Going into senior is probably the worst time to be evaluating my kid’s major discipline, however, I’m ok if he takes a victory lap. So putting that chestnut aside, here’s my quandry: my DS aces all of his arts, bio science and humanities courses; is a terrific writer and has a natural bent towards social studies, govt and politics, but strrrrrruggles in his chosen major, Accounting and his minor, CS.
He’s also fascinated by history and other cultures, especially Asian studies. I have tried to tell him that it’s perfectly acceptable to major in a humanities discipline or biology, and that he should go to where his passion lies. But his take on this is that if he chooses a “navel gaze” - his words not mine - major or something “softcore” in undergrad, it would be too self-indulgent. He feels that that path automatically requires a post-grad degree in order to earn a living wage.
Now before I get flamed about the provocative hyperbole, my disclaimer: I was a psych major and I loved my arts and science courses. And, although I did not choose a career in that field - I was a paralegal before becoming a law firm administrator - I have put my education to good use, Psych major notwithstanding. However, I think millenials have been scared straight off the humanities, and I don’t understand why because those are the skills most sought after by employers. I’m sorry, but don’t most jobs require critical thinking and excellent written communication skills? I cringe when I get emails from some of our employees that were STEM majors, the mind reels at their inability to synthesize their thoughts into persuasive content.
Oh well, he’s two sems away from his acctg degree and is hating every minute of it. He doesn’t even want to walk at grad next year, he said he just wants the “receipt.” LOL He’s a bit immature for his age, so I honestly don’t mind if next year he’s a super senior. Bah! sorry for the long post and I welcome your input. Hopeless in SoCal.
Why did he choose his major that he struggles with and dislikes?
It is one thing to be aware of job and career prospects associated with various majors. It is quite another thing to choose a major only for associated job and career prospects without considering whether one is good at and likes (or at least finds acceptable) doing it for a job and career.
It does seem silly, but at this point hard to change. How many courses in his major(s?) does he have to take still? At this point he may prefer to just get the degree, have some skills he may or may not use again and look for jobs that are better for what he is good at and enjoys. There might be NGOs or other organizations that think his interests are a good match for them.
He has two semesters left it just kills me that he’s so stubborn. He’s always been very fiscally prudent, he’s even had two business that he started up from home. But he wants to squeeze as much value out of his diploma. I mean this kid takes all the free cough drops from the healthcenter haha. He refuses to consider a non recessio proof major, bah!
If the school is affordable- eg public- he should seriously change majors while he still can (not too late until he graduates) and take 5 years. I can’t imagine being an accountant unless one likes it, nor be able to be competent in that or comp sci without the desire to do it. Looks like a case of choosing something predicted to garner jobs. BUT- the country needs all sorts of workers with all sorts of college educations.
Time for a trip to his career advising center. He needs to see who hires which majors to open his eyes.
Good luck. My son was getting his Honors math degree and had overreached for grad schools. Less than two weeks before graduation he cancelled it and took a 5th year to add/finish the comp sci major. He now works happily- with his math major he was definitely theoretical and not applied.
You might remind your son he is in college for an education and to scratch the accounting courses in favor of something he actually likes. Better to do it now than have lifelong regrets that he was in it only for the job training.
Yes he well trying to get him to stay another year is an “opportunity cost” he probably won’t even consider. He aced his intro acctg class and I think he let his prof talk him into it as a major. What he really wanted to be was a vet, he’s obsessed with dogs! That’s the reason we chose his school, it was rural and has its own farm. Yet, after spending an hour with our vet who did nothing but rant about how horrible CA is on small business owners and how vet medicine is less about dogs and cats and more about being sued by their owners who never want to pay their bills because of some misperception that a vet should work for their love of animals and not be greedy and expect financial renumeration, he crushed my poor kid’s hopes and dreams Lol thanks Dr. Gene
Accounting and computer science majors don’t have to DO accounting and computer science anymore than psychology majors have to DO psychology. He has learned critical thinking skills in his major and minor just as he would in any other major and minor.
Sounds like career counseling is in order before he changes to a humanities major just because he does well in those classes or just because you think that is what he should have done.
Except in a few cases (engineering) your undergrad degree does not determine your actual career path.
Since he’s unhappy, could you give him the option of a year off to take a good long look at careers where he could either work with dogs, or where he’d make enough money so he could do some dog related thing as a hobby? That way when he goes back to college he’ll have a better sense of why he’s really there.
Gschool, at this point that’s the only thing keeping him going. When he met the VP of WFB at his scholarship banquet, who herself had been an acctg major, she basically told him to embrace the suck because the acctg degree will get him in the door.
Tbh, he’s a bright and engaging kid, I’m not real worried about his career ops, I just hate to watch him struggle and hate school. This summer, his resume got kicked up the ladder to a BiG Four firm, remarkably so because he is SO NOT at their target school and the HR Director loved him, he just needs a few more credits to be eligible to sit for the CPA. A week’s pay says he’s gonna push through that too ughhhhhh
Happy, I figured a victory lap year when he could study abroad and take classes he loves, maybe in Asia, would be just as good as a gap year, but he’s over it, wants his “receipt” and to be done with school. Such a shame that this is the effect the recession has had Has it come to this where our kids believe that studying the arts and science is self-indulgent?! Or only for pre-professionals!?That’s an entire side of our brain that’s being discarded smh
Has he fully explored the types of jobs he can do with an accounting degree? There is a wide variety. Lots of accountng majors have the opposite problem of LOVING the debits and credits but hating the sales, proposal writing, community service and management responsibilities that come with working at a firm or company in an accounting role. Often those responsibilities increase substantially with each step up the ladder. Have him explore jobs in economic development (chambers of commerce, entrepreneurship groups, etc), bank management training programs, consulting firms, etc. I think what he really needs is an internship or summer job to explore these possibilities further. Accounting is a good base for running any business. Even veterinary practices need office managers. He may be very pleasantly surprised how different the work is from what his studies were.
If he truly hates accounting, his first few years in a Big Four firm will be rough.
Big Four auditing is an intense hard working environment where you learn a tremendous amount about business in a very short amount of time. Mostly big businesses though not small business although the skills are transferable. For those who want to be there, those jobs are training ground for business executives-even those who leave accounting. There are a fairly large number of people who work there long enough to get the work requirement for the CPA out of the way (1-2 years) and then head to grad school.
Nothing he is doing now is ruining his life. He can always change course especially with a supportive parent like you.
I agree that millennials are being scared away from humanities. We just toured a public school in a group of about 10 students and their parents - my daughter was the ONLY one that mentioned an interest in Humanities. Others were interested in Business, “pre-law” (I guess he’ll be doing Humanities, whether he realizes it or not), Information Systems, Special Education (granted this school is known for that), and Nursing. All of those fine options, of course, and we need people in all of those fields, but…
I rarely hear a kid these days saying they want to study History or English, and just because they want to delve deeper into it.
One of my D’s friends wants to be an anesthesiologist - she’s still in high school and getting Cs in biology and Chemistry. When I asked why so specific at this point, she said it’s because anesthesiologists make the most money and do the least work. !!!
My nephew wants to major in Business so he “can get a job.”
On the bright side, I feel like my D would probably have very small class sizes in her Humanities courses at a large public. Otoh, I fear that this will lead to a major decline in the Humanities in general - and that would be very sad.
I also attribute some of the trend to an increasing sentiment of anti-intellectualism across the U.S.
With the intense focus on STEM these days- people look at kids as if they have 3 heads if they are choosing something else. Of course, it wasn’t all that different for me when I was majoring in history 25 years ago and everyone wanted to be a business major (ah the 80s when the “golden ticket” was to head straight to Wall Street). The funny part is that the majority of my college finance-major friends who WENT into stockbrokering right after college have mostly re-careered (burned out, or downsized as things changed) while I am still using my history degree.
Why he needs to continue with something that he does not like? It seems to be incorrect approach. Now in regard to STEM vs Arts and Science, I do not understand the “vs.” part. Just choose what you want and enjoy. Combo of major(s)/minor(s) do not have to consist of related majors/minors at all. My D. graduated with Zoology major / Music composition Minor, her one friend graduated with Zoology major / Art minor (I do not know how in a world she accomplished that as Zoology is extremely challenging and college Art is extremely time consuming and this person also needed close to perfect college GPA, but she did it, so it is possible!), yet another friend graduated with Zoology/Spanish/Latin studies triple major.
My D. absolutely made sure that she does not need to take classes in college that she disliked which potentially could damage her college GPA. Ironically, it happened to be History. She struggled in HS, spent huge amount of time, her dad helped her a lot and she manage to get an A for the college class that she took while in HS.
What I am saying is that everybody has something that they prefer not to do / not to study, there is no reason to continue beyond a minimal requirement. Accounting / CS is definitely NOT required by all majors (unfortunately for my D. college History is required).
Continue with something that you do not like is not going to make you like it. I went thru that all thru college (did not have problem with academics though) and 11 years of working as Electrical Engineer. After that, I just said to myself, enough is enough, went back to school and switched to CS and 30+ years later is very happy that I did. Loved it and still do!!!
Do not stay with something that you do not like, do not waste precious time, switch as early as possible. This is the only advice that I have in addition to the fact that any type of artistic / musical / language / any other outside interest could also be pursued in additional to the major interest and many do it! It enriches their lives!
There’s plenty of a careers out there where his degree would be helpful to get a job, but wouldn’t necessarily use accounting or programming on a daily basis. Once he starts doing some on campus interviews it should open his eyes to what’s available.
I was similar in that I got an interdisciplinary CS degree but got totally burned out on programming senior year. I was always excellent in written and oral communication skills, and ended up in a career path that leveraged those skills plus the technical background without requiring any actual programming.
In the tech industry there’s actually plenty of demand for people who combine a broad set of skills, he just has to broaden the scope of his career search a bit.
How selective is the public school in question? Generally, it is at the more selective schools (e.g. flagship public schools that are relatively selective and private schools of similar or greater selectivity) that liberal arts (i.e. basic humanities, social studies, and science) majors tend to be most popular; at less selective schools (e.g. regional non-flagship publics and similarly less selective privates), pre-professional majors (not necessarily STEM) predominate.
Not sure how “STEM” is involved here, since the OP’s son’s major is accounting, which is a business major, not a STEM major.
Ah, it was a second-tier public, not the flagship. She doesn’t want the flagship, unfortunately, and many OOS flagships are too expensive, or “too big”. She wants a smaller school. (And yes, we are looking at LACs, too.)
“In the tech industry” - Actually the vast majority (maybe over 90%, do not know statistics) of CS majors are employed outside of the tech industry, at the jobs that nowhere near related to tech industry at all. Of course the same goes for accounting. I had 9 jobs in IT departments in totally unrelated industries at very well known internationally companies as well as in Health care, retailers,…etc. None were in the tech industry.
One thing though, for sure, I switched from engineering seeking personal satisfaction, and if I did not like programming with all my heart, I would not continue with it. It would be no point for me. I know exactly how it feels to be a fish out of water, if you strongly feel that you do not belong there, get out. We have only one life, we better be satisfied with it in all aspects of it. It is a misery to be where you do not belong.
I feel for you because I know you just want your son to be happy in what he is pursuing. I’ve seen this scenario in various forms, where a humanities kid majored in a passion that didn’t lend to great job opportunities, and they struggled in the real world. Sounds like your son didn’t want to take that chance. But majoring in something viable that he hates, and isn’t very strong at is masochistic. He doesn’t have to go into this field, but he probably would benefit from a career counseling test/session to know what other opportunities exist where he could be happier, and still use his education skills. Not majoring in the humanities didn’t take away his talents in writing, etc. All is not lost as long as he doesn’t end up hating his future job someday.
Has it come to this where our kids believe that studying the arts and science is self-indulgent?! Or only for pre-professionals!?That’s an entire side of our brain that’s being discarded smh