22 Going on 23 years old Sophomore In College - Can't Decide Which Path To Take

College Majors
1

Hey guys,

I am currently 22 years old(going on 23 in January). I transferred to a major state university last year after 3 years at a community college.

At community college I did not have clarity on what I wanted to do and when I wanted to transfer and at some points I was only taking 2 classes at a time.

After transferring, I am not a student here and studying GIS(Geographic Information Science).

I like this area of study but I do not like the projected salary when I graduate. The average salary 10-15 years after graduation is a womping $77k.

I am also a programmer and have been programming since I was in highschool. I love programming and initially I wanted to study computer science. But it would literally take me an extra 4 years to graduate with this degree. The salary, job opportunities all look promising for CS degree.

I will also be close to $100k in debt after graduating computer science. and I would be 26 years old.

Thoughts on this? Any experience or advice in the matter would be great!

2

I have thoughts.

$77K is a pretty decent salary - it’s almost 3 times the median individual salary in the U.S., and would put you in the 89th percentile of earners in the U.S. You can live a pretty sweet middle-class lifestyle on $77K, particularly if you end up in a dual-earner household.

However, if you want to make more, CS is a good major in which to do that (if you go into work as a software developer). The fact that you’ll be 26 doesn’t matter, since you’ll be 26 regardless of whether you change your major or not. But taking on $100K in debt is a terrible idea. Even with a relatively high software developer’s salary, you’ll struggle to repay that debt.

If you already know how to program and have been doing so since high school, can you finish your major while working on your programming skills and beefing those up? Many jobs don’t care what your major is; they care about your skills.

3

Sidenote: can you add some sort of IT minor?

^^agree