<p>i've been worried about this one for ages:</p>
<p>my potentials:</p>
<p>1) medicine
2) finance (investment banker)
3) plain ol' business
4) archaeology/anthropolgy
5) international relations/diplomacy</p>
<p>what happens if I have no clue? what i was thinking was applying to schools that offer a broad range of strenghts such as the ivies and some other schools like vanderbilt, emory, u cali or others like this. any ideas?</p>
<p>Try a summer program in one of these fields. Many colleges have these for high school students. It might help narrow your choices down.</p>
<p>i was thinking about that but I honestly don't have any time. i took an internship at a hospital sophomore year and I liked but next year I took an internship at a stockbroking agency in my city and i really liked it too...so i still don't know</p>
<p>Well, for medicine (#1) and business (#3), you don't have to worry as much, because you're not bound to a particular major. Go with your plan; find schools strong in all the areas you're interested in. Plenty come to mind- Dartmouth, UCB, UCLA, Emory, UNC, UVa, Michigan, U Penn, and Duke are some.</p>
<p>you could try asking yourself - what would make me happiest. </p>
<p>and then take a look at some potential "stereotype successes" in your field</p>
<p>for example </p>
<p>1) great doctor who helps everyone
2) big investment banker who does tons of major business deals earning himself and his business a ton of money
3) running your own business/ being part of someone elses</p>
<p>I didn't figure it out till my junior year of college! My advice is to the best school and get a good GPA. you'll figure it out.</p>
<p>I decided not to become a doctor after I realized I loved my social science classes much more, and I decided not to be a banker after an internship. You'll figure it out, but plenty pf people figure it out in college.</p>
<p>If you apply to Penn CAS and get in...you can take classes at Wharton to see what you like...so you will effectively be able to test out ALL of these areas there. The same goes for most places with a business school like Georgetown (where you have to take a lot of liberal arts courses in the business college) and others.</p>
<p>well for me, i know i want to be a doctor, but not sure about what to major in. So in my case what should i do?</p>
<p>major in biology</p>
<p>well for me, i know i want to minor in music and to be a doctor, but I'm not sure about what to major in. So in my case what should i do?</p>
<p>You could major in music if you wanted to.</p>
<p>warblersrule, i really like these colleges:</p>
<p>1) brown
2) vanderbilt
3) notre dame
4) rice</p>
<p>would these be included into the broad array of strenghts?
thanks for all the help guys!</p>
<p>Definitely Brown and Rice, yes to a lesser extent for Vanderbilt. I don't know anything about Notre Dame. :/</p>
<p>thanks a lot. do you know how good the LAC's are in terms of strong in all areas? i'm defenitly open to amherst and williams</p>
<p>If you're a female, Bryn Mawr springs to mind. Haverford, Grinnell, Bowdoin, Davidson, William & Mary (LAC-like), Wesleyan, Bard, and Oberlin are worth looking into; I'm sure there's more.</p>
<p>like you already said, the most important thing is to apply to schools that are good at a lot of things, not just one thing. it does seem like you're leaning towards business a little, with the "finance, plain ol' business, international relations" deal. maybe you want to look into a school that is particularly good at economics or even offers an undergraduate business program, aside from being good at the other things you listed.</p>
<p>but just to make you feel better -- there are PLENTY of people who don't know what they want to do. i know somebody whose brother changed his major literally every semester, and now he's doing just fine as an investment banker. his final major did pertain to his current job as an investment banker, and what's more, his final major turned out to be his very first major. sometimes people just need to convince themselves that they don't like other fields before they feel comfortable doing what they wanted to do all along.</p>
<p>Don't panic or think you are odd. A LOT of students don't really know what they want to study when they get to college, and if they do know, they often change.</p>
<p>Something nobody ever mentions is that about half the subjects you study in college are rarely, if ever, offered in most high schools, so you'd graduate from high school without having had much exposure to them. So when you study them in college, it's your FIRST exposure to them. I'm talking about subjects like philosophy, sociology, psychology, theology, engineering, more-obscure languages, economics, business, etc.</p>
<p>A big mistake students make in college is that they tend to gravitate towards courses which cover topics they already know a lot about and feel comfortable with. It is a bit painful to branch out and take courses that are completely new to you, but those are the courses in which you'll really expand your knowledge.</p>
<p>I taught college philosophy for ten years, and a lot of students got very frustrated with the subject (or maybe I was just a bad teacher?). I kept telling them that in their other courses like math, history, English, and biology, they were building on knowlege they had been accumulating since 1st grade, whereas in philosophy they were brand new...and it was like they were back in 1st grade again, just starting to get a feel for a subject. Whatever you major in, I would STRONGLY recommend you take a course in logic. Most other courses you take focus mostly on WHAT to think. Logic is one of the few that focuses on HOW to think.</p>
<p>OP, you are in good company. Actually I'm more worried about people who in HS already have a career path chosen when they know little about what the field actually involves, have no internships or other involvement to know if its a fit.</p>
<p>The important thing is to start the process from the time you're a frosh. Think of it as almost a part-time job in college. If you want until spring of senior year to think about careers, its way late. </p>
<p>Within a month of arriving on campus, you should be frequenting the career center. Start to read about various careers; vault.com has books on some, your career center will have much more. Take aptitude tests, see what classes you enjoy. Begin building a picture of what YOU want, rather than picking careers. Many career centers can hook you up with alums who will talk about their careers and give advice. And one big key is to get internships so you can explore areas before having to commit to them. </p>
<p>If you do this from the start of college its a low-intensity activity with the freedom to start down some false paths, change your mind, etc. </p>
<p>As for knowing "how strong the LACs are", keep in mind that your major is not job training. You can go into business or med with any major. Even for anthro the real training is your PhD, not undergrad. Go to a school that is a fit for you. Look at schools overall rep, don't worry about any one department.</p>
<p>If you're really not sure then you should go to a school that offers a variety and start out with the most non-specific major, that way you leave your options open. Take a lot of Gen Eds first and try out some classes in each major. Then make your decision. Good Luck!</p>
<p>It's okay that you don't know what to be. If I wasn't in medical school, I'd probably be pursuing a masters and PhD to become something I never knew even existed when I was a senior in HS. Further, even when I did know it existed, it wasn't until late 2nd semester of my junior year of college, that it was something I might actually consider doing.</p>
<p>It's better to go in undeclared and take a variety of classes.</p>