<p>I'm looking for advice for my junior S who just came back from a college shopping visit in New England. He's interested in engineering, but his math/science grades and scores are average while his grades and scores in history/reading are amazing. He really enjoys his CAD class as well as chemistry, likes the concept of mechanical engineering, is great w/ people and reads constantly. He claims he doesn't want to major in history, even though he gets A's.</p>
<p>Math/Science Grades and ACT: B's and 23/24 (taking Algebra II now, so no Calc Senior year)
History Grades and English/Reading ACT: A's and 26/34 ACT.</p>
<p>Besides a general liberal arts education, what are typical majors that would help him play to his strengths (reading) and interests (science, hands-on building)?</p>
<p>Have your son read thru the book “What Color is My Parachute” which is the bible of job hunting. A major part of it is geared towards the general liberal-arts grad who says “now what do I do?” which is essentially him, he’s just 4 years early. Perhaps he’d like a career in an area of business where he’s involved in a company doing something technical even though he isn’t doing it directly. As engineers look around your company; there are lots of people with jobs and degrees that don’t involve engineering, although the holders may get the satisfaction of helping to create and market a product produced by engineers. </p>
<p>A real problem kids at his age face is they don’t know much about what jobs are actually out there; they know doctor, lawyer, teacher, what some of their friends parents do, that’s largely it. So they can’t decide if they might like a job in say purchasing or accounting because they don’t even know those jobs exist!</p>
<p>You can also look into books that are geared towards career discovery; tons of those on Amazon. Although at his age there is no need to set goals in concrete; getting some ideas of general areas he enjoys and then following the approach in “Parachute” will get him started thinking about what he might want to do.</p>
<p>There are some fields that require tangential math and science strengths. Science journalist, to write popular-press explanations of current research for newspapers and magazines. Graphic designer, perhaps, which requires some specialized computer expertise. Pharmaceuticals sales rep. Perhaps a college textbook rep that visits college professors to try to convince to use Book A rather than Book B in future courses.</p>
<p>The parachute book I actually might still have in my basement. Graphic designer and industrial designer are also things that make sense, but I hadn’t thought of technical sales or pharmaceutical sales. After getting his wisdom taken out last week he certainly understands the benefit of a good pain killer. Thank goodness he let us get in ibuprofen sooner rather than later. Anyway, all great ideas. We’ll continue to explore options.</p>
<p>He might want to look at an integrated business and engineering program - typically they are business degrees that include some engineering coursework to prepare the student to work in businesses that require an understanding of engineering.</p>