-You don’t have to have a passion. A lot of people don’t have one, and even a lot of people who do have a passion end up changing their mind or doing something else.
-You don’t need to major in STEM to get a job that’s not fast food or retail. I majored in psychology and I work in technology. I have friends and former students who have majored in many fields across the social sciences, arts, and humanities and are gainfully employed in jobs that support a middle-class lifestyle. There are actually relatively few people with BAs flipping burgers, contrary to popular belief.
-Additionally, I think most college students overestimate what is necessary for a comfortable lifestyle that doesn’t involve struggling. I was a grad student in New York on $32,000, and while I didn’t live the most comfortable life, I wouldn’t say I was struggling. I have friends that live there on $45-75K and they live fine (the lower end has roommates; the higher end lives alone). And that’s in one of the most expensive cities in the country. If you live in a less expensive city or in a suburban area, your costs will be lower - around $50K will let you live quite comfortably, if you are just supporting yourself on that income. (I made $50K in my first job out of graduate school in a small town not nearby an urban metropolis. It was enough to live comfortably and save a bit.) If you partner with someone with a similar income you’ll 1) be fine and 2) actually be in the top 25% of households in the U.S.
-Please don’t do pre-med just because you don’t know what else to do. I always felt the sorriest for those students. It absolutely tanks your GPA without much purpose. If you later decide you want to go into medicine you can always take the pre-med classes later.
-Ignore those people and the looks on their faces. A lot of that comes from ignorance: most people are not aware of the vast majority of careers out there; they are only familiar with a select few that earn high salaries. “Doctor” sounds good to a whole lot of people, so they get excited when their kid pursues that, and disappointed when they don’t. I knew a whole lot of struggling, unhappy pre-med students, several who didn’t get into medical school, and a few more who made their parents upset when they dropped. I call it the circle of life, lol. You have to do what YOU want to do and what makes you happy - nobody but you is going to be sitting in organic chemistry, doing your problem sets, doing your clinicals or working your 36-hour shifts as a resident. You have to do it, not them and if you hate it, you’re going to be miserable.
You don’t have to commit to a lifelong career. Your major doesn’t do that. It’s just a course of study for 4 years. Even your first job, second job, fifth job doesn’t commit you to a lifelong career. I changed careers from public health to tech research myself; I didn’t study this in college. I am in a job I really love, and I could potentially stay in this field forever, but if I decided tomorrow I wanted to be a nurse instead I could go back and get a BSN in a year and go into nursing. There are many things I could do without going back to school.
It’s true that there are lots of careers that combine psychology with linguistics and computer science. So if you like CS, that’s an option. But if you don’t like math, and you don’t want to do CS, there are also lots of jobs a psychology and linguistics major can do that will still allow you to live. Some of them might even buy you a house on the hill, if you want that.