as you can. Then, once you’ve graduated and are footing the bills, apply to the best art history grad programs you can find. It’s not exactly having your cake and eating it too, but at least you won’t go hungry.
Lucky you. While a rare breed, this will be the case for some. Political science may have fascinated you since your prepubescent years. The fact that a prof in this field may have been a close friend of the family didn’t hurt matters much either, and you can’t imagine doing anything else. Great! You’ve found your major. But don’t stop there. While starting your major early opens the possibility for you to delve deep into this field (and we encourage you to take a few grad courses by the end of your undergraduate term), take as broad a range of courses outside your major as you can. Don’t be ashamed if poli sci is your dream world, but test it regularly with a broad range of other courses that will make you appear less narrow than if you are only versed in one subject.
Be careful of being overconfident that your major is encoded in your DNA. We know of one successful professional who thought she was meant to be a doctor. Frances did well in all her classes and fulfilled her requirements for premed in record time. What she couldn’t figure out was why so many medical schools kept rejecting her applications. Then she spent some time interning in a hospital. It quickly became clear that she had no idea what the profession of a doctor was like, and she was both ill-prepared and ill-suited for medical work. Somehow the med schools had seen through her interests better than she had, and she now looks back and admits that she is grateful she got turned down cold. It’s good to have an interest in a field, but be looking for yellow flags that say perhaps this is more an avocation than a vocation. Oh, and Frances is now running a college campus somewhere and doing marvelously, so don’t feel too badly for her.
I love to watch adults squirm when I answer their question about what I am studying in college: theater and music. “Ohh,” they reply as they unsuccessfully try to keep their concern from flashing across their eyes, “do you have a backup plan?” No, I do not have a backup plan because I am passionate about my work and well suited to my chosen career path. However, this chapter brought the very comforting news that though I chose a major that leads into a very competitive field that is probably not going to make me a lot of money, if necessary I could still get a financially supplemental job in an unrelated field that pays more than waiting tables.
Rebecca—recent grad, Point Loma Nazarene U
Common Worries before Choosing a Major
What will I do when I leave college with this major? It matters very little what department you choose as long as you do well.
What painful course requirements must I endure to complete this major? It is worth both doing well in your passion and pursing a passion where you will do well. Please note, however, that it is also worth being stretched by ideas that you might not find easy to master. Fulfilling your passion doesn’t mean simply taking courses you find simple. That your major takes you beyond your comfort zone is a good thing. Employers want to see you perform well, but they also want to see how you’ve succeeded in the face of obstacles and opposition.
I’m halfway through my freshman year and don’t know what I’m doing with the rest of my life! Relax. Most adults are halfway through their lives and say the same thing. Not knowing your major even after the first year is okay, provided you have been strategically choosing courses and getting exposure to a range of possible majors in a reasonable fashion. Students who are not at this point by the end of their second year are in trouble, and most colleges will provide pressure from administrative watchdogs.
I aced biology in high school and loved it, but it seems so much harder in college. I thought I’d be a bio major, but now I’m having second thoughts! Virtually every subject on the college campus is approached differently from the way it was handled in high school. There are lots of students who like high school _____ but not college _____. Rather than memorizing equations or anatomical structures, you will be asked to analyze them and produce new ideas or conclusions based on your analysis. Subjects that you excelled in or enjoyed during high school are a good place to start, but don’t despair if you find that the college version is not for you.
One mistake we see too often is students who’ve taken a course from a single fabulous professor in a department and, because of his class, decide to major in that field without researching what else is involved. A year into her major, one student discovered that she had to take advanced Arabic in order to complete her degree, which she wasn’t willing to do. Due diligence is critical.
Entire departments thrive on students who arrive premed and then meet (and fail) organic chemistry. They also attract students who remain too long in a major they chose in error, either because the end-result career looked sexy on TV or because it was what their parents wanted them to choose. After a rickety semester, they disregard the signs (that is, failing grades, panic attacks, dread of attending class, unalterable confusion) and pursue the major for two or even three more semesters and then find themselves with a transcript full of classes they wish they could hide. They may try to apply it to a major that is a distant cousin just to graduate on time, or they may have to extend their stay at the university another year to earn a degree in a major they truly love. To the tune of thousands of dollars, those are some expensive little yellow flags to ignore. The bottom line is pay attention to any and all flag waving that signals this may not be the right major for you. While you shouldn’t jump ship at the first sign of a bad grade, continued poor performance deserves at least some reevaluation.
Finally, we land upon this oh-so-worthy point. There is an overwhelming notion in the student body that two majors are better than one. Sometimes yes, but often no. The primary reason we resist so strenuously the suggestion to double major is that the time required to fulfill both majors will cost both depth and potentially unique study opportunities—there are only so many hours in the semester. It sounds impressive to brag about holding your own in two majors to your peers, but unless it is something you absolutely must do for your career path (like economics and Russian so you can work overseas as an advisor neck deep in snow) or because you are trying to indulge an exotic passion (your parents insist that you graduate with a sociology degree, but you really want to major in engineering), you may find it just as rewarding to focus on developing one major with a host of skill sets and unique course work surrounding it. Plus, a year or two after you graduate no one but your interviewer will ask what you majored in, and should you try to insert said boast into friendly conversation, be prepared to be verbally backstabbed after the party.
Two majors are not always better than one. You want your transcript to show depth in at least one topic (meaning you have gone well beyond the introductory level and are engaging the material at a sophisticated level) and breadth beyond that topic (meaning you are not limited to baby-step intellectual excursions out of your comfort zone). And, sure, sometimes a double major will do just that. But what is more likely is that the double major will force your schedule into little more than checking off requirements instead of choosing courses.
Just as it matters less what college you attended when compared to how you performed in college, it matters less what major you chose when contrasted with how you conducted yourself within that major. If financial considerations have forced you into a college that isn’t your first pick, you can still excel. And if a parent ultimatum has forced you into a major that you wouldn’t have chosen for yourself, you can still build a narrative in your transcript that will enable you to be successful in your chosen career later on. Take heart. College will be over someday soon and no one but the freshman from the alumni office hitting you up for donations will ever ask about your major.
Don’t get too caught up in the social stereotypes of majors or future plans. Just because someone can do insane physics problems does not make her smarter than the art history major student.
Helen—sophomore, U of Chicago