My kid's future needs help!

[bopper]

I would tell him that you overheard what he said…that HS is a time to see what type of courses he likes…Math and science? Computers? History/Politics? Writing? Then from there you can explore majors related to that in College…Engineering/Math/Physics? CompSci/CompEng? Classics/PoliSci/? English/Creative Writing?

He can also think about what problem he would like to solve…The environment? Helping immigrant kids? Creating a new App for ???

And then when you graduate you will apply to jobs that use those skills. So right now he doesn’t need to know everything but to figure out what type of things he enjoys doing.

[mackinaw]

I would reiterate the idea that many, perhaps most high school seniors don’t have career picked out. And many don’t have a major picked out. It’s not something to worry about. THEY don’t know for sure where they’re going to be doing in 5 or 10 or 15 years. That’s not a bad thing.

I thought it was GREAT that my son didn’t have a particular career in mind when he enrolled at college. That’s what college was for – to allow him to study things he never encountered before, to meet a diverse set of classmates from around the country, and to concentrate in some things he found intriguing. He considered that GRAD school was where professional training occurred, not undergrad college.

So what happened? He majored in economics and further strengthened his math and econometric skills. He followed a diverse curriculum in science, math, social science, and humanities. He spent a junior year abroad. He deferred the possibility of attending law school (but took the LSAT and got a very high score). After graduation, he took his first job as an economic consultant, and he hated it. What he did then was greatly aided by the fact that he had some enduring interests (reflected in his hobbies as a kid), and those led to his next job as a writer-analyst and later to a professional career in journalism.

And HERE is what was seemingly the opposite situation. Coming out of high school our daughter only applied to art schools and programs. She had a career line firmly in mind. What then? Exposure to non-art courses while enrolled at RISD broadened her interests. She became interested in environmental issues and environmental design. After earning her BFA and working for several years in the economy “making things,” she decided that environmental design was indeed her true calling but that she needed another credential to make this a career.

So the kid who in high school had definitively known what she wanted to study and work on in life (art and design) went back to school to earn an MBA and an MS in sustainable development. She’s thriving in that new career. And it pays a helluva lot better than her income from making art. Could she have imagined this career line at age 17? No way.

In both of these cases, the breadth of undergrad college curriculum is beneficial. The major is less important, though not unimportant insofar as it imparts some relevant skills for either a career or for advanced education.

[drewsmom17]

S19 is very similar in his long time CS interest. He is a rising senior and his focus has changed quite a bit from last year. It’s totally ok to not know and many programs will prepare him for a career. D18’s LAC orientation stressed to parents that studying an interest in college does not equal a direct career. There were only about 3 people in the room working in a field that directly related to their major at age 18.

What helped DS get a handle on how to narrow down schools was to look at their course offerings. He originally only wanted schools that offered majors in gaming. Through that research, he found which schools had more classes in that area. He discovered AI and cognitive science. He also researched a few other features on his college wish list-lacrosse and which levels they offer and rock walls.

He has broadened his interests and I’ve encouraged him to keep an open mind to careers he hasn’t even been exposed to yet. From what we’ve seen, most CS programs within Engineering depts have some type of intro class that exposes them to several areas.

[Coloradomama]

@parentshim We did exactly as you suggest, we had our son shadow with other professionals, at Array Biopharma and at another firm, to learn more about chemistry. He ultimately decided not to become a chemist. He is studying physics and plans to become a physics professor but he was dancing between economics math and computational physics well into his third year of undergraduate education.

Another way to get more exposure to computer science is through programs like FIRST Robotics. Do you have any robotics programs nearby ? Also the summer is a great time to get him into camps that explore interests. Look for summer ECs that allow him to explore careers. There are the well known expensive ones at Stanford U, but there are plenty of career oriented camps that are not so expensive. Look at Rose Hullman’s two week engineering camp, or any other college he may be interested in.

The summer is a great way to explore careers. He should not be overly concerned that he has not made up his mind about computer science. Maybe he does not want to get stuck coding and another engineering field may be more exciting for him. Coding is not for everyone, but computer science majors do land in many careers that have nothing to do with coding, such as product management, patent law, medicine, engineering management, design engineering, and big data careers that may be less about coding and more about mathematics.

[svlab112]

My third who is starting college this fall is unsure. Some colleges required him to select a major. Others did not. In the end, he accepted the offer that offered some flexibility. He’ll be taking some GE classes and will take advantage of the counseling available to him on campus. Our HS would not have been helpful in career counseling. 2 counselors for 800 students.

I did point out that there were many fields he was NOT interested in, as such he was narrowing the possibilities by a process of elimination.

My second just finished 2nd year. He started thinking he was on a medical school route. Did a sport medicine internship one quarter and changed his mind. He just completed another program involving biological field research. He’s now moving in that direction.

[liveonboca]

My son, 17, who will be starting college next month as a freshman, at a LAC, applied to various schools, mostly as undecided or humanities or philosophy, depending on the school.

He tells me he does not know what he wants to do or what he is interested in. I have watched him over the years, building computers, creating youtube videos showing himself playing video games/beating the games or whatever, I just knew he would eventually tell me that he would go into some kind of programming or video game design or something with computers.

In his senior year of HS, he was on the school news broadcast so I thought maybe he likes journalism. He started a social justice group/club in his junior year & he was in student leadership, so I thought, hmm, maybe he is interested in political science or policy advocacy or something. He never wants to talk about college or careers or the like.

Last week he had to have an advisor call and discuss and select his class schedule for Fall 2018. I figured he would be taking a foreign language, and a math and maybe a science or writing class, but no. His freshman schedule after meeting with his advisor, who is a theater & dance professor and was assigned to him based on the Freshman seminar he was selected for (out of 5 options he chose back in May) are:

Freshman Seminar - The Puppet as Performance Object and Metaphor (Required)
Tennis (required PE)
Acting I (interest subject)
Theater 101 (interest subject)
Astronomy & Astronomy Lab (required science)

I am thinking my undecided son is now a Theater/Drama major? He did no theater in HS.
I am pretty shocked and I know it is only this first semester, but still I had no idea. I always thought he was shy.
I thought you had to audition for theater and acting majors.

Anyway, I just wanted to commiserate/support/vent/be happy with you.

I just hope my son can start/finish whatever major/degree he wants in four years to keep his debt down .

[Coloradomama]

@liveonboca Does the LAC require a foreign language to graduate? It does seem that the freshman seminar is a writing class. If the school does not require mathematics and he is a humanities major, then the schedule looks fine.

But I would ask about this— It may be that your son is letting his advisor talk him into a major. That may be OK if he wants to be a theatre major or exploring that major. Ask him.

Does the LAC offer computer science? If he wants to explore a CS major,
then he needs to take linear algebra math and probably calculus, but if
he does not want to study computer science, then he is on a path to a degree, it seems.
Most LACS have somewhat weak computer science degrees, but they lead to jobs anyway, as there are so many jobs.

He may want something different than a coding career though.

Astronomy is the science that has less math, but still may be fine for this requirement. Biology or physics
may be more helpful for a computer science major. There are a lot of jobs in bioinformatics, but given
that you say he wants humanities or philosophy major, he may be OK with what he is taking.

Does he have any desire to go to law school later? Then more writing classes will help, but theatre could be helpful in that one becomes more verbally articulate.

[Massmomm]

Like your son, my daughter had interests in specific things, but was unsure what she wanted to major in. She applied to liberal arts colleges, and picked one. She then looked at their printed course catalog, selected all the classes that really seemed interesting, and then figured out which majors they added up to.

It sounds kind of counter to current thinking about specializing, but for kids who have talent and interests in many things, it makes sense not to limit oneself.

[mathmom]

My older son has been interested in CS since he was in elementary school and has not wavered. Since my brother works in the field it was easy to ask if my son could job shadow for a week. They were so impressed by his knowledge they ended up hiring him the next summer. He went to a summer class one summer in programming and graphic design for video games and while he had a good time he came away convinced that was not what he wanted to do. He had an intership after sophomore year for one company which he didn’t care for then junior year he interned at Google and they offered him a job. The stuff he does sounds super-boring to us!

My other kid had no idea what he wanted to be when he grew up and it did bother him sometimes. He liked history, he enjoyed math and science, but was not that good at it. Hated English classes and was a dunce in Latin class. He ended up majoring in International Relations. (The foreign language piece was a real issue until he spent his junior year in Jordan and discovered that he could learn a foreign language through immersion.) Any way he tried out a couple of NGOs and two and a half years after graduating from college went to Officer Candidate School to become a Naval officer. I think it was good for him to take the more meandering path to get to where he is now.

I myself did not figure out until late in freshman year that I had no desire to be an academic. So I essentially went to Harvard to major in art (though my version of my major included a lot of architectural history as well.) Ended up at architecture school for graduate school - happy not to have gone the professional route straight out of high school.

I have another brother who majored in applied math, (no CS back then), and ended up teaming up with a psychologist. They had a company that basically taught coders to do a better job by learning to figure out what their clients really wanted. (At least that’s my layman’s understanding of what they did.)

My SIL majored in English. She’s been a children’s library, a journalist, a cookbook author, a member of the local zoning board, a NH state representative, the head of the town zoning board and finally has found her real passion working on making stronger towns through better zoning. She works for an organization she really loves.

My other SIL, also an English major, is doing grant writing for a well-respected chorus. She also has written the liner notes for their album. She’s been campaign manager for the local mayor as well.

[liveonboca]

@Coloradomama My son chose 5 out of 20 or so options, a freshman seminar based on his interests:

1. More Than a laughing Matter: Theories of Humor
   There are few things more pervasive in our everyday life than humor. From TV shows, movies, and cartoons to jokes and funny comments that invade our daily conversations, comical references are ubiquitous. The quotidian practice of humor begs a number of questions: why do we laugh? Why is laughter so controversial (or even destructive)? How does humor work in different cultures? What are the boundaries for laughter? In order to address these issues, we will examine different approaches to humor through a series of readings from psychology, literature, and philosophy that will help us to discover concepts such as parody, satire, black humor and incongruity. We will reflect on humor’s linguistic intricacies, logical structure, and political implications in a variety of cultural contexts. Theoretical frameworks will be used to explore short stories, novels, films, and other cultural productions via class discussions and sequenced writing assignments. By the end of the semester, students should be able to analyze humorous phenomena critically through clear academic writing and understand that humor can be a very serious thing.

2. The Uses and Abuses of Photography
   Since its invention in the nineteenth century, photography has raised fundamental questions on the nature of truth. Viewed as a scientific instrument, the camera was often considered a recorder that objectively transcribed what appeared before it. Yet as early as the Civil War, when the bodies of fallen soldiers were ‘staged’ by photographers to enhance the narratives around their deaths, the notion of a photograph as a record of unmediated truth has come under doubt. This class examines key moments in the history of photography when images have been used toward persuasive ends—to support scientific claims on the physical signs of criminal behavior; to justify theories of race and the nature of evolution; to encourage travel to distant lands in the context of an emerging tourist industry; to argue for government subsidies during the Great Depression; and to conceal the disability of a sitting President, as was the case with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. These are a handful of the examples we will examine in discussing how photographs have been utilized to legitimate social, medical, economic and political agendas in American culture. As part of the class, students will work with the photographic collections at the Dickinson Archives and The Trout Gallery.

3. No Strings Attached: The Puppet as Performance Object and Metaphor (Theater)
   Many historians believe that the use of puppets in performance may pre-date the use of actors as the main vehicle for storytelling. In modern performance, puppets are said to have experienced a “rebirth” with the popularity of the work of Julie Taymor in The Lion King or Handspring Theater’s War Horse, but puppetry and puppets themselves are actually almost an archetype of human experience, making their way in to everyday language and metaphor as well as our literature and pop culture references. This class will investigate modern puppet performance, will analyze methods of creation of puppets for performance, and will explore why the puppet can be such a powerful performance tool and metaphor for the human experience. As part of this class, students will be expected to attend performances both on campus as well as off campus in the form of a field trip. This course will culminate with a creative project.

4. Good and Evil in the Human Imagination: Ethical Issues in Fiction
   This seminar’s topic investigates fictional representations of ethics. It asks what makes epic fantasy sagas such as Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings so appealing? One reason is that they are morality tales, battles between good and evil, voyages of discovery that can help us in the quest for identity. They help us to think about what it would be to lead a good life, how we can find ourselves, and what it means to be a part of a community, bound to our families, friends, and commitments. In this class, we will explore these issues by considering moral and ethical theory in light of the principles reflected in both epic fantasies and other major works of contemporary fiction, in both film and book version. We will consider the vision of society and of individual responsibility in these works, and ask such questions as, “Was Snape right to kill Dumbledore?” “Did Darth Vader achieve redemption?” and so on. We will apply these examples to major ethical issues in contemporary society and philosophy, and compare the depictions of ethics in epic fantasy to that in such other major works of contemporary fiction as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the spy novel, and you will have the opportunity to develop a research project on your own favorite recent work of fiction. Over the course of the semester, we will also watch four or five full-length feature films outside class hours, with food and drink provided.

5. Civil Disobedience in History
   This seminar will discuss and define the concept of “civil disobedience” based on analysis of multiple historical case studies, including: Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha (non-violent resistance) in South Africa and India; sit-ins organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); and the recent occupation of federal land by Standing Rock Sioux and allies to block the Dakota Access pipeline. Our focus will be on non-violent disobedience, but we will explore whether violence is ever justified. Students will visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the National Museum of the American Indian as part of the process of researching and producing a documentary film about an act of civil disobedience

They selected him to take #3.

Since he is in #3, the professor in that class becomes his freshman advisor.
I am not sure how much exposure he had to her prior to his calling and discussing his planned classes.
I think he actually selected the classes before his conversation with her, so I am not sure if she swayed him at all. I know he was considering Intro to Film Studies 101 instead of Intro to Theater 101 but when he found out the class met on Sunday nights at 7-10pm, he decided against it (I assume it was to go to movies?) at least for his first semester.

I know there is at least a FOREIGN LANGUAGE requirement, a LAB SCIENCE requirement and a PE requirement to satisfy. He did look into SPANISH 101 but the hours offered conflicted with his interest classes.

I think he should try the Intro to Theater and maybe do another language 101 (if the hours work). He won’t find out until August 15 if his schedule selected is firm.

I don’t think he is going to go CS or anything with heavy math.

[Tanbiko]

My 27 yo son is a software engineer for all of 2 months. He did not take a single CS class in HS or in college. At his last job he got bored and decided to automate his work… He is now an expert in technology that was invented in 2014. I am not sure they teach this in college yet although there are some bootcamps. As he works at a start-up he is actually interviewing and hiring people.

[kelsmom]

I will be 60 soon & still have no idea what I want to do career-wise. I didn’t know in high school, I didn’t really know in college - but I landed a good job right out of college - the job was fine & it paid the bills. I have honestly never worked in a job I loved (except when I was a stay at home mom), but I also don’t think that is a big deal (or unusual).

Gosh, I just think there is so much pressure on young people today to know what they want to do before they have any real life experience.