Sage advise from those beginning to those done! College!

<p>Thanks for your input ucb. I’ll pass on your advise for him to keep in mind as he’s digging around different programs.</p>

<p>Mother22 (#3)–we had both memory foam and topper. None of the kids complained of a smell and my two D’s would certainly have said something!</p>

<p>To be clear, H and I never forced or in any way or tried to persuade our kids on what to major in. BUT, in hind site, I think I would have tried to push them in directions that had more job opportunities. Since my S graduated with a physics/math major, he certainly could have studied engineering I think. And D2 was an Environmental Studies major, Economics minor. Even she says she wish she studied Environmental Engineering.</p>

<p>Almost every job listing around where I live lists specific majors in the required qualifications.</p>

<p>Oh, and I noticed my title Should have been “…from those done to those beginning.”. Haha. Oh well.</p>

<p>You have to let memory foam air out for a day or so, but after that it’s great. The egg crate foam is less smelly.</p>

<p>I think it is practical for those students who want to major in something that does not sound like a major that leads to a job to think about what other courses they could take/minor in that would. So if you want to major in art, then perhaps some classes on web design or back up as a teacher will relieve everyone’s stress of what will the student do when they graduate.</p>

<p>My son had a topper that was made out of some type of batting from BBBY and he thought his bed was the most comfortable of everyone’s.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1529029-parents-who-have-already-sent-one-college-what-top-piece.html?[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1529029-parents-who-have-already-sent-one-college-what-top-piece.html?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>excellent threads on this topic</p>

<p>" Attend the academically-strongest school that you can afford. Once you graduate, folks just look at school name, not GPA"
-This is not needed for every major at all. Specifically, if plan is to go to Med. School, absolutely any UG will do. It is ap to a student to achieve that GPA very close to 4.0, get decent MCAT score, participate in ECs and she will be good to go. UG name is irrelevant, they all end up in the same Med. Schools, Ivy graduates, Berkeley graduates, lowest ranked public school graduates along with PhD’s, Masters of Science, lawyers, all faced with the same huge challenges that pushed everybody to work extremely hard, no matter where they came from</p>

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<p>And that is why the best way to get your resume considered (really, no matter what your major is) is to get your resume to the hiring manager in some way OTHER than through HR. I am a independent consultant who routinely changes clients every six months to two years. Believe me, the “required” qualifications aren’t truly required most of the time. But you gotta get past the gatekeeper who knows nothing about the actual job to be performed. Does your son have a LinkedIn account? If not, get him started on one today. Have him link to people he works with and anyone he graduated with or knows from a year or two ahead of him who is out in the working world today. It is also a great place to look for job openings (yes, they go through HR, but you might as well see all the postings out there and give it a shot).</p>

<p>Also… if the position asks for a math major, he should mention in his cover letter how many math classes he took in college.</p>

<p>Many resumes and cover letters are electronically scanned for key items. Make sure the resume and cover letter have the right buzzwords so they will be picked up in the scan.</p>

<p>Sometimes working on a student’s communications skills and overcoming shyness are more important than a major. I know of two college grads who had extremely practical degrees from respected universities who had an unusual amount of trouble getting full-time jobs. The one had tons of interviews before he had his first job offer. The other finally got his first two jobs through his father’s business connections (the father controlled some of the corporation’s spending in the field). I think it was because they were both kind of quiet, not very assertive, and did not come across well in interviews. Some employers want employees who will be sociable with clients and who come across as more competitive and driven.</p>

<p>If a student decides to have a less marketable major, they should at least try to find a marketable minor. For instance, having training in finance, IT, etc. is useful in many fields. Some companies look to the younger new employees to help update their technological capabilities.</p>

<p>Try to get an internship or do research each summer. Especially the research if you might be headed for grad school. And the internships to get you some experience on your resume and hopefully connections for the future.</p>

<p>^Research in a summer is extremely hard to get into. It is much easier to get into Research at your UG and it might last for several years with great LOR at the end. D. did Med. Research at her UG for 3 years during school year. Result - nomination for Phi Beta Kappa (along with few other pre-meds at the same lab) and great LOR.</p>

<p>I agree that it is a very different thing for med school. Basically, no one cares what school your doctor attended as long as they are licensed. Do any of us really choose doctors based on where they went to school? Unless your diagnosis is life threatening. Then you might consider background and pedigree.</p>

<p>So school does not really matter for med school. The same for professional accounting degrees. </p>

<p>Where you get your MBA and Law degree apparently matter a lot.</p>

<p>For other graduate programs, the schools highly respected and ranked in the fields would be the best bet I would think.</p>

<p>I absolutely look to see where my doctor went to school and did their residency. If I can’t pronounce the name of the school they went to, I’m not going to go see them.</p>

<p>Wow Lakemom, you are lucky not to live where I do. Many of the doctors did not attend US schools. But they passed the required tests and are Board Certified. Couldn’t pronounce the names of their schools, yet the good old USA thought they were qualified.</p>

<p>I have two very different kids - both are very bright, but their levels of motivation are pretty much 180 degrees apart. D, the older child, has always been very motivated. S is not an especially motivated kid, although he has always done well in school. He was not especially interested in picking a school, he doesn’t have any interest in school-related activities, and he isn’t interested in internships. He has good grades, is a wildly talented musician (rock), and was offered a promotion after less than a month in his summer job. D worked as a barista for 8-9 months after graduation, before she landed a really great job. I expect that S will find something that works for him after he graduates next spring. We did not dictate our kids’ schools, majors, or anything else. Our job is to give them the foundation they need to make the life that suits them.</p>

<p>Of course, we have preached the “after college, you are on your own” mantra since they were born … :)</p>

<p>We were in the same boat with our son with math and physics. He loved those two subjects and was looking at just studying those until we really researched the types of jobs that those would lead to and he decided to go the engineering path instead. He is applying his math and physics, and is just finishing up his first very successful internship. I agree with most posters who have said that it is not our place to dictate our children’s major, but I do feel it is our responsiblity to help guide our children to follow their dreams in a way that will also put food on the table when they graduate. There are lots of jobs that will take any major, but if you can, why not get something more specific - assuming you love it as well. You can always go and do something general with a specific degree, but not the other way around.</p>

<p>“Where you get your MBA and Law degree apparently matter a lot.”
-Again, it depends on the purpose of MBA. Many (majority?) are getting an MBA becasue the employers are paying. This includes both my H. (engineer) and me (IT). It was basically fun (entertainment more than anything else). In my case, having an MBA resulted in easier time looking for another job.<br>
There are few that will actually try to obtain a manager’s positions with the MBA. I am not sure if school name matters or not, seems NOT in our area. But again, there are some positions (I guess, probably a tiny minority of all MBAs) that prefer an MBA from the highly ranked business schools.</p>