I’m honestly getting pretty discouraged trying to choose a major. If I get my hopes up they’re always shot down by “But what about engineering? Or computer science? They’re more marketable.” Look, I need to make this very clear: I do not want to major in engineering or computer science. No amount of money will make me want to major in either. Thank you, but they’re not for me.
That being said, I don’t want to starve. I need help choosing a marketable major that I’ll actually enjoy. I’ll start off by giving you an idea of what I’m looking for. I’m interested mainly in math and biology, but I’ve also enjoyed economics and I think I’m fairly good at statistics. I wouldn’t necessarily make a career out of the latter two, but I can definitely tolerate them. I would like to enter a field that combines art/theory with practicality, and I also need a balance of working with others and being able to work alone.
I’ve been considering marketing and applied math. If I majored in applied math, I could go to grad school for something like bioinformatics to make the degree worth something. Marketing is also very interesting to me, but I’m being told that it would be useless unless I made it a double major. I don’t know what to do.
I’ve never taken a marketing class, but if you’re going to do marketing I think statistics would be a better combination than math. Since you say you like theory you might like math or economics. Math has a LOT of theory for sure ^-^
I don’t think you need to worry so much about selecting a “marketable” major. What gets you a job is not so much your major but the skills you develop and experience you gain, and I know successfully employed folks who have had majors in a variety of different things that are not engineering or computer science.
If you are interested in math, math or statistics are good majors. So’s economics, which can have a lot of math in it. If you major in applied math, you wouldn’t necessarily need to go to graduate school - there are lots of jobs to be had for a BA in applied math.
Marketing is also very useful on its own. Think about it - every company that sells something (even a service) needs a marketing team. Why would you need to double major?
Who is giving you advice? Are they people who regularly hire college graduates, or who have a successful track record of advising college students?