How do you choose which major to study?

[YeamF93]

I am currently in my last year of undergraduate Mathematics degree. Something I’m not overtly passionate about. Ok, let’s be fair, I’m not passionate about it at all. I see the beauty, I see the importance, but just don’t want it to be my life.

I’ve always been good with computers and technology. So naturally, everyone thinks I should study Computer Engineering. While I agree with this, I don’t really care about it enough. I don’t hate the idea of working with computers, but it’s so unimportant to me. (You’ll understand why)

The one true calling of my life is to tell stories. I love making things up, I love taking pictures and I love watching movies and then reading about them. (Critics, Trivia, Stories behind the film, Scripts, etc.) I’m afraid of stepping into this path, though. The job security is almost non-existent. I’m from Iran, a female, and not even in my own country is it a good idea to go into film. But I want to make the world pay attention to stories worth telling.

I’m a huge human rights (and especially Women’s rights) activist. I voice my opinion, no matter what. This is something that can keep me up at night. This is the important work I was talking about. Changing the world, by making one person’s life better.

Then there’s this idea that I’ve had since I was little that I love to build Robots. I did, but man, it’s hard work and it’s hard studying for! I’m really unsure about this. Is it my passion or am I just making it up because it seems cool to build robots? Or is it because people will think I’m really smart if I study robotics! (urgh.)

The last one, which is something that almost everyone at some point in their life thinks they should go for. Business. My Math background is going to come in handy here, same for my language skills. I also have a few ideas… but I have one big issue: I don’t want to be a money grabbing hungry for power person. I don’t actually want to be a millionaire. I rather travel the world and help people in need and sleep in tents for the rest of my life. I just want to be of some use on this planet, and I don’t see how I can do that when all I’m worrying about is money and world market and all those other things rich people always worry about.

So, in conclussion, I’m stuck between a few vastly different majors to choose from for Graduate school.

Computer Engineering
Film Studies / Media Studies
Human Rights (International law)
Robotics
Business

[juillet]

Well, graduate school is not like undergrad. College is increasingly required for white-collar professional work, so most people go. Choosing a major there is really about following your sort of right-now interests, because you can do a lot of things with a college liberal arts major (like math).

Graduate school is different - it’s optional, and you can go to work without it. Graduate school is also expensive - most professional programs will expect you to finance your degree with loans, primarily. Because of that, you should only get a graduate degree if you need one to do a specific career or job, and you get it at the right point in your career to need that job.

Furthermore, graduate school is meant to build upon your undergrad knowledge, and you can’t just pick whatever graduate degree you want without any background. So for example, with your math major, unless you took significant coursework in physics and engineering you would be unlikely to be able to walk straight into a computer engineering or robotics graduate degree. You’d probably have to take additional prerequisite coursework, probably as a non-degree student after you graduate. Same thing with film studies - while you might not need an undergrad major in film, any good MFA in film is going to require a portfolio and some indication of your college-level experience in film; if you haven’t taken a substantial number of film classes you’ll be at a disadvantage. Human rights is a more interdisciplinary field, but even there people tend to have social science backgrounds, so you might need to take some social science coursework to prepare for that.

Business is pretty open - you can go into an MBA program with any major. But at the best MBA programs virtually all successful applicants have 2-5+ years of work experience beyond college. The very few people accepted straight from undergrad are exceptional candidates with lots of internships and leadership experiences on campus. Unless you were preparing for that kind of move right after college intensely, you’re unlikely to be ready for it.

My advice to you is that instead of thinking about graduate school, you think about work. Find employment after college, and see what you like to do! You can switch careers a little bit or work in some of these different areas to see what and whether you like any of them. After you have some experience, you can make a more educated decision about what kind of master’s degree you want to pursue - if any.