Undecided Major, what should I consider?

College Majors
1

Hey guys! Okay, so I will be a junior next year so maybe it’s still a little early to really think of my college major but I really do want to figure out what I want to be and I think the sooner the better so I am able to take action now which could help my major and career in the future.

Do you guys know what careers are easier to get/join or maybe any golden age careers right now?

I heard nursing is a good option since they are many choices and levels of nursing so you can get a job after a few years in college and continue learning as well and you can go up the ranks and earn more money. But, the number of careers and jobs I can actually name is very limited. I want to know more careers so I will have more options open to me.

I want a job that will earn decent money, upper middle class range or more. Also, one that I can easily get after college (for example: maybe NOT a optometrist because not a lot of people hire them, mostly a business so you have to build a business and manage it, etc.). I don’t want a job where the rates of employing them are low like a teacher maybe since they get laid off a lot and many people are pursuing that career too so a lot of competition.

And this is just what I have heard from people haha I really don’t have a lot of knowledge on jobs and would really love if you guys can give me career/major/job recommendations so I could look into it more.

2

The first thing to find some form of happiness or to even be successful and get to the point where you will be making good money is to find something that actually interests you. You can surely major in math and be an actuary and make 100K a year working for an insurance company, but you have to want it. You could be an engineer working with PLC’s in a large manufacturing plant making the same thing, again, you need to actually want it because just getting to that point is a battle. This is probably the best advice you can find.

As far as careers that will be rather lucrative in terms of employment, the medical field has always and always will be a good one. Nursing, any kind of doctor, and mostly any obscure medical doctor. Other fields that are not medical would include most engineering careers such as electrical engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, etc…The more competitive and common fields would be computer science and information technology, while it’s a growing field it is very overly saturated with graduates. If you like science, mostly any science field will be good in money and job opportunities. Chemistry, physics, applied sciences like biochemistry, pharmacology, molecular biology/engineering are solid choices as with dozens of other ones. Just expect to get a master’s in the least in engineering and science fields to be able peak over the 100K a year mark mid career.

It may take awhile to find what you genuinely like or to find what really interests you, this is key, no matter what anybody says. It took me 4 years in the military right after high school to have that “aha!” moment when I knew what I could do and what I would actually want to educate myself in. I have a friend who did computer science as his major just because he knew he “had to go to college,” he wasn’t passionate about computer science and just did the basic things to graduate with his bachelors. It’s been over a year and he still works at the local mall and has not found a job in his field yet because he never put in the time to become an expert in it. Don’t do something you don’t actually care about.

3

Here’s the thing: Nobody can predict the future, and any jobs that are hot right now might not be hot in 5+ years. When I entered college in 2004, some of the hot areas to go into were law, real estate and finance. You can imagine what happened when people who pursued those fields graduated into the crash in 2008 (or the ones who pursued law school finished in 2011). Right now computer science is on fire, but in 5 years maybe the tech bubble bursts or something happens that depresses salaries in the field.

That’s why it’s important to pursue something that’s based on your interests and individual skills. I’m not saying don’t be practical - you should - but combine that practicality with interests. You don’t want to be stuck doing something that makes you miserable, but you especially don’t want to be stuck doing something that makes you miserable that pays pennies - or worse, nothing at all - because it was cresting right around the time you went to college. You don’t necessarily want to pick a career that is in a “golden age” right now.

So first of all, if you are a junior in college and - by your own admission - you haven’t heard of many careers, that’s a perfect reason to wait to declare a major. Wait until you get some more exposure to the many careers that are out there. You don’t have to declare until the end of your sophomore year, and declaring in freshman year of college won’t put you behind the curve.

There are a few exceptions; nursing is one of those that you should know going in so you can take the appropriate prerequisites. But there are ways to pursue nursing later on even if you don’t originally know that’s what you want to do. Also, nursing is not one of those majors you should pursue because there are “many choices and levels.” It takes a particular kind of person to do the job - for the first few years, at least, you will be working medical/surgical nursing on a hospital floor, working all kinds of cases from banal to ridiculous. You have to have a caring spirit in you willing to take on that work. Plus, you’l hear all kinds of ballyhoo about a nursing shortage, and it’s true that there is one. But the shortage is really in particular areas of the country in fewer people want to move, like rural areas - not in big cities like New York or LA - and in particular lower-paid fields of nursing like nurse faculty (nurses who have the level of education and experience necessary to teach college-level nursing can make a lot more money doing other things).

You’ll get better suggestions if you maybe talk about your interests a little bit - I can suggest careers but they may be careers that you’ll hate.

Also, as a side note, do know that it’s very unlikely you’ll be upper-middle-class coming out of college. Average salaries for recent college grads are in the $30-50K range, maybe a bit more for well-paid engineers, software developers, consulting and finance/banking.

And people do hire optometrists; not all of them own their own business. Some of them go into group practice and some attach themselves to a national chain like a Pearle Vision or Lens Crafters.