i dont know. i decided on nursing because it only requires an A.S. degree, has a liveable salary and you can work part time & 3rd shift, but im having second thoughts. i think i belong in the hard sciences because i feel more at home in them. chemistry, biochemistry, biology, anatomy, engineering, etc. Plus i’d want an advanced medical degree (but not med school) someday.
ive honestly never seriously looked at 80% of the majors out there, which makes me wonder what all im missing.
I initially picked Business / Accounting because it was considered a practical and marketable skill, rather than it being something I might enjoy. MISTAKE. Deep down, I knew it, but I kept on.
I began listening to Roy Orbison music in college. One day, I bumped into a stranger in the parking lot because he was jamming Orbison and dancing alone in the parking lot on campus.
He asked my major. I told him business. He said, “Man, what a watse.”
It hit me like a rock. The next day, I changed to Political Science and I enjoyed it very much.
Then, I went to law school. I struggled through Tax and Corporations, and I enjoyed Election Law and Administrative Law. Now I’m a BUSINESS litigator. D’oh! It sucks the life out of me every day.
I’m hoping to transition to something more government related now that I’ve moved to Sacramento.
I took a Religion class my second quarter, freshman year, and that was it. Nothing else intersted me – though I toyed with the idea of adding a history of science major for a while.
I started out in an Engineering track as an undergrad because I was good at math and science in high school. It turned out that Engineering required an instinctive understanding of higher level mathematics (like Calculus) that I didn’t have, and wasn’t interested in acquiring. After about a year and a half, the work was getting harder and I was enjoying it less, and getting worse grades, while many of my friends in engineering were understanding more, enjoying it more, and getting BETTER grades than they had been earlier. I decided I needed to switch to something I really liked.
I was always interested in natural history and ecology, and had gotten a 5 out of 5 on the AP Bio exam, and a 96 on the New York State Biology Regents exam, so I picked Biology. My parents were very supportive (“You’ll end up cleaning animal cages in a lab for a living!”) :rolleyes:
I had the option majoring in Genetics/Molecular Biology, Cellular Biology, Organismal Biology (Physiology) or Environmental. I chose Genetics/Molecular after taking a couple of courses and realizing I understood the stuff better than most of the rest of the students. All things being equal I would have chosen Environmental, but I knew the job prospects were poorer in that area.
15 odd years later I know that picking Bio as a major was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I would have been a miserable engineer. I have had a great career so far, and have never had to clean a cage.
As has been said before, Do what you enjoy. But if you are so close to the finish line, I would suggest you finish that associate’s degree, because, speaking for myself, I don’t know anyone in any field, who doesn’t benefit from knowing something more than the basics to run Joe’s Company.
It’s a decent foundation. Go dream a bit, and study what makes your toes curl. The old adage “do what you love, the money will follow” relies on your business savvy to translate a love of having guests in your home to running the most successful B&B your region ever saw.
As for me? I took a diploma in Hotel & Restaurant Management because I liked having people over all the time, so why not make a career out of hospitality? I transferred to a larger school with a larger degree because near the end of the diploma program, I felt confined and dissatisfied by that. I now have a B.Comm in Hospitality & Tourism Management, with a particular focus on resort development, and I’m working in admin. at a real estate appraisal firm. Several of the guys who do commercial appraisals have picked my brain about hospitality ventures, and now I’m working towards my post-graduate certificate in real estate appraisal, so I can pick my own brain. It’s a detour, but my ultimate goal is still that kick-ass B&B I mentioned.
I always liked to write, so my parents convinced me- by age 14- that I should major in English-journalism, since, theortically, you could get paid to write that way. So I applied to colleges that way, and was accepted (I do wonder if that help off-set my absymal math SAT scores, since they knew I wasn’t interested in math or science) as a provisional English-Journalism major as a freshman. I’m not sure why, but all freshman with majors were labeled “provisional_________.”
I stuck with that until I finally got to take a Journalism class the end of my Sophomore year. I hated it. There was no art to what they wanted us to write, and it’s bad story-telling to give the most important things away first. So I switched to English-Teaching my Junior year. I got to take creative writing classes as electives, and decided that I really don’t want to teach English either. But it’s not a complete waste, since I spend a fair amount of my year working for an educational firm that deals with evaluating student writing. I think that’s about as close as I’ll ever come to putting my degree to legitimate use, but it’s a lot closer than many people
[sub]I write better with spell-check. honest. [/sub]
Like a previous poster had mentioned, I have been writing code for years. Deciding to major in Computer Science was an easy choice – something I like and something I’m good at. Plus something that pays well.
Deciding to minor in Applied Physics was pretty much random and whimsical, but I am enjoying the curriculum.
Badly…
While it is nice to know that I could design a steel truss or concrete footing if I had to, I could have done without 4 years of studying till 4 am for engineering classes full of ugly dudes.
I already posted most of this in the GD thread about graduate student teachers, but here goes again. I went to college intending–with parental influence–to major in biology and eventually go to vet school. I failed the first exam. I was also awful in labs and my best friend freshman year took pity on me and basically did my graphs and charts for me. It was hopeless. I finished the course and ended up with a C. The next year, I took a lot of English Lit classes and realized it was the right thing for me to do. I’d always excelled in English in high school–won an award for it–and I can’t explain why exactly I never chose to major in it in the first place, but I was a much happier person for it.
Work is so much more enjoyable when it’s not work. To echo other posters, find something you enjoy doing in general. Studying, researching, taking exams and writing papers become interesting exercises and challenges instead of hurdles you have to miserably crawl over. I wanted to go to class, do all the reading, and write ambitious papers. I wanted to do well instead of just get by.
I took a vocational test in high school. It said basically two things: “Do you like to work with your hands?” Yes! “Do you like to write and think?” Yes! At the end of the test it said: There is no job for you. (It was designed to head people either to vocational training, like garage mechanic, or college.) I didn’t understand the limitations of testing and I was deeply bummed.
I majored in No Idea for two years. Vaguely thinking about learning a lot of languages and being a translator at the UN. Started a major in Russian Studies. Switched to Biology. Switched to Biochemistry. Took Greek and Latin on the side through a Bible school (still going on the languages idea). Ended up in med school. Vowed to be a tender hearted family doc. Fell in love with surgery. Left surgery bitterly after 2 years. Ended up in pathology.
Majored in Forensic Pathology.
Now I work with my hands every day, and use my brain and write all the time.
Sometimes it works out even when you get bad advice early on, and don’t realize what it is you want to do.
I couldn’t pass the coursework in the other two majors I tried (Spanish and International Relations), so in my third year I finally settled on Communications. In my opinion, it’s the easiest major there is… they’ll take anybody. Or at least they did when I was in college.
Well, I liked biology, liked problem solving, and wanted to help people without having to actually deal with them. So voila! biomedical engineering. I’m only a sophomore, but I think I’ve made the right decision.