I’m a junior in high school and I still have no idea what I want to do. I know what I’m interested in but what I’m interested in has next to no chance of me getting a stable full time job. My parents keep asking me what I want to do and I have no clue. Anyone have advice?
What are you interested in? Sometimes you can follow your passions tangentially and end up with more options.
You’re a junior in high school, you don’t need to have all the answers yet. At most schools, you’ll get to take general education classes for at least a year before you declare your major. That way you can take a few classes from everything and decide what you love learning about/what you could see yourself doing.
@philbegas that may be the case but I do still think it’s harder for undecided kids to choose the very best fit college for them. What if they end up being interested in a particular major that isn’t well represented at their college? Our S19 is definitely undecided (which is ok since he’s only a soph in high school!) but it would be ideal if he could narrow it down a little bit so we can look at departments within colleges. At one point, he mentioned Environmental Studies as possibly an interest and, when I looked at our very-tentative list of colleges, the programs varied wildly. Some were definitely better than others.
OP, I would suggest trying to rule out some options. I think that’s easier than choosing a major. Our S19 has definitely ruled out comp sci and engineering after taking AP Comp Sci. He thought he would like it and hates it. I told him it was worth taking it if only to find out that it’s not an interest of his!
That’s a fair point @homerdog , but an extremely undecided student can always try to go to a university that will have more options in terms of majors. For example, avoiding business schools like Babson or LACs with only a dozen humanities majors or something like that.
That being said, If you don’t know what to major in - you can always try to read a bit about jobs you’d be interested in having. For example, if you hate all aspects of business, then don’t apply to smaller business schools, and I suppose senior year you’d probably have room to take a couple more broad electives like homerdog suggested.
Here’s a secret…I don’t either. And I’ve been out of college for almost 30 years.
It’s ok not to know. When you start your junior year in college and don’t know, then you should start thinking hard. Otherwise you have time. The first year of college is mostly required electives. Unless you know you want something specific that takes all 4 years (nursing, engineering, etc.) don’t worry. And explain that to mom and dad. If you commit now, you will just change your mind:)
Just try to figure out some things like, do you like to work with people or alone? With the public? In small teams? Do you like to work with data? Are you very creative? Are you bossy? Do you like to follow rules and be around others who also follow rules? Do you thrive with deadlines or do they stress you out? Do you like to read or would you rather do almost anything else? (If not this will eliminate a lot of majors for you right there.) Do you like to take care of others or is that something you dread? Do you hate being indoors or outdoors? How do you like looking through a microscope? A camera? Do you like public speaking? Keeping up with current events?
Etc.
Be very honest with yourself and you’ll find a good fit somewhere!
Actually, I think Naviance has a quiz that can help you figure it out.
Also a thing that should be considered - what kind of lifestyle do you want to live (IE are you happy with an average house, average car, but a job that makes you really happy) or do you need a lot of money for your lifestyle. Do you mind working lots of hours like people on wall street often do, or would you like to have a strict 9-5 type of job.
I think many parents and others tend to believe this, but it’s not necessarily true.
I don’t think it’s very useful for parents and students to try to zero in on departments and compare departments across schools. College students by and large are going to get a well-rounded liberal arts education; they will only take 1/3 of their classes in their own major - maybe up to 1/2, if they come in with a lot of AP credit and specialize heavily - and so every department at their college is important. I see lots of CC kids talking about evaluating “programs” at their college, but it’s not like going to graduate school where your entire experience is defined by one department. There are so many factors that probably will have a much, much stronger impact on the student’s college experience and post-graduation plans than the strength of their department relative to other schools’ departments in the same field.
I mean obviously, if a student is leaning one way, it’d be good to at least make sure the department exists and has good offerings. In some fields - like engineering, math, the geosciences/earth sciences, business - where majors aren’t as common across all schools and/or where upper-level classes can thin out at schools without solid departments, it’s more of a concern. But most good schools have good departments across most subjects. It’s okay if some schools are a little better than others in certain departments - it probably doesn’t really matter that much, even if that’s your major. As long as the department is a good solid place to study what you’re studying…it’s fine!
Moreover, college students change their minds so often that it wouldn’t be great for them to select a college solely or primarily on the basis of their major in X only to realize they really want to major in Y. This is especially true for a high school sophomore or junior, who may get attached to School A because it’s strong in X and then realize later that they really want Y, and then even later it’s Z that catches them.
I think those are really important considerations for choosing a career! But they may not help so much choosing a major, because within broad fields there is such a wide range of jobs AND jobs don’t line up well with majors. An English major at Columbia may end up on Wall Street with a high salary working the 10-hour days, while a business major at Georgia State may have a good job in finance in Atlanta but works a more regular 9-5 schedule and makes less.
@juillet Of course, I’m not trying to say that it’s a one size fits all, but for example, if you know you want to live a high-maintenance lifestyle, then you might lean towards engineering, comp sci, business, medicine, etc. Vs perhaps being a teacher, or a geologist. OP might not care of course.
I think it’s pretty ridiculous to expect a high school kid to narrow it down, unless it’s an internally driven obsessive passion like acting or something. But for these kids “narrowing it down” isn’t even a question. They KNOW.
My D thought she liked Environmental Science all through high school until she found out in college that everyone did their internships at the waste water treatment plant. That, and that the largest employer of environmental science majors at the moment is Walmart according to one department head we talked to. These and a few other things didn’t appeal to her and she stopped pursuing it even though we told her there are lots of other possibities. You just don’t have enough exposure to the reality of anything until you get there, even if you’re doing really, really well with the book work and special projects. And you never know what the turn-off button will be. The combination of waste water, Walmart, and low comparative pay turned her off after a lot of passion in that direction.
Don’t choose a school based on a department unless you’re very very sure–and this you would already know. And if you are undecided, a large school with a lot of departments (like Big State U) might be a fantastic option for you. Or a smaller school where you feel the need to explore what they have.
In the end the majority of people just pick something that is the path of least resistance for them on various personally-weighed fronts. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing–it’s a comfort zone.
Perhaps, but I think that’s what I’m trying to say. I majored in psychology in undergrad and over the course of 10 years managed to find myself in a higher-income lifestyle. I know lots of people who majored in things you wouldn’t initially think of as high-income majors who made their way into upper-middle-class lifestyles. I do believe that certain majors are probably more likely to be associated with higher-income careers - engineering and computer science especially. But you can major in anything to go to med school or work in business/management/marketing - heck, you can major in anything and become a software developer, technically, if you have the skills and knowledge necessary. And we have a lot of program managers who majored in something seemingly unrelated in college who have higher-income careers.
BUT you are right - students should think about the lifestyle they expect to have and want to have when choosing a career overall, because some careers are going to provide better for some kinds of lifestyles.