What do you think would be a good major for me?

College Majors
1

As of now, I am a senior who is applying to colleges. I have applied to UIUC, Purdue, UIC, Indiana University-Bloomington, CWRU, UW-Madison and UIowa.

I applied to engineering in almost every school except IU, where I applied to business. My top schools would be UIUC, Purdue, UW-Madison and IU in no particular order.

Right now, I am thinking about being either an HR Manager or an Operations Research Analyst. I am not really sure how to go about thinking about the major I want to do. I’ve just always had a creative mind, and I have a notebook full of inventions that I’d love to create and sell to improve the quality of living for others. I just don’t know how to make any of them, so I am thinking about doing engineering to get sort of an idea, and to also combine my love for science and technicality.

Business is also just something that I really find interesting and if the whole creating my inventions thing doesn’t work out, then I’d love to go into this field.

Really, I’d like to make my inventions, and go into business and open a small company and sell my items. I’m also interested in like science and engineering in terms of biology. Prosthesis is something that really interests me, but I’ve heard that there’s no jobs in biomedical engineering, so I’m a little hesitant.

I’d also really love to be a high school teacher; I think that’d be awesome.

As you can see, I’m basically all over the place, but here are a few of my interests:

  1. Biology
  2. Anatomy
  3. Genetics
  4. Marketing
  5. Stats
  6. Finance
  7. Computer Science
  8. Engineering
  9. Human Resources
  10. Education
  11. Calculus

And here are a few of the majors I am thinking about:
Potential Majors:

  1. Biology
  2. Industrial Engineering
  3. Finance
  4. Accountancy
  5. Computer Science
  6. Statistics
  7. General Engineering
  8. Marketing
  9. Information Technology
  10. Healthcare Administration
  11. Supply Chain Management
  12. Computer Engineering
  13. Biomedical Engineering
  14. Secondary Education

I’m so confused and I just have no clue where to even start. I already applied, and I don’t even know what I want to do, so I’m just really stressed out. Any suggestions for how to decide/what I should do?

Thank you so much,
db1208

2

May I suggest “RIT ranked among the top U.S. computer science and engineering schools” See https://www.rit.edu/news/story.php?id=52919

3

You’ll choose between engineering and business, and by the looks of your interests, you’re potentially on the right track, either way. Your actual aptitude for math/science/engineering should be a critical determinant. If you’re mediocre at engineering, your inventions might have a better chance of becoming realized if you pursue them from the business end. You might not know that until you give engineering a whirl. On the other hand, if you’re seriously questioning your aptitude for engineering right now, then give more thought to business. Anyway, if you don’t get into IU, it sounds like engineering is in the cards for at least a year. Things could be worse.

4

Industrial Engineering seems to cover a decent amount of the things you’re interested in. Might want to look into that one.

You’ll have some time in college to figure out what you want to focus on though.

5

As a current student about to graduate, def look into RIT. Computer Science, engineering, and design is what RIT is most well known for.

Look into biomedical engineering and take some business courses. The medical field is huge right now and that’s where all the money is going to be at. Google and Apple are all over it with wearable tech right now.

6

Your primary area of interest, judging from the number of majors in it that interest you, is business. Next largest is engineering.

I looked at the website of one of the universities you are proposing, Purdue, and see that they have several engineering minors (http://www.admissions.purdue.edu/majors/minors.php). So there you could major in Management or one of their other business majors and undertake a minor in an engineering field. (I don’t normally recommend minors, but it might not be possible to access the engineering courses otherwise.)

Also perhaps of interest, Purdue (Purdue Polytechnic Institute) has an Industrial Engineering Technology major, which has some business courses blended in with engineering (https://polytechnic.purdue.edu/degrees/industrial-engineering-technology).