<p>For those who had trouble really figuring out what to major in, can anyone provide me some advice? I've done so much research on different things, but i cant seem to find anything that i am really in love with. I will most likely go to one of the campuses at Rutgers, or any of the New Jersey colleges. How did you come across your major, and what are the best ways to help me figure out what i want to major in? The amount of years im in college i dont really mind. Also, a good job outlook and about 80k+ income is preferred but im open to any suggestions.</p>
<p>I based it off of what I liked in high school, for the most part. I had 2 years of psychology that I really enjoyed, but I also really loved my science courses. My problem has always been being interested in too many things and having to narrow it down. I opted for a way to combine the science and psychology and chose neuroscience. I also chose a school where the neuroscience program included the psychology department.
The problem with this method, though, is if you don’t try something out in high school, you’ll never see it as an option. I had never done any programming before college, but it turns out I love it. If I were starting now, I would do a dual major. Instead, I’m opting for a minor.</p>
<p>To figure out what you want to do, look at what you’re doing now that you’re both good at AND that you enjoy. There are also lots of quizzes and such out there online that might help you figure it out. Also, does your school have some sort of college or career counselor? They might be able to help, as well.</p>
<p>When I enrolled in my first semester of college, I had goals of becoming a pharmacist. This was community college. I tested into Calculus, even though I had no prior experience above Algebra II. So, I was like…I’m pretty good at math. I always hated math in high school, so that was new to me. I wanted to be a physics major because I was very inspired by Richard Feynman to go to college and get a degree in physics. So, I was enrolled as a physics major. I decided to take everything I had missed - Precalculus, Trig, and Statistics from high school to brush up before taking Calculus. Well, I fell in love with math and immediately switched my major to mathematics. Three years later, I dropped the idea of doing pharmacy and transferred to Cal Poly Pomona where I am an Applied Math major who constantly wishes he’d be doing physics, but it’s not lucrative enough of a field for me to be in and I am going to start a family not too far from now. I have to have the financial certainty if I’m going to have kids. Still, I actually wanted to double major in physics and mathematics, but they ruled out having double majors as a policy when I transferred because of budget cuts. Now that tuition is frozen, they modified it and I am kind of mad now because I had to settle for a minor. I’ll be killing myself to graduate in mathematics this year, but I do like pure mathematics and applied mathematics. The best mathematics courses I did well in were Nonlinear Dynamics & Chaos and Partial Differential Equations. Mostly because it opened ideas of physics to me.</p>
<p>I applied to one university as a physics major, but I couldn’t afford to go. I had been waiting three years to transfer out of community college and my girlfriend throughout the whole time was hoping I’d be able to transfer to her college so we could be together. Well, I got in as a physics major and was ready to go, until I saw that I had to come up with around 15,000 extra after stafford loans and scholarships per year to be there. I hate private universities and money because of this. I’m going to make sure when I have kids they can have any opportunity they want. I was really ready to be a physics major, but I’m fine graduating with applied math. I’ll still be going to physics seminars every thursday and joining the physics club this year. </p>
<p>I wish the starting salary was huge. :(</p>
<p>My best advice…use your general education classes as a way to test the waters. If you like something, take more of it. If it’s not lucrative, double major in something that is and is what you like.</p>
<p>I went in as a linguistics major for the simple fact that I love language – not learning them per se (though I like that too), but learning about the structures of languages and various other details coming from interdisciplinary areas.</p>
<p>Then the summer before college I took a class in Python, just to try out programming. I absolutely loved it. Similarly to linguistics, most of it wasn’t about the actual code writing (though again, I like that aspect), but figuring out what exactly is going on “under the hood” with the computer as you’re programming. As such, I discovered my love for computer science and was debating whether to switch my major or not.</p>
<p>Then came linguistics 1 my first quarter. As I guessed before starting, I loved the class. What really got my attention though was a section where we were discussing computational linguistics – how computers handle language. At that point I realized that I could double major and actually have the majors complement each other to some degree.</p>
<p>And here I am as a double major in linguistics and computer science.</p>
<p>I looked up the classes that were available for my school, drafted all the ones that seemed interesting, and looked for majors that had those classes available as electives. Doing it this way lets you figure out what kind of things have a common denominator in terms of your interest.</p>
<p>I took some electives and it helped find what I was good at as well as what I enjoyed. I also based it off of my ‘major’ from high school (magnet school) which was Graphic Design. I combined that and my new love for journalism/media studies into marketing communications.</p>
<p>I was in a broadcast journalism focus at first but after talking to some news anchor/did some print writing and helped with our school news station, I found that I was better at sticking to what I knew which was creative design/campaigns for advertising and media stuff. So, I stuck with marketing.</p>