I am still in high school but I definitely stress about my future. And I know many people might say that I still have time to choose a major, which I definitely understand, however I would love your suggestions please. These are ideas I’ve had for college majors.
Psychology: I’ve always considered this as an option for me. I’ve always been that friend that everyone would come to with their problems and they would feel comfortable talking to me about them. I’m very observant as well and want to help others. However, the job market is not great and I also don’t want to end up sucked into a depression of my own because of others’ coming to me for psychological help.
Political Science: I’ve been considering this major recently. I’m very fascinated with politics and I love learning about history. I am absolutely interested in past wars and political figures. I’m also a part of my school’s debate club and I would love to volunteer with local politics.
English: I’ve always had a love for writing and reading. I’ve considered this as a major, however, I don’t know if it’s right for me. I don’t really know what I would do with this major or which path I would want to go.
Education: I’ve considered education lightly recently. I love children but I don’t know if this would be the path for me. I love the idea of it and I do consider it but I don’t believe I’m passionate about it.
Other Information:
I want to be able to help others
STEM is not for me
Have you thought about behavioral economics? It’s kinda like the practical side of psychology, and super relevant in today’s society (read Freakonomics). You could major in econ or industrial psychology. Governments, businesses, non-profits are very interested in using psychology to “nudge” behavior, so the kinds of jobs in this field are pretty broad, especially if you go to grad school.
And it’s great that you love reading and writing. Even if you don’t major in English, the fact that you love writing and presumably are good at it is a huge advantage for any field - communication skills are very vauable and harder to find than you might assume.
@geraniol Thank you so much for the advice! I will definitely look into behavioral economics and see if that could maybe be something I would be interested to pursue.
Behavioral economics is super fascinating, but it is also usually not an undergraduate major. If you were interested in behavioral economics, I would encourage you to double major in psychology and economics - or major in one and minor in the other. Behavioral economics is also going to get sort of math-heavy, as you will use mathematical and statistical modeling to model people’s economic behavior. But it can be a very rewarding career path.
Psychology is much broader than counseling. I’m a psychologist; I am not licensed to counsel anyone - I do research to help make technology more usable by people. Psychology is the study of mind, brain, and behavior, and there are LOTS of ways to apply that knowledge besides just counseling. Lots of psychologists go into business, tech, all kinds of fields.
Political science and English are also good majors, especially given your interests.
Since what you are thinking about leans towards liberal arts, I would wait to declare a major. Your gened requirements that you’ll be taking in your first year will explore some of these topics. Then after coursework in them, it will help you decide what to continue in. It is definitely better to wait to declare rather than declare and change. Because you don’t want to take intro classes in a major only to switch out of it and likely not have those intro courses you took count towards the major. In the meanwhile, when you have spare time, find more about these topics. For pol-sci, pay attention in your social studies courses. For education, talk to your teachers about what their job is like. What do they like/what do they dislike/ what is something most people don’t know about education? Read about politics, read about topics in education. For English, read books. Know that you’ll likely be leading a lot of classic literature. Do you enjoy that?