My daughter is a junior in HS. She is very socially & politically conscious, very vocal and strong with her (liberal) view points, with interests in public speaking, teaching & generally making the world a better place. She’s quite good academically as well and has been taking a reasonable amount of weighted classes in Math & science as well as history & language.
My question though is: what would be a good major for her? I’m starting to look at public policy, but don’t see many undergrad programs at that level. I also want to be conscious of career possibilities after that. How about other majors such as Business or communications? As parents we can either pay full tuition at in-state U plus chip in a bit for her graduate studies, or pay a good chunk of private school undergrad.
UCLA started a BA in public policy a couple of years ago. It is a lot more practically oriented than their PoliSci major which is more widely known (and very popular at most colleges), because PubAff includes a wider range of courses and a full year capstone internship during senior year. PoliSci is often quite a short major so may be combined with other majors or minors eg PoliSci/Econ is a common combination.
Look at your instate flagship departments for business, polysci majors, the four year plans in the course catalogue. Look at career center services- see calendar and recruiters who attend job and grad school fairs for these majors.
Hi, her choices right now are public policy/poli science, with some econ courses. Career choices - always been passionate about politics, sees herself as a state congressperson/senator in her happy place dreams But politics ain’t a career, right?!
Of course, it’s okay if she doesn’t want something this quantitative/computational, but it’s a good question to ask because these skills are in demand and can be a way in to some very interesting career settings related to her areas of interest.
Another type of major to consider is the interdisciplinary “PPE/PPL/PPEL” cluster of majors (Philosophy, Politics, Economics, Law). Good examples are seen at the Claremont Colleges, URichmond, Denison, Pitt, and the U of Arizona Honors College among others. The Honors major at Arizona is potentially a great “save the money for grad school” option. https://moralscience.arizona.edu/ppel-info
College students typically don’t need to declare a major until the second semester of sophomore year/first semester of junior year. I’d encourage your D to apply undecided and take a range of courses to explore different options while in college so she can better determine her interests and aptitudes.
What @happy1 said. With the exception of a few areas (where direct admit to major is required) the whole point of the US collegiate system is that students get to taste test what subjects are like at university level.
It’s also a time when maturing/brain development is going full steam, and whole new ideas can come out of nowhere. As an example, a niece who had been IR-focused all through HS, got into a college famous for IR, took intro IR with the famous, beloved prof…and discovered it was not at all interesting to her as a field. She was also taking a science class to meet a distribution requirement and fell in love with the field and is now happily finishing a PhD in molecular biology. Nobody saw that coming! It works the other way also: there is a woman well known in the foreign policy world who started college as a classics major, but took an IR course to meet distribution requirements. Her teacher was a then-unknown Condoleeza Rice, and she ended up having to finish grad school in DC b/c she was working in the WH by then.
@aquapt’s points are also spot-on, both on the current emphasis on data analytics and on the need for grad school. If she stays in that general sphere (whether law / public policy / etc), 1) a bunch of poorly-stipended internships and insultingly basic entry level jobs and 2) expensive grad school are in her future. The data analytics part will improve #1 somewhat, but unless she’s crackerjack at it, it won’t obviate the need for #2, probably 3-5 years after college.
What you can do for her now and going forward is to help her not have debt, which will enable her to take the early stage internships & entry level jobs and still keep bread on the table. Grad school in any of these fields is shockingly expensive.
A fancy-name private school is not mission-critical. What will matter is the resume she builds in college- esp the internships. Pretty much every uni has a DC semester and study abroad options. All of the major PP orgs (public and private) have internships which are advertised online. State Us can take her wherever she wants to go: a different niece went to a very ordinary State U, and ended up with a Truman Fellowship, which paid for Harvard Law School.
tl;dr: Seriously: at this stage she doesn’t need you to be scouting majors for her. This truly needs to be her following the path of her interests and seeing where it leads. Your part will come as you listen to her weighing the pros and cons of different options and ask open-ended questions to help her clarify her thinking.
^What happy1 & collegemom3717 said. All of the things you said about your daughter could’ve described me in high school, and I majored in psychology. I have a close friend for whom this was also true and she majored in communication disorders. Lots of very smart, savvy young people are socially and politically conscious, but that doesn’t have to define their major choice; there are lots of ways that people’s interest in social and political issues and desire to have social impact can manifest in different careers. (My friend is a speech-language pathologist, and I’m a social scientist in the tech sphere. My job involves lots of public speaking and teaching, which is not necessarily something one would expect coming into it.)
My overarching (and gentle ) question here is…why are you “starting to look” at these things? These are things your daughter should be starting to look at or being conscious of. You can of course support her as she explores, but she may already have her own ideas (however amorphous) about majors and careers.
Since your state of residence in CA, I would recommend one of the UCs. Since she’s not entirely sure what she wants, a large university would allow her to have a good selection of majors, and the possibilities of multiple combinations. Your in-state are all really good as well.
The parent does need to understand how majors progress, whether hs prereqs are taken, and what sorts of support are available via the career center or department. That will help guide the student to look at variety of colleges in budget, to inquire further when visiting, or to target honors programs or scholarships related to majors of interest.
Need? not really. In HS the parent will want want to make sure that the curriculum meets any admissions requirements, both in general (eg, meeting science or FL expectations) and in particular (eg, Math II subject test for CalTech or Calc for some CS/Engineering programs). But HS pre-reqs for specific college majors (except some CS/Eng) are pretty rare. The parent won’t need to know how the major progresses or about career center resources- that will be the student’s job to know about.
Being interested & supportive is one thing. Taking the lead in researching possible majors is another.
Parental Research depends on the student/parent personalities and relationship.
Student may be overwhelmed with school/work/ECs etc. My D appreciated my research, she still made all the decisions, but I laid out affordable schools in her geographic preference range from home.
And this potential major/career seems to be one that colleges might vary widely in their course concentrations. I think it makes sense for a parent to gain a better understanding of the scope of a major/possible careers.
Re: the ‘big data’/‘data science’ angle, she is good at math (doing well in calc-AB so far), though not passionate. But I personally agree it would be a good addition, in terms of a career as well as a generally useful skill.
Taking the well rounded high school base curriculum should cover the high school prerequisites for college courses that various college majors depend on.
Here are the typical assumptions:
English composition: 4 years of high school English courses are the expectation for taking the college English composition courses for general education requirements, but colleges may start students at different levels of English composition courses based on placement testing.
Math: for majors that require calculus (e.g. any science or engineering, economics, business), having completed precalculus in high school is the minimum; students who complete precalculus in 11th grade or earlier should take calculus if available to them.
Foreign language: often a general education requirement; some majors with international focus may require a higher level than the general education level. Higher attainment in high school can allow for higher placement in the same language in college, but colleges do offer foreign language courses starting at the beginner level.
Science: college biology, chemistry, and physics may assume a high school level knowledge of the subject; the college course will be more difficult if the student has not had that science in high school.
But politics ain’t a career, right?!
) question here is…why are you “starting to look” at these things? These are things your daughter should be starting to look at or being conscious of. You can of course support her as she explores, but she may already have her own ideas (however amorphous) about majors and careers.