<p>one thing i truly regret is not spending enough time looking through majors that might fit me, and just randomly picking a major that seemed okay. biggest mistake of my life. i really wish i could go back in time. i'm still at where i first started. i don't know what to do with myself. how can i not get too hung up over this? i'm majoring in something that won't lead to anything specific. so how do people do things that aren't related to what they study?</p>
<p>That's pretty vague. If you majored in English and you want to be an Engineer I don't know how much you can do - if you majored in English and want to go into business or something you're much better off.</p>
<p>if a college doesn't offer accounting major, can you get jobs as an accountant? I know most of the accounting is done on computers now but I assume you would still need to know some of the basic principles</p>
<p>Certainly there are majors which are more vocational than academic - and I think that's a very important distinction. Certainly, education, engineering and most majors offered by business colleges (Econ is the one consistent exception - very academic), fit in the vocational area more so than things like Psych, or Biology or English.</p>
<p>If you major in one of the vocational majors, it's certainly more surprising to end up in a different field. The draw of the "liberal arts" majors for a lot of people, myself included, is that they aren't particularly limiting. I'm a sociology major, who is attending medical school - those don't particularly match up, but I'm going to be a better physician because of my sociology background. I have a good friend who specifically chose psychology because it didn't close any doors for him (it didn't open any either, but he's a very indecisive college graduate so it's okay). </p>
<p>As for how people do it - they find new passions, different opportunities present themselves, they get desperate, they realize their original choice was wrong, they have a friend doing something better...there are a million ways to end up in a different field.</p>
<p>well, i did hear about people getting into a field totally unrelated to their degree all the time, but i haven't experienced it myself, so i wasn't really sure how people did it. i actually thought that people who have more general degrees, like liberal arts, usually work in something that don't have qualifications, like entry level jobs in some sort of firm, and work their way up.</p>
<p>at MOST jobs, the first thing that happens when you get there is you get trained. So, they want someone with a good skill set, hard worker, etc. Then the employer teaches them what they need to do to be successful at that specific job.</p>
<p>You can always major in something related to the career field you are interested in pursuing. Internships and externships are excellent ways to figure out your career goals. Connections also help. It also matters whether you are a good fit for the company. Or you can go back to graduate school to pursue a Master's or certificate in the occupation of your choice.</p>
<p>Figure out some jobs that are intriguing to you--doing things that you like to do ( do you like to work with people, or alone, or with things? do youlike to do long tern projects or shorter types off assignments/ Do you prefer to work with numbers or with words? etc).</p>
<p>Figure out how the skill set you have acquired throughout your education (both academic, ECs, jobs etc) can be used in the jobs you can see yourself working at and then market yourself accordingly.</p>
<p>A good thing to do would be to go to your school's career counseling office and take some tests that would help you determine your career interests in a less literal way than based only on the exact major in which you are receiving your degree. Talk to the counselors there. They will help you figure out which avenues to pursue (there can be more than one) andhow to go about it. You'll also become aware if you have any weaknesses that would be in the way of your following an intriguing path so that you can take action against such an obstacle, perhaps by taking a class or getting involved in a new activity. For example, when my niece realized that one of the activities in a career path she was interested in required that she make presentations in front of groups, she took a public speaking class and became active in a group that required her to sometimes make presentations to groups. She is an English major now working in marketing.</p>