As a high school senior, I am still looking for a major. My interests include helping others internationally. Whether that’s curing a disease or building schools, I’ve always been passionate about other countries and their desire to improve. My interest in the world has been evident for a long time as I hope to turn that into a full-time job. Thoughts about working for Red Cross or Doctors without Borders have come up. Even being business related jobs have come into mind. If I could declare a major, it could be easier for me to target specific colleges
Thoughts?
I don’t think declaring a major makes it easier to target specific colleges. First of all, unless you are 100% committed to a very specialized major, you shouldn’t select your college primarily on major anyway - you should be looking for colleges with a range of options and strengths across the undergraduate curriculum. This is especially true if you’re not really sure what you want to major in!
Your particular interests don’t really help narrow this down, either - there are many, many majors that could lead to careers working internationally “helping others.” How do you want to help? Helping poor women in West Africa set up small businesses through microfinancing? Researching cures to tropical diseases in Caribbean? Providing community health education in South America? Teaching students in East Asia to speak English?
Doctors Without Borders hires both medical (and not just doctors, but nurses, midwives, mental health specialists, and pharmacists) and non-medical staff (like epidemiologists, technical logisticians, water and sanitation specialists, human resources administrators, and finance administrators). So does the American Red Cross - they’re a humanitarian nonprofit, so they need people to run their marketing and educational campaigns just like they need nurses and doctors on the ground.
To pick a major, think about your interests and the kinds of tasks you’d like to do in a career, not just where you want it to be. An obvious match might be international relations/studies, or related fields like political science or economics. Anthropology majors also often study international populations and topics. If you wanted to be a health care provider overseas, you’d have to complete the requirements to enter that field (MD for doctor, BSN or MSN for nursing, etc.) Business is also a fine career to select for international work, if you are interested in the major.
Try doing some internships in your field(s) of interest. Also, your perspective will probably change once you get to college, so don’t commit to any one idea too early.