Hey everyone, I would really appreciate some input on my college major option. It’s the end of my junior year year and I’m starting to freak out because ill have to decide very soon. I really love engineering or more specifically the design and problem solving aspect of it ( not going to lie, the salary is quite appealing too). Despite this, I worry about the higher level math and science courses which would drop my GPA quite a lot in college making me unlikely to obtain a job. Another love of mine is theater tech. I look forward to musicals and plays so much, and enjoy running sound, lights, building sets and so on. Unfortunately theater jobs are so low paying and i doubt I could support a life on solely theater tech (I doubt my parents would wholeheartedly support it either). So essentially I enjoy problem solving, designing things, and working with technology. I need a decent salary, and really want to avoid working in a cubicle all day everyday. Is there maybe a viable way to combine engineering and theater? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Oh and a little P.S. I’m not unintelligent, I’m enrolled in all AP and Honors courses, have above a 4.0 (weighted) GPA, and as of now have a 29 on my ACT. I just don’t want to waste a lot of money on college and then not pass or later regret my major choice.
Look into schools that offer a theater minor. Or depending on how exactly the program is structured at a given school, just take theater classes of interest as electives. Or join an active theater club on campus. Or potentially get involved in community theater. There are a lot of ways to incorporate theater into your life without having to major in it.
As far as math and science go, the trick is to take advantage of your school’s resources if you’re struggling. Anyone can get decent grades if they try hard enough; the main question is how naturally it comes to you, because that determines how much effort you’ll need to put in to get that grade. From there, it’s about putting in that effort in whatever way is most efficient for you.
Lots of people who work in engineering or computing do performing art as an “extracurricular”. Probably a lot less stressful when the bills are paid from their engineering or computing job so that doing performing art can be something they can do for fun.
It does seem that many of those trying to make a career (that pays the bills) out of performing art need to take some other job anyway to pay the bills. The field does seem to be a high-Gini field, where a few make it big, but most struggle to pay the bills with it.
I am always curious about folks who say that they want to avoid working in a “cubicle all day”. I think I understand the impetus, but I have trouble understanding where it’s coming from. I’m thinking they’re usually imagining something soul-sucking like the movie Office Space or something, but a cubicle in and of itself doesn’t have to be bad - it kind of depends on the environment. I worked in a cubicle at one job and it was totally fine - it was a pretty big cubicle! Also, do you literally mean you don’t want to work in a cubicle or do you mean you don’t want to sit at a computer all day? Because working in an office or at an open floor plan can still be similar.
Regardless, if you are an engineer chances are you will be sitting in front of a computer screen most hours of the day.
First of all, don’t freak out. If you are a junior in high school, then no, you don’t have to choose your major “very soon.” You don’t actually have to declare your major until the end of your sophomore year of college. Of course if you want to major in engineering you need to know earlier - some schools make you apply to the engineeering majors separately, and you usually need to start your classes freshman year in order to graduate in 4-5 years.
The other thing to remember is that not everything you love is a career. I love to write fiction, but I knew that personally I would not enjoy the uncertainty of salary that comes from writing fiction as a career (and I don’t like writing because I have to), so that is not an avenue I pursue. I also love hiking, but nobody is going to pay me to do that, so I don’t pursue it as a career. Maybe you love theater tech, so it’s a pursuit you do in your spare time - you work on productions throughout college and volunteer for the community theater after you graduate or do gigs on the side or something while you work a different day job.
Anyway, there a lot of majors that involve problem-solving and designing things and working with technology - engineering, computer science, industrial design, maybe physics, maybe applied math and statistics.