I’m a college sophomore, and I have to declare my major by spring semester. I can change it after that, but I do want to graduate in four years, so I have to be taking the right classes.
I came in last year thinking I was going to double major in Psychology and Chinese. I took Psych 1 the summer before my freshman year, and did okay but I was entirely disinterested. I took human neuroscience in the fall and completely flopped. I hated the class. Chinese I switched to a minor because I was nearly failing the writing courses, and it was dragging down my GPA, now I’m thinking of dropping it all together because I don’t think a college minor will make me fluent, and once again I fine myself disinterested.
I rethought everything when registering for spring classes and was really sure that I would double major in Art History (which I’ve declared) and Women Gender and Sexuality Studies, and minor in chinese (which I now think I’ll drop), and chemistry (for something practical, I don’t know)
Now I’m having a bit of a fifth life crisis and I realized that I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my life.
How the hell do I figure out what I want to do with my life when I’m only 19?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
At the least, are there majors/ minors that will give me a lot of options?
(also before anyone suggests it, no, I don’t want to go into engineering.)
Hi ers,
I like your post, I’m twice your age and don’t know what I want to do either. Trust me, it does not get easier!
I did not have a major until a few months ago.
Is there any kind of childhood interest that captivated you but you never pursued, some skill you liked and only ever knew half of, anything like that?
I’m doing electronics because despite having built stuff for decades I only ever knew enough to be dangerous. If I can get a job in that field, than awesome, otherwise at least I have a degree in something I like. With education inflation going as it is we’ll need degrees just to be helpdesk pretty soon so I figure a paper in any field is better than nothing.
You don’t have to figure out what you want to do with your life! You only have to figure out what you want to do right now. What do you want to study for the next three years?
The truth is, very few majors lead directly into a job, and even when you think you know what you want to do your life can take a turn and you can do something completely different. My undergrad is in psychology, my PhD is in public health/psychology, and I’m about to work in tech/HCI. I know all kinds of humanities and social sciences majors who are working in business and tech, as well as in the nonprofit sector - but in all kinds of jobs.
So what do you want to study? Are you excited about art history and women’s studies? Chemistry is not a whole lot more practical than those two majors - unemployment rates and starting salaries are about even. Also, that sounds like too many majors and minors. Even a good joint major will require probably around 20-30 classes altogether, and the two majors will probably be 10-15 classes. That’s 30-45 classes, which is about the limit for what you can usually take in college anyway (120 credits / 3 credits a piece = 40 classes).
This may sound counterintuitive, but if you are confused about what you want to do and have lots of interests, pick ONE major and spend the rest of your time taking classes in other areas and exploring, and building skills. For example, I was a psych major but I took classes in Japanese, history, women’s studies, sociology, philosophy and biology - plus some others - for both divisional requirements and for fun. I had the flexibility to take what I wanted, including taking a few extra credits in psychology when I decided I wanted to make a career out of it. If I were to go back to college again today, I’d probably still major in psychology but take electives in math, computer science, and writing in addition to some of the classes I took before.
Figuring out what you want to do with your life is what internships and jobs are for. So this fall, start looking for internships early! You can also do extracurriculars and volunteer to help you decide.