<p>you are slicing the salami way too thin if you are assessing his career plans based on his introversion. There are introverts everywhere in the law- including the Supreme Court. There are introverts in every marketing department- marketing is a highly quantitative and analytical field right now-- even advertising agencies need data mining experts, media planning analysts, behavioral researchers, etc. You need to be creative, write well, and have strong math skills for these types of roles.</p>
<p>I think you are falling into a bit of a trap- exploring a bunch of new colleges every time your son expresses interest in yet another discipline. Find a university that you can afford, which will support his medical needs/close to home or easy to access in an emergency or for routine visits to his current doctor, and that has a wide range of majors and departments. He will spend Freshman and part of sophomore year exploring- just like almost every other kid out there.</p>
<p>You don’t need to major in English per se to take writing seminars in college. And you don’t need to major in screenwriting to become a screenwriter. And there are English majors populating virtually every corporate job in America, plus the usual teaching, etc.</p>
<p>The english majors we hired in Marketing don’t need to be extroverts - they’re the people who produce the copy and materials used by the folks who go out and do the marketing. Someone has to stay back at the ranch and create everything used by the field sales and marketing folks…</p>
<p>My D with a degree in English is providing tech support for some supply system software. Her girlfriends, also English majors are working in a bookstore and as an HR for a small firm. Also, go to youtube and look for “what do you do with a BA in English” from Avenue Q. </p>
<p>“What does one do with an English/Creative Writing/Literature degree?”
-Getting Pulitzer price is one option…in the same category as getting to be a Brad Pitt with your actor’s degree (not sure if he actually has it)
-Marry a doc or a lawyer is another option.
-Write a bestseller (see comments for the first option)
-Go into political commentary that can use lots and lots and lots of very creative writing that should completely override what is going on. But this is soooo common that forget being unique here.
There are lots of very exciting options, but the second one is probably the most exciting.<br>
I am sure that this will not qualify to become pediatrician. I suppose one should attend a Med. School. However, Medical Schools absolutely do not care about your UG degree/major/combo of majors/minors. So, yes, attending a Med. School after having this UG degree is completely valid option. And if option 2 is way too much for somebody, I would say, go for Med. School or for Law School. </p>
<p>Brad Pitt actually was attending the Missouri school of Journalism, and dropped out to try his fortune out west.
( marry a Dr or lawyer? ? What about getting an English degree says you want to live with someone who is never available?)</p>
<p>I guess we can go through the list of remaining schools and he can decide which ones, if they allow, are best for him to apply undeclared. I see of the UCs that only UCLA does not admit to alternate major, so he’ll really need to consider which major to apply to there. UCSD and UCI are ok with undeclared. </p>
<p>Undeclared just seems so vague, and I have to wonder if a school doesn’t really get the whole picture of the student if he/she doesn’t pick possible majors. One of his essays addresses his myriad of interests. Maybe that’s enough?</p>
<p>Yes, internships. We’ll talk about that. </p>
<p>Thanks for the interesting conversation. Will share with my son.</p>
<p>And I’m glad to know being introverted won’t limit him in most fields. It’s hard for me to have a proper perspective sometimes.</p>
<p>Sbjdorlo- I feel for you. When my middle child with a host of issues applied he started out wanting engineering. I came up with a good list and thought we were set. Early fall he decided he wanted to major in graphic design. Had to make a new list. We also needed to avoid a foreign language requirement.
At Davis you can apply undeclared but at least when my D applied you had to designate what school.</p>
<p>@mom60, I’m glad you can relate! It’s been quite interesting, to say the least. He added an EA school just this week and still needs to write an artist statement. I encouraged him to just try this one to test the waters. It’s hard to get into (but not one of the tippy top schools) and has an interesting major, so we’ll see what happens.</p>
<p>The challenge, too, is getting to know schools from a distance. So, he looks at mailers and websites and gets my insight, as well.</p>
<p>Berkeley would traditionally be the strongest English dept in the UC system (and at or near the top in the country), followed by UCLA. Other reasonably well-regarded programs are UC Davis, SB, SD, SC, and Irvine. Creative writing is another matter. UC Irvine has the top MFA writing program in CA, and UC San Diego is also fairly well regarded. Stanford has a top English dept, up there with Berkeley. USC is reasonably strong. This is all based on graduate programs, but it is likely to filter down to undergrads. I’m sure Pomona has a strong undergraduate dept, and probably Occidental.</p>
<p>Generally, any elite LAC will have a strong English major, as will top universities such as Stanford and the Ivies, and the usual list of outstanding flagships (U of Michigan, UVa, UWa, et al). I agree that English Depts at schools that concentrate on vocational or technical majors will be highly unlikely to have strong offerings in literature.</p>
<p>I don’t know how undeclared majors apply in the UC system, but most of the elite universities and LACs in the country don’t expect kids to apply “as” any major in particular; although they can certainly indicate an interest, and it might well affect the advisor they are assigned, it isn’t binding in any way.</p>
<p>I personally don’t subscribe to the idea that a 17 or 18 yr old kid should be expected to commit to a major and a life path before ever setting foot on campus. I believe in applying to schools that have broad strengths–in the general areas of interests in particular–and letting the chips fall where they may. There is no reason why a kid shouldn’t start out taking the basic math and science courses needed for engineering majors along with a creative writing class and a lit class.</p>
<p>My D is a freshman at Yale and plans to be a Literature major. She loves the classes that she is taking this first semester. She ultimately wants to go to Law School or to be a college professor.</p>
<p>emerald,
" marry a Dr or lawyer? ? What about getting an English degree says you want to live with someone who is never available?)
-Then marry the one who is available. Not all of them are never available. Then nobody knows maybe some wants to live with the one who is not there. But perception of availability is a bit extreme. No, they cannot work from home as most of us do on a regular basis. But I personally know many who do not even work every weekday like the rest of us, yes, they can afford that. Must be in a group of more available, not less available. Check the schedule of your docs/dentists, you might actually know one also.
I just guessed correctly about Brad Pitt. Something just points out that he does not have a degree. I like him and happy that he choose to drop out of college. </p>
<p>Thank you all so much! I will share with my son that he doesn’t need to have it all figured out right now, and that even in other majors, he can be taking some great writing and lit classes. </p>
<p>His favorite book is The Count of Monte Cristo and he’s loving analyzing Hamlet right now. His history is that he had a vision disability that kept him from reading anything of substance until he had eye surgery last December (fully recovered by about March). So, we really didn’t do anything high level (no AP Lit stuff, etc) reading-wise until this year. So, he’s “behind”, so to speak, but the world has opened up to him. You have no idea how amazing it is to see him able to pick up anything, any textbook, any novel, and read. The down side is that he will need the surgery again in adulthood, but if he keeps up his therapy (ugh, which he’s not doing at the moment), his eyes should be good to go for a while. I think that’s why he’s all of a sudden remembering how much he loves literature and has rediscovered his early love of writing.</p>
<p>Hm, I never thought about it. I mentioned it in my counselor letter (since I’m his homeschool counselor) as a way to explain why he has no AP tests, but he didn’t write about that. I wrestled with how much schools should hear from him; I didn’t want him to appear to be so different/needy. He did mention his diabetes in an essay as it related to why it was a good thing he was already homeschooling, since his endocrinologist really supported us in homeschooling him as he learned to manage it.</p>
<p>But yeah, it’s amazing to me to see how far he’s come and to know his future appears bright because of moving past each hurdle. (He also had a hearing loss, had a tube placed in his ear, got a hearing aid, and that made a difference, as well)</p>
<p>I don’t mean for him to focus on his disability. I meant something along the lines of his new found unsatiable love of reading now that he can see clearly. The opening up of the literary world now that he has his eyes… My D wrote about her severe stuttering and how she overcame it by competing in oratorical contests. How it was awkward to talk to a small group of friends, but she could go up to a podium and speak to a room of hundreds. It was an essay that you knew came from a special place.</p>
<p>Sbjdorlo-
My dad was an English Lit major. He became a career military officer, a Top Gun instructor pilot, fighter pilot. And later went on to become a college professor.</p>
<p>Middle son in med school was an economics major with a certificate in Hellenic studies (ancient greek). His girlfriend received an anthropology degree and works for a Broadway production firm. His best friend was a history major and is now an Army Ranger.</p>
<p>He doesn’t need to know now what he wants. He just needs to really want to learn and HE DOES. And in order to do that he needs to find the right fit for him to study and grow. He will figure the rest out as he goes. Middle son in med school is getting his MD/MBA and he still has not picked his residency or path yet. And he will have 5 degrees when he is done and is 25 (if he ends up in the Army…). There is no hurry. </p>
<p>Older son has his mech e degree and is looking at USC’s propulsion program (grad school). He LOVES engineering, just thrives within the subject. Other son (med school kid) was accepted to MIT/CalTech EA for engineering but turned it down after he realized it did not “love it” they way is older brother did. So keep that in mind for your son since his older bro is at MIT. The both had very high math scores, AP, advanced math while still in high school…one loved the concepts of how things worked (very detailed oriented) while the other loved how he could use the knowledge the math/engineering gave him to solve much bigger problems.</p>
<p>But the key was they had to figure that out for themselves. They did that by thinking about what they liked and what they didn’t. By talking to others and listening. What is it they like and why. What annoys them and why.</p>
<p>I didn’t send my kiddos off to college to learn a trade, but to become educated and to learn how to learn at a more elevated level. How to do research, how to think outside the box and then back it up with real evidence. They could study at home but we didn’t have access to labs, outstanding facilities, fanatstic professors and other kids like them and others NOT like them.</p>
<p>Your son doesn’t have to find the right major just yet. He needs to find a school that will fit his needs that will encourage him while he figures it out. While meeting your financial need. Maybe a few LACs, porbably won’t have too much eng but you can cross that bridge in April. Middle son applied to 34 schools. And not a UC among them! Many of the schools weren’t on Common App back then, Chicago. Cal tech, Penn… Applied to 23 med schools. he definitely thinks it was worth it. He too had to hit the getting in and financial aid lottery.</p>
<p>Thank you so much, Kat. If I could like your post and find it helpful, I would. You have always been an encouragement to me and I so appreciate it. I agree about your raising incredible children. I really needed the encouragement that we can get through this application season in a positive frame of mind, looking forward to the future.</p>
<p>^I clicked helpful for you. Good luck with the search. I know this part of the college process just seems overwhelming. One of the things I most enjoyed about my younger son’s senior year was seeing my somewhat scatterbrained, slightly slackerish quirky kid pull it together and really figure out who he was and what was important to him by the end of senior year. I think the whole process, and especially writing all those personal essays was really good for him.</p>
He added an EA school just this week and still needs to write an artist statement. I encouraged him to just try this one to test the waters. It’s hard to get into (but not one of the tippy top schools) and has an interesting major, so we’ll see what happens.</p>
Good luck with the search. I know this part of the college process just seems overwhelming. One of the things I most enjoyed about my younger son’s senior year was seeing my somewhat scatterbrained, slightly slackerish quirky kid pull it together and really figure out who he was and what was important to him by the end of senior year. I think the whole process, and especially writing all those personal essays was really good for him.</p>