Choosing a Major

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I hope my readers don't think I'm acting beyond my mandate if I offer a few suggestions about choosing a major.  This is for college students; others should leave this page at once.

It might be a bit too annoying if I were to give detailed reasons, but I'm going to give you a peep into my thinking anyway.  The world is too full of people giving instructions with very little supporting arguments.

1.  You must pick a major you're interested in.  Sure, you have to find a job, but if you can't stand a subject, you will be miserable for several decades.  Select one of your two most favorite subjects.  If you have to be practical, you can go with the one that promises more employment opportunities.

2.  Make sure you take your writing courses and your math courses seriously.  You could have a major in basket weaving, but your writing ability and your ability to do double-entry book-keeping might get you a job, especially if this employer can't afford a fully-qualified accountant.  Being able to use MS Word and MS Excel are also good for employment.  Your major is not the only thing that matters.

3.  In these times when everybody is going to grad school (this might be news to you, but college degrees are becoming commonplace), you must keep an eye on possible graduate school "majors".  In theory, you can go to grad school in (say) Economics, even if your undergrad degree is in History.  But in practice, Economics graduate schools tend to think that an undergraduate degree in Mathematics or Engineering is a better preparation for an Economics graduate degree.  On the other hand, your undergraduate major might not be a deterrent for a graduate degree in Music, for instance.  But you must have a solid background in music theory and performance.  I guess I'm saying: keep graduate school in the back of your mind.

4.  As I have often said, statistics (Bureau of Labor Statistics of the US Government) show that people change occupations, and even career areas, on the average of three times in a lifetime.  You may start off in a job in Marketing (though your major was Art), and end up working for a non-profit.  My wife got an undergraduate degree in Archeology and History, but her first full-time job was as a writer for an Engineering journal, and now she is a grant writer for the county government.  If you're good, you could get hired to do a tricky job no matter what your undergraduate major was.

5.  You can declare and un-declare your major a couple of times; nobody is going to insist that you stay with your original choice.  Keep taking courses in all the areas you're interested in, so that you keep your options open.

6.  If you want to make money, don't go into teaching.  Well-meaning friends may urge you to go into teaching, because "You would make such an awesome teacher!"  But you would be a miserable awesome teacher who can't pay her bills.  Until the situation changes and our culture begins to take teachers more seriously, hassle them a lot less, and pays them a lot better, the nation is going to have to make do with teachers who go into the profession because they can't make more money elsewhere.  On the other hand, if you're a Mother Theresa in the making, by all means teach.  Or teach, and moonlight as a tax accountant.  And get a bullet-proof vest, because who knows?

To conclude, a major (in the theory of tertiary education that holds sway at the moment) is an area into which a college student goes in some depth.  Your general education courses provide breadth.  The idea of college is not to make you more employable in terms of your subject knowledge (though, inevitably, that does happen), but rather because your college experience should have given you a better perspective on life, culture, and the world, than most people without a college experience.  This is valuable to many employers.  (Unfortunately, many of your college-mates have been able to go through college without an iota's change in their perspective.  They have to somehow keep that fact hidden from more perceptive employers.)  The general education courses give you that perspective, and your major trains you into thinking deeply about at least one subject.  Some people find it difficult to think deeply about anything, and these people should not be in college.  So pick a major in a subject you like sufficiently well that you aren't afraid of going into it in depth.  Remember, if you're a sophomore now, you might be quite a different person by the time you need to go into your major in depth, and you might not be as scared of intellectual stuff at that point.

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