Help me help S24 think about potential majors

College Majors
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As S23 finishes up his college applications we are starting to work on the process of making a college list for S24. One thing that is getting us stuck is that he doesn’t know what he wants to study. I know he can work on finding colleges where not knowing what he wants to study will not be as big of an issue, but I think it would also be helpful for him to make some progress thinking about possible majors and careers.

We would love to hear what areas you would recommend for a kid with his profile!

He is pretty competent at everything. I think of him as more a math/science kid, but he actually did better on the English SAT (760) than on the math (690) when he took it this fall.

He actually is pretty good at writing and fine at historical and literary analysis, but they cause him a lot of stress.

He loves the logic/problem solving aspect of his computer science class, but hates doing the detailed work of the coding.

He hated biology and chemistry, but did well. He likes his AP physics (mechanics) class this year, but prefers to think about things intuitively (and does have a good intuition). He dislikes doing the detailed, precise, step-by-step part of it.

He does not have strong feelings about math. He is good at it, learns it easily, is getting an excellent grade in AP calculus, but doesn’t particularly love it.

Right now he says he guesses he would major in some kind of engineering. I think this is mostly because that’s what his dad does and he knows it pays well. Also his whole life his dad has told him he would make a good engineer.

Dad and I, however, are now concerned that he doesn’t have the profile to enjoy engineering. He loves problem-solving, but hates doing the step-by-step, detailed work and engineering really requires precision.

So, he’s pretty indifferent to most his schoolwork. What does he love?

He says he loves accomplishing a project well.
He says he likes to help people and make them happy.

I observe that he really likes working with and being around people. He has a lot more energy from work and learns more quickly when he is interacting with other people.

He likes logic puzzles, problem-solving, and strategy games.

He enjoys collecting things, and sorting and organizing things. (He likes to acquire Magic the Gathering cards, and sort them in different ways, and make different decks from them. He likes Legos, but I feel like he spends a lot more time sorting and organizing them than he does actually building with them.)

And, he has this kind of weird hobby, that I feel like might be an indication of some type of career that would be a fit, but I don’t know enough about it to know what career that would be. He loves to read through Kickstarter projects, and research them. He likes to figure out, has something like this been done before? Does he think it is a good proposal? Then, he supports the projects he thinks are good (with the money he makes at his job). And he takes it really seriously! When he gets prototypes of things and they ask for feedback, he takes it really seriously and provides extensive, well-thought-out feedback.

Any ideas for careers for a kid like this? Or majors that he might actually enjoy rather than just trudging through competently without joy?

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He is what…16 or 17 years old? I would strongly suggest you look at colleges with a strong core course requirement. This makes students take courses in many different disciplines. Very often, something or someone piques their interest.

Many many colleges don’t require choosing a major until the end of sophomore year.

AND many many many students change their majors multiple times.

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This is generally what I had thought made sense. (I changed majors three times in college, and didn’t find what I really liked until mid junior year, when I had to settle for a minor in it if I wanted to graduate on time. I am very sympathetic to being undecided!)

But then I’ve read a lot recently about how many(?) schools limit entry into engineering and business majors, and it started to stress me out since those might be the majors he is most interested in. So, for instance, our state flagship is UMass Amherst. And financially that would be great for us if he could get in. But I’ve heard that they are really strict about letting people transfer into the business or engineering programs. I started to think he needed to have a better idea what he wants to do before he applies. :grimacing:

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True anecdotal story. One of our kids entered as undeclared, but quickly chose engineering as the major. The kid did complete the engineering degree but picked up a second major…because the kid quickly realized that she never wanted to be an engineer. Loved the coursework but hated the idea of being an engineer. This kid will never be an engineer. And her dad is also an engineer.

I would suggest that you look for colleges where there is flexibility in choosing a major rather than trying to shoehorn your kid into some choice.

Of course, the real ultimate answer is with your kid…who could enroll at UMass as an engineering major and change his major to philosophy.

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Thanks for starting this thread! Tons of overlap with my D24.
Maybe a week at a camp like Cal Poly’s Epic, https://epic.calpoly.edu/ would allow an initial decision on an engineering field.
@thumper1, many of the colleges that have a ‘strong core course requirement’, are also a challenging admit and often very expensive for donut hole families. Additionally, if OP’s S24 is like mine, the high profile EC’s may not be there. Potentially making merit at some schools challenging.
We are on the opposite coast from OP and focusing on WUE colleges that don’t have majors that are impacted. Oregon State and University of Nevada Reno are publics that have a huge variety of majors without the barriers to changing. Comparable numbers of majors and ease of changing seems like it would require a very hard admit to a smaller prestigious private.
Would an honors college at a mid tier public provide the challenge for a clearly bright student, the flexibility to explore majors and a cost that is palatable while exploring.

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From what you say it sounds to me like business is a better fit for him than engineering, and I think it is possible (and in many cases more desirable) to get any undergraduate degree and then get an mba- so I wouldn’t stress too much about applying to business programs for undergrad.

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My S24 is very similar, has excellent grades in everything and probably has more of a math/science mind but thinks he is a humanities person. He has spent his HS career primarily working on music as an EC but is not sure he wants to be a musician. He is targeting LACs where he can study everything and go anywhere. It seems the best fit since he has excluded engineering but you can study anything else there and there is outstanding job placement (of course this may all go up in the air if he decides to do music programs, but that is irrelevant to your S!).

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Sounds like Organizational Management might be a good match for him.

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I’m not familiar with that field. I’ll mention it to him to look into. Thanks!

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This is a hybrid program that might appeal to him: It’s a full engineering qualification, is heavily project oriented, and the management side makes it much more people-oriented than the typical engineering program.

https://www.tcd.ie/courses/undergraduate/courses/engineering-with-management/

There may be other courses like it- I just happen to be familiar with this one!

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Wow, venture capital jumped right out at me as a logical direction for this kid. Not that he should be boxed into that, but perhaps keep it as a consideration.

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He sounds a LOT like my son. Someone on this site suggested that he take the YouScience aptitude/interest test, which was much longer and harder than the freebie ones he did in his school. I thought it was well worth the 40 bucks or whatever it cost. The results really rang true to his interests and not just his strengths.

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Interesting! We’ll check that out.

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I think business or management.

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All due respect to the engineers- there is little you’ve posted that suggests he’d love majoring in engineering.

Psychology? that seems to ring true. Psych majors work in market research, branding/marketing, sales. Of course all the counseling/helping professions too- and if he gets his energy from other people that might interest him. But based on what you’ve written- there are lots of interesting business careers that hire psych majors.

Who figured out that you could put three Oreo’s in a package, triple the price, call it “100 calorie snack” and create an entirely new profitable product category? A psych major. Who took the clocks out of casinos? A psych major. Who rebranded weight loss products as “healthy lifestyle” products? Many psych majors. And who figured out that calling "you should stop speeding and you should wear a seat belt, and stop driving when you’ve “had a few”, “Mothers Against Drunk Driving” (as if ANYONE is FOR drunk driving?) could lead to legislative changes around the country for mandatory seat belts, defining blood alcohol levels in every state, “click it or ticket”, etc.? Many psych majors who understand how to create public policy campaigns that work.

But I agree that heading into Freshman year an undeclared freshman is not a bad thing. Who knows what might spark his interest???

If he doesn’t love math, I just don’t see the engineering or engineering adjacent majors being at all fun for him…

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@MAmomto4 Venture Capitalist is what I was thinking too especially re: Kickstarter passion. A firm foundation for that would be Accounting/Finance concentrations within Business.

@UpNorth2019 Thanks for the tip re: YouScience, which looks like it is running a promo for 50% off.

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The other thing to remember. Jobs/careers don’t necessarily have to be major dependent.

And really, when your younger son graduates from college in 6 or 7 years, there will be jobs on the horizon that don’t even exist now!

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I think it is possible he has not yet taken classes in an area he really can love, or work in. Psychology, sociology, media studies, American Studies, who knows? One school in MA that I think has interesting majors is Clark U. Take a look!

This may be a little off the wall but more than once you mentioned that he likes a subject but doesn’t like to delve deeply. Any chance he has ADHD? Indulge me for mentioning this. The pattern just struck me.

If at all possible, I think it helps to put career concerns aside at first, but of course I completely understand the need for return on investment. Still, career concerns sometimes lead kids down a path prematurely and prevent developing interests that might serve them well long term. Just my view.

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My thoughts went to HR type degrees.

Or Supply Chain Management. Also known as Supply and Logistics Management.

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This is actually one of S23’s top choices, but I hadn’t thought about it for S24. Of course, if S23 ends up there it might need to stay off the list for S24. :grin:

I think this is a good question and something we should possibly think about. S24 is my “easy“ child; of the other 3, 2 are on the autism spectrum and the third has really extreme cerebral palsy. So, unfortunately, S24 has not had as much attention as would be ideal. He has always done well with school & it hasn’t really been an issue. There have been a few things over the past year that have made me wonder if he had something going on neurodiversity-wise that I just hadn’t noticed previously. But also hard to untangle from pandemic changes and adolescence.