<p>Right now, I am in limbo in terms of majors. I am currently a Pre-Nursing student. The college of Nuring is very competitive, but I think having a BSN with a minor in Chinese and maybe Spanish (if I have time) will make me marketable.</p>
<p>All I want is to have a nice job with flexible hours and decent pay and many job opportunities. Liberal Art degrees require “taking whatever comes” and don’t necessarily give you alot of job opportunities, flexible hours, and decent pay. Nursing, however, does. Plus I may be having student loans, so…</p>
<p>If I were a parent, I would strongly discourage my kid in solely majoring in the Arts. My bf and I make sometimes poke fun at all the Art, Dance and “under water basket weaving” majors, but there is something to be said about the liberal arts.</p>
<p>Signed, the daughter of two liberal arts grad.</p>
<p>^ Wise choice for you, if all you want is a nice job with flexible hours. But, we do need executives, managers, consultants, designers, researchers, novelists, artists… For some, a vocationally oriented major is good enough; for others, a little more imaginative major would fit them better.</p>
<p>Here’s my opinion. I don’t think parents should tell their kids “We’re not gonna pay for your college unless you major in XYZ”, but on the other hand parents should encourage their kids to ask a few questions and really think about them in my opinion when selecting a major:</p>
<p>What do I want to accomplish while I’m alive/do after college?
What am I passionate about?
What are my talents?
What brings me joy?</p>
<p>The world doesn’t need quadrillions upon quadrillions executives, managers, designers, novelists, artists…</p>
<p>And at any rate, I am going to also be a writer. Nuring is a job that gives flexibility and four days to do whatever I want, writing is a calling that is my PASSION. I believe in following your dreams, but I also believe in being practical and having a “fall back” plan. Too bad most 18 year olds are too immature to look into the future.</p>
<p>Ahh, I wish my parents were like the parents of this thread.
Mine laugh at the idea of me majoring in math, as does the rest of my family. My parents are still in their little world thinking that I’m doing a 3-2 engineering program no matter how much times I tell them I’m majoring in Math.
Thank God I have my entire undergraduate education paid for by scholarships!</p>
<p>My dear mother nearly had an aneurysm when I told her what I wanted to study, and my father just shook his head dejectedly. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Some people don’t know the answer to #1. For others, there is not and will never be an answer to #2. There are certain individuals do not know what #3 is, and for the rest, the answer to #4 is nothing.</p>
<p>But otherwise, those are good questions to ask. :)</p>
<p>My rising sophomore D can’t make up her mind between English and Philosophy. Or maybe Journalism. Or a Museum Studies minor. I can’t say I approve or disapprove of any of these. She has never been the type that would be happy in a corporate/mainstream setting, so I never expected she’d choose something like Business or Engineering. She’ll end up doing something quirky or niche-y with her life, something that probably won’t pay much but where at the end of the workday, she’ll feel like she made a difference to someone. That’s the outcome I wish for her, and however she gets there is fine with me.</p>
<p>ksarmand, you’re right there aren’t answers to those questions but thinking about those questions will help you on the right path to picking a good major. I believe all of us are talented at least one thing, for example maybe you’re on the computer a lot and know how to navigate it, that’s a talent that many older people don’t have. And I believe that if you’re in a right career, there will be tough times but overall you will enjoy it :)</p>
<p>S2, a rising jr, is majoring in Criminal Justice but says he has no desire to be a cop.<br>
He knows there are lots of other avenues a CJ degree can be applied to but hasn’t really delved deep into researching them.<br>
DH, an engineer with the mindset to go with it, is very annoyed that S2 doesn’t know what he wants to do and doesn’t seem to be making any plans or thinking too hard about it right now. Mind you, S2 has just finished GenEd. reqs and will really take classes in his major for the first time in the Fall.
I tell DH that S2 has two more years to figure it out and that most twenty year olds prob. don’t have it all figured out just yet.</p>
<p>S1 knew what he wanted to do since middle school and never waivered…the military. He graduated fr. college last yr. and is following his plan. DH thinks they should all be like that…ugh.</p>
<p>My parents are a chemical engineer and chemist (or used to be, now they manage research departments at a big corporation), and I THINK they were kidding when they said I would be disowned for majoring in comparative literature–luckily I can’t think of anything more miserable than that, I’m a chemical engineering major and loving every minute of it, so I didn’t get a chance to call their bluff…</p>
<p>My son and I toured a TV station one time and the people working there said they loved to hire people who knew math. I think it was something to do with all the computers.</p>
<p>I agree - I work in higher education, specifically engineering and education. We have strongly encouraged our children (and, really, all students we run across!) to consider a major in any STEM field. There are simply not enough science/math graduates, particularly in engineering fields, and the shortage will only grow more acute unless it’s recognized and faced head on. In aerospace engineering, for instance, only US citizens can work on many government funded research projects since 9/11. </p>
<p>His father and I, both liberal arts graduates, had one guideline for him: he could get a master’s degree in whatever he wanted (he has, at various times, considered both law school and graduate school) but his bachelor’s degree had to be in a STEM field if we were paying for it. We do not regret the paths our lives took, since we’ve seen a lot of the world and have two great kids, but we certainly did not listen to our own parents when we were making these decisions 25 years ago and we both wish we had. With 20/20 hindsight, our choices of major would have been 180 degrees different.</p>
<p>Our son wants to have an engaging job that will allow him to travel. He also loves physics and took AP Physics AB and BC in high school. So he decided, with our guideline in mind ;), to major in engineering.</p>
<p>Funny that someone should bring this up. I was thinking that to be successful in advertising, you would need a really varied background in literature, psychology, sociology, history, as well as business, media studies, etc. The people who wrote Mad Men sure have a solid background in all that, and being in advertising (at least at the top) requires a pretty broad breadth of knowledge.</p>
<p>As someone who has worked in creative fields my entire adult life, I feel very ambivalent about art, theater, music, etc. majors, mostly because I’ve seen the gamut of what comes after college. For most, it’s a lot of hard work, rejection, and eventual settling for something else. But – if someone is very, very passionate about their field, then they should go for it while in college, because chances are that will be their last opportunity to be fully immersed in it. After that, it’s years of “day jobs”. That is the reality.</p>
<p>My s (rising senior) is planning to major in film studies. He has dreams of being the next Quentin Tarantino. Although he realizes the odds are against him, to see him so excited about his chosen career is all his dad and I need to know that this is the right thing for him.</p>
<p>"There are simply not enough science/math graduates, particularly in engineering fields, and the shortage will only grow more acute unless it’s recognized and faced head on.'</p>
<hr>
<p>While this is true for some disciplines in the STEM area (like maybe engineering), it is definitely NOT true for others. Take my old career field - medicinal organic chemistry - and do some googling on what’s happening in the pharma industry now, career-wise, for chemists. Believe me, it’s ugly. There are PLENTY of organic chemists out there! </p>
<p>I guess my point is this: it’s hard to predict what future career paths will be lucrative/employable. Choices of college major and future career maybe need to be one part pragmatism, one part optimism… one part luck?</p>
<p>mdye718, my son had a minor in Film and Media studies and is going into an MA in Media Studies in September. His major was Econ but he liked this better. Since his graduate school pays (he somehow managed to get funded), we are very happy. We would have been happy even if it hadn’t paid but this was icing. :)</p>
<p>Your attitude as parents is absolutely the right one. There are also a lot of jobs in the film and media industries once you get to know people through internships and working as a production assistant ¶ or as an assistant (to assistant) editor. And dreaming of being Quentin Tarantino is just fine. </p>
<p>My son worked as a PA this summer (and did some editing for them too) and the same people keep asking him back for different projects. This is a good thing. There is no doubt there are uncertainties…</p>
<p>He may not be a millionaire (or even make six figures) soon, but he is happy.</p>
<p>My immigrant parents and their friends believed any major other than one in the engineering and medical fields was a waste of time. Many of my friends listened to their parents instead of following their passions and ended up changing majors in midstream or careers later on. I chose to be the ‘rebel’ and major in psychology. It provided a foundation for a successful and enjoyable career. I encourage my kids to do the same.</p>