im an advanced student and usually excel in courses im interested in like english, social studies, and some sciences. when it comes to math, however, im a little lackluster. ill either do really good, or really bad, with my grades ranging from a C to a low B.
because of this, my grade card is usually a mixture of As and Cs/low Bs due to it being hard for me to participate in classes that i have little to no interest in. its not like math isnt inherently boring to me either, i always get a little rush of excitement when i figure out the answer to a problem. because of all this, my gpa has fallen to a pathetic 2.7, something i know isnt reflective of my true academic abilities (i scored a 30 on the ACT and had a solid 3.8 in middle school.) this has really taken a toll on me because im just now realizing that its gonna be extremely hard/impossible for me to get into a good college. on top of this, im still conflicted on what to major in. a part of me wants to pursue an english degree and teach english either here in america or abroad in somewhere like japan, while another part of me really wants to pursue a more practical degree like computer science due to my high interest in programming. as stated earlier, however, math classes bore me to death and that makes it hard to perform well in them for me.
im definitely a more creative person than a practical person, yet programming has always interested me. i excelled in my high school programming course (110% ytd by the end of the semester) but i also recognize that class probably isnt anything like computer science college courses. so, ive considered pursuing an english degree due to that being another interest of mine, and teaching it abroad sounds awesome, yet my parents tell me that an english degree is useless and that ill make a pathetic amount of money. because of all these factors, i have no clue what to do in life. does anyone have any tips of what to do? maybe someone here relates and can tell me what they did
You don’t need to worry about your college major now. You need to focus on finishing your senior year as strong as possible and getting accepted into college.
In terms of college major, some heavily subscribed majors at some colleges require applying to the major in frosh admission, but at other colleges, these majors require a secondary admission process based on college grades after you enroll (some colleges use both methods). But these majors are usually ones like computer science, business, nursing, and engineering majors, rather than humanities and social studies majors.
With English and some tech skills there are possibilities, also consider Communications and Marketing. Social media influencer, updating websites with appealing content for organizations, trade groups, companies. Look at career center at your state university for ideas.
I like the above examples hippobirdy gave that mix English skills with computer skills. My older DD is job hunting right now and I see a lot of marketing jobs on Indeed that require a lot of computer savvy, and also web design.
You know you don’t have to decide right now, and that’s what I told my DD’19, but she still wanted to have a plan and I understand that. We went through the lists of majors at colleges, and when one sounded appealing, we then went through the course descriptions for that major. Doing so usually made her turn up her nose, or get more excited about it. It just helped her know more about what would be involved in doing that major.
I will say once she picked a major it really helped narrow down her choices because few schools had the major with the emphasis that she wanted. Of course she hasn’t even started college yet and it’s possible she will want to change but fortunately her school has every major that she ever considered. Some don’t have near as many choices so that’s something to look out for when you’re undecided.
You sound like an ideal candidate for an LAC with open majors. It’s fine to have a plan but it’s also good to be flexible. I started out a math major, but eventually decided that I liked numbers not “higher” math. Changed to and graduated in psychology from a Skinnerian/behavioral psych school, and, if I’d had another year, would probably have switched again to anthropology/linguistics. Ended up going to law school and each of those areas of interest during my undergraduate years have proved valuable.
You may want to look into a Management Information Systems major, which has similar characteristics to Computer Science, without the heavy math and computer science theory content.
@AboutTheSame makes a good point. Your major (and even your first job after college) won’t define you. Today people change majors and jobs and industries all the time. If you’re smart, assertive, and professional (present yourself well) you can go anywhere with most degrees (some exceptions apply - you need to be a CPA to be a public accountant, have a law degree to practice law, etc.)
College is about learning how to learn, learning what you like, growing as a person, etc. It can also be viewed as a track for specific professions but many many many kids go in without knowing what they want.
Regarding which college to attend, just make sure there are enough options for you to explore and that are pretty strong in areas you at least have an interest. Don’t worry so much about careers at this point. The truth is that many entry level corporate development programs (Leadership, Management, etc.) are full of a variety of majors including english, history, polisci, psych, etc. Yes they have their finance and quant kids too but liberal arts kids can find good jobs.
Have fun exploring and enjoy the ride.
The most popular major at most schools is “undecided”. Get help so you finish strong. You can alway get a teaching certificate if you really want to teach overseas. My daughter was in Southeast Asia after a study abroad and then decided to backpack. Teaching English was about as easy as showing up. She did it for about a month and really enjoyed it. This was a break in her travels. She used Workaway and it was a trade of teaching English for room /board/food. This was in Vietnam. She’s back in Indonesia working with an ngo now…
I would also look into Lacs. It tends to be easier to make your own degree or mix degrees/interests.
MIS or similar majors are typically business-based, with some less technical course work on managing (rather than designing and developing) computers, networks, and their software.
Find a LAC with strong English and an Asian Language + study abroad (Kalamazoo, Earlham, Knox…)
Middle school grades mean nothing - your GPA is what it is. If you apply for English, your grades in math won’t be weighted as much as your grades in English, history, and foreign language.
If you’ve not take AP Lang, AP literature, foreign language level 4 or Ap, and an AP history, try to take 2-3 of these senior year.