I quite literally threw the next year into the trash. Advice?

Transfer Students
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<p>I have been horribly indecisive with my major for the last two-three years now. Excuse the hipster mentality here, but when I was in (and graduated) high school, I wanted to major in Physics because I felt like majoring in engineering was selling out. But I dropped the idea of Physics and changed it to music. Then back to Physics when I realized I probably would be drowning in student loan debt by the time I was done with music. Then to computer science. Then to math when I didn't know what else to do because I was poor and I didn't have any money. Then to physics. Then to engineering. Then to statistics. Then to math. Then to engineering. Then to math. Then to engineering. Then to undecided. Then to math. Then to engineering. All within the span of two years.</p>

<p>I've got my AS in mathematics because it was the associate's degree I was closest to finishing. I intended to transfer under statistics for this fall 2014 to Texas Tech University because they'd given me close to $10,000 in merit aid. But the idea of potentially going into student loan debt for a math degree made me a little unsettled. Back in June in my undecided rage, I switched to engineering and applied to a different school that would be cheaper. But I kept having that nagging, "What might've been?" feeling. So I kept the option of going to Texas Tech University open while I sorted out my options.</p>

<p>A month went by. And I caved in. I dropped the engineering degree plan and tried contacting Texas Tech University to see if my option there was still valid. It's been a week and I haven't heard anything. I'm wondering if the person I e-mailed is ignoring me. Now I'm having horrible regrets about dropping the engineering track because now I'm probably going to go into significant student loan debt for a math degree--something I could've done at the cheaper university here at home for significantly less money.</p>

<p>I've taken a couple of engineering classes and lots of math classes and I don't love either any more than the other. The reason I feel like taking the offer at Texas Tech is because it's a more well-known university that might open up more options and recruitment if I get the math degree from there. I can't imagine being a math teacher--I have some experience doing tutoring services, but I couldn't imagine doing it 40-50 hours a day. And deep down, I still hunger for what's known as the "college experience" even though I keep telling myself it's not worth it.</p>

<p>I've tried everything: talking to people at those schools to ask what it's like, I've tried taking a few classes in each field, I've tried flipping a coin, I've tried researching the fields, I've tried doing academic research in each field, I've tried talking to academic guidance counselors about this and they send me through this same loop. I've tried taking a year off to just do work to earn some money. I earned money, but I didn't stay the full year. I only worked full-time for maybe two or three months and just had the burning, undying desire to get back into school to get away from unskilled work. I've even tried talking to a few of my old high school teachers who all got math degrees from the cheaper university. They've each worked at my high school for quite a number of years and they all advised against going into math.</p>

<p>I need some help identifying my options. I have tried to do it myself, but I keep making bad choices. I keep getting the, "What in God's name made you think that was even a good idea?! You should NEVER do that!" spiel from friends and family when I make these tough decisions.</p>

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<p>Sounds like typical young person behaviour. You don’t want to make a decision. Although you seem on the right path. Although you change, your changes have remained true to a based field (even music follows the logic of math). Maybe that’s where you belong. Do you have any career goals? Any life goals? Maybe those can help you on your path. </p>

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<p>Sometimes it’s not about what you’re passionate about, but what’s the most SUITABLE and practical for you. Don’t always try to search for that one thing that you love the most, always afraid that you’re passing up a better opportunity. Instead, stick to one thing that you are at least okay with right now, and try to FIND passion in it as you continue learning it. It seems to me that you love math. If you want to go on to graduate school or teach math, then stick to that (be careful what you choose to study in graduate school though, because student debt seems to worry you a lot. Choose something you know will allow you to pay off your loans quickly). However, if you want to get a decent-paying job straight out of undergrad, choose something that’s more applicable to fields in the real world but still relates to math - engineering (you seem to go back to that a lot too), applied math, statistics, accounting, even. </p>

<p>Not sure if this helped, but good luck!</p>

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<p>@ninjex‌ I suppose that I would say that I don’t quite have a vision of where I see myself in 5 or 10 years. But mainly because I can’t quite say what I’m going to study in college. I am fully aware that you don’t have to get a job in what you majored in for college, but I’m not the adventurous type. </p>

<p>I wanted to do engineering to design machinery that you might see in a futuristic movie like Avatar, which is a little childish. But I don’t know what to do: I withdrew from my engineering class this summer to pursue the math degree: a class that was kind of important. But since it’s been like a week since my inquiry was submitted and usually when professionals don’t respond to my emails, it tends to signify that they’re annoyed with me.</p>

<p>So now it feels like I left a good opportunity to pursue one that won’t take me anymore. </p>

<p>@absentions‌ I could do math in grad school, but I still feel like I’ll have that “What could’ve been?” No matter what I do.</p>

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<p>@cameraphone I understannd that “what could’ve been” feeling, and you’re right - it’ll be there no matter WHAT you do. There will never not be other choices that seem equally viable. But just trust your gut and do the best you can on a chosen path. At least you learn something out of it, right?</p>

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<p>@cameraphone‌, You really haven’t thrown away the next year! You actually have built a very solid foundation from which to launch! I think you are doing great.</p>

<p>You have gotten your Math and Physic requirements finished. You’ve established that you are REALLY GOOD at Math AND at Physics! That is a special set of talents that you have. Not very many people can say they are really good at Math and Physics. You also have the initiative to work really hard at this stuff as you’ve proven you can over the last two years. Don’t be so down on yourself.</p>

<p>@ninjex‌ is right: what you are doing with the wavering back and forth between decisions is really what most young people do at this age. It is entirely normal. One the most difficult things for all young adults is the pressure of trying to choose what one wants to do for the next couple of decades, because it is so difficult to try out all the different careers. If students were able to try several different profession jobs for a few months each job, just to see what it is like, then they could make a decision easier. But for some reason, that is not part of our traditional educational experience. You are in the same spot a lot of your peers are in. And you are doing fine.</p>

<p>One of the ways that students try to understand what they want to do, is to do an internship, usually a summer internship. The career office at school can help you find these. It may be too late for this summer to get a full internship, but stop by there and see if there are any places that you could perhaps contact to “shadow” an engineer for a week. You wouldn’t get paid, but you could see if you like the day to day of that particular career.</p>

<p>There are many different types of jobs or careers that use math and physics. It is a wide variety over so many, many fields. Teaching Math is not the only math path. If you like crunching numbers and solving problems, and exploring NEW problems, then working in Math or Engineering is for you. It doesn’t have to be teaching. For teaching you need the patience to work with students every day and teach them math they don’t know. Grading papers, teaching the same problems and subjects every year. However, if you like the happiness of crunching through a new problem, or tackling and solving a new challenge, well, hey, isn’t that really why you like the Math and Physics? If you like this, then you might really like engineering.</p>

<p>You are at a point where you are starting to chart a path to finding which types of problems you want to be solving in your career. Being at this juncture is a really the beginning of a thrilling adventure! Look at where you are as an adventure and a journey. You’ll enjoy it so much more. </p>

<p>Here are some thoughts on how to begin to chart that course on the journey:</p>

<p>You like challenging problems. You need to identify which ones you enjoy most. When you are doing Math, what are your favorite types of problems to solve? There are lots of things to do with math. If you like algorithms, there is cryptography or programming. If you like statistics, there are many jobs in science doing data analysis. You could work with lab scientists helping them to crunch their data. Health trends and statistics is a growing field. If you like financial math, there’s economics, and other financial things (I don’t know too much about this as I’m an engineer.).</p>

<p>In Physics, do you prefer Statics, Dynamics, Thermo, E&M, Fluid Mechanics, Quantum? Depending which one you like best, then there is an engineering discipline for each part of physics. Do you prefer more theoretical things? If you liked the fields part of E&M, there’s a part of Electrical Engineering that is more theoretical: RF, antenna design, etc. If you like math algorithms and fields, there’s signal processing, which is how the data is transmitted and packed into the RF signal - it is more math oriented. If you like circuits part of physics, there’s circuit design both large scale and integrated circuits. If you like quantum, then there’s photonics/electrooptics, and device physics. If you like statics and dynamics, there’s Mechanical Engineering, Structural Engineering and Civil Engineering. Do you prefer more concrete things, also consider Civil Engineering. If you like Thermo, then there’s things in mechanical engineering that you would also like. If you like thermo and fluid dynamics, then you could look into Chemical Engineering, which is a lot about making chemical reactions on a very large scale, such as in a pharmaceutical plant making medicines. </p>

<p>Also ask yourself, in which type of environment do you like to be? Would you prefer to be in a large plant, then you might like ChemE or MechE. If you would like to work in an office designing, well that would be many different types of engineering. If you would like to work outside, or on a construction site, architectural, or in environmental things then consider Civil Engineering. </p>

<p>The cool part about all these things, in both math and physics, is that they can apply to so many different and various industries. Do you like medicine, automotive, aerospace, aeronautics, pharmaceutical, food industries, finance, urban development, infrastructure, computers, technology? …and the list goes on and on.</p>

<p>Consider making a list of some of the answers to these questions. Then read up on the various types of engineering. </p>

<p>At the top of the Engineering Majors section on College Confidential is a “sticky thread” which answers a lot of the basics about engineering. But maybe the best part of that thread is the list of links to each of the Professional Societies’ websites. These sites/societies each talk about their own engineering discipline and are great resources. Here is the link:</p>

<p><a href=“READ BEFORE POSTING! The (Engineering + FAQ) = Thread - Engineering Majors - College Confidential Forums”>READ BEFORE POSTING! The (Engineering + FAQ) = Thread - Engineering Majors - College Confidential Forums;

<p>Narrow down your list to a few types of math or engineering careers, then see if you can talk to, or even better, shadow, some of these persons. They usually are happy to answer questions.</p>

<p>See if your career center can put you in touch with a person or two. Email the professional society and ask them if they have a contact person to talk to about careers in that field. They would certainly be happy to help, which is on of the reasons why they are active in their professional society.</p>

<p>You’re really on the right track and you have a few weeks here in the summer to delve into these questions. It is perfect timing to spend some time digging into what you like and starting to chart your course on your adventure. You’ve already built the foundation. You’ll do great!</p>

<p>Best of luck to you! </p>

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<p>@cameraphone‌, just saw your post. Designing machinery would be Mechanical Engineering or Electrical Engineering, depending on which type of machinery. Thinking about things like what you said about Avatar is what helps you to begin to explore the various types of engineering. I didn’t see Avatar so I’m not quite sure what machinery you mean, but films/tv have done a lot to create ideas for the future that engineers eventually design and make available to the public, so you’re really on the right track.</p>

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<p>What is lost to me is what any of these choices are going to cost and how much will be debt. That is an important consideration you are not discussing.</p>

<p>There are a lot of things you can do with math aside from teaching. Especially applied math/stat and or math/cs or any combination and having a couple engineering classes are good too. There are all kinds of jobs in many domains in business, industry, tech, finance, social services, govt and health for people who work with data modeling and forecasting, data analytics, fraud detection, marketing and on and on. It is very flexible. It is good with people who are good a math, can do some coding, are curious, have understanding of rigorous scientific inquiry, can see patterns, and make sense of things. You can pick any field and start out and begin to learn and gain expertise in the domain too. Plus some of those keywords into Indeed and see the variety.</p>

<p>But if you want to build “stuff” instead of “ideas” then you should get the engineering degree. Hey just get one down and you can still figure things out once you work a skilled job for a couple of years.</p>

<p>Look at the annual Georgetown study on employment. Math majors with undergrad degrees enjoy a relatively low unemployment rate of 5.9% for recent grads and 4.6% avg salary 41k for more experienced grads avg salary 71k. Trying for internships will help you land jobs.</p>

<p><a href=“Hard Times 2013: College Majors, Unemployment and Earnings - CEW Georgetown”>http://cew.georgetown.edu/unemployment2013&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>You can also read in the College Majors section of the forum, there is one for Engineering and one for Math/CS.</p>

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<p>The actual degree may not be as critical as you think. One part of a job description: "degree from an accredited college/university in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, Bioinformatics, Physics, Operations Research, or related fields, with a minimum of two years of relevant experience (strong mathematical background with ability to understand algorithms and methods from a mathematical viewpoint and an intuitive viewpoint). Strong knowledge in at least one of the following fields: machine learning, data visualization, statistical modeling, data mining, or information retrieval</p>

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<p>A week in the summer, waiting for a response, is not a long time. You are dealing with a UNIVERSITY that has a lot more students than a CC. Did you change majors weekly too? Give it another week and then check. You also may want to have yourself evaluated for an organizational dyslexia. </p>

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<p>@cameraphone‌ </p>

<p>You have your goals reversed. One doesn’t become a musician because they went to music school. They went to music school because they wanted to be a musician. </p>

<p>A degree is simply a vessel to further your career goals, which you don’t have. This is okay, and quite typical. Like many posters before, there are multiple reasons why you’re feeling this way.</p>

<p>My advice, follow your passion. In every field you’ll be using a lot of math. Once you have a master’s or phd you can make good money as a mathematician. For physics though, its primarily phD level.</p>

<p>If you want the path of making money right after bs, engineering or actuarial science is the way to go. You definitely seem to have the aptitude for it. </p>