<p>bump. Cool thread.</p>
<p>Undergrad degree is BA with Honors in Chemistry (I met reqs for both BA and BS, liked the white tassel better than the yellow one-and it didn’t matter). Went to medical school (decided I didn’t want to do research), residency, worked… Diplomas, certificates, licenses are in the fireproof safe. Agree with the college degree representing an education, both in and out of the classroom. The college experience can never be taken from you, regardless of “where life takes you”. Despite having learned a lot of material in many different subjects and never specifically needing a lot of it again it all contributed to my understanding of how the physical world and people work- and despite forgetting so much through disuse I feel a sense of WHY things are as they are, even when I can’t dredge the information from the recesses of my brain.</p>
<p>My undergrad degree is on a shelf somewhere. It was a big deal to me, given no one else in my family ever had one. And it was the most fun, most developmental growth time of my life. And I was able to use it to move onto a Masters and PhD and work in the field I majored in (sort of). </p>
<p>Interestingly, it never occurred to me to worry about what job I would get or to pick a major on that basis. I just gravitated to what I enjoyed the most, and figured something would work out eventually. In hindsight, that is odd given my family was so poor and I was financial on my own after highschool (and had to pay my way through school on my own). But I’m glad I did this since I now really like what I do and earn a good living. .</p>
<p>I think it’s interesting that some of us saw college as a path to a career (like me) and others saw it like Starbright. What motivates that? - is it a math/science vs humanities thing? a family thing? a self-confidence thing? (I had no confidence that I would be employable without a specific skill).</p>
<p>Mine makes me a Gator, and no I’m not greeting people at Walmart (Re/ post #4). It does hang in my office. There was never any question that it was something I had to achieve. Both sets of grandparents worked very hard and for a long time to be able to send 7 out of 10 children to professional schools. That education is the only thing my parents were able to bring into the US.</p>
<p>DontPanic1- I’ve often wonder the same thing. Another interesting thread would be why did you pick your major back in the day? </p>
<p>I did see it as my door to a career- and in fact my ticket out of my neighborhood- I just didn’t know which career. Maybe mine was a case of being naive. Everyone in my family worked multiple jobs and “made do” without an education so maybe I believed that with a degree I’d have gzillions of options. And with my reference point, I didn’t need or desire to earn very much to feel I’d been successful. </p>
<p>Now with my D, I tell her the same thing. Follow your interests. It will all work out in the end, just not necessarily a known or straight path. She might do something that obviously leads to a job at the end of it- like say computer science- but then even there, she’ll be just as likely to do something entirely different from her undergrad as so many do.</p>
<p>“My friend graduated from UF and now he’s a greeter at Wal-Mart.”</p>
<p>he could’ve done that without going to college lol
i guess, those football games and drinking made him a better person, huh? : /</p>
<p>My degree from undergrad BA with honors in sociology is framed & in my hall closet with my law degree. Never formally practiced or got a job with the sociology degree but learned a lot about people, organizations & leadership in the process of getting the undergrad degree–probably more in many ways than the law degree about leading, building consensus, working with all kinds of people, creating new orgs/things. Practiced law for years & then used the skills developed in college to volunteer with PTA & leading Girl Scouts & Boy Scouts for my kids. Have now just created & am running a non-profit so am doing more public health instead of practicing law. It has been an interesting journey & I think it helps my kids see that we do keep reinventing ourselves.</p>
<p>Hubby’s college diploma–not sure where it physically is at all. His is in accounting, which he has never formally practiced. He’s worked for the federal government for decades in communications & computers science but the accounting is useful in helping balance our personal books and also in understanding budgets & purchasing at his office.</p>
<p>Up until the middle of my senior year in HS, my mother was in a panic because I wanted to be a voice/theater major! Then, I discovered Geology and knew that is what I wanted. Went into college with that in mind and came out a few years later with a degree in Earth Science, which led directly to a job with a major oil company. Left several years later to go back and get an MBA…which led me to jobs in academic administration. Now, 20 years after leaving the oil business, I am back in it - doing some project management for a friend. So, a nice combination of both degrees.</p>
<p>I’m not an economist, by my undergrad economics degree was a good preparation for my career in research. What was most important was that I got a liberal arts degree, really, and I think any discipline or major would have been a good launching pad for what I ended up doing. But economics taught me to frame problems in a certain way, and that’s been useful. </p>
<p>While I was an undergrad I didn’t realize that was happening–I graduated without feeling like I was an economist, or even that I thought like an economist. I felt kind of like a fraud, actually–that the major hadn’t turned me into anything distinct from any other social science grad. But while in grad school my research advisor made me see that I tended to approach problems like an economist would. That was gratifying.</p>
<p>good question … a couple comments</p>
<p>My undergraduate education taught me how to think … how to research, approach, and solve problems … to seek others opinions and ideas … to discuss and write about my ideas. I’d think these are some of the fundamental goals of any undergraduate education (whatever the major … whatever the school)</p>
<p>In my particular case my major taught me to test assumptions and how to address problems in a very analytical fashion. About half of my working career has been spent in jobs that are pretty closely tied my undergraduate major … but that is probably not unusual for someone who was an undergraduate engineer.</p>
<p>My undergrad of psychology was done in behavioral research labs. I thought I wanted to delve into the problems of the brain and behavior. My honors thesis became a small footnote in a professors longer term project. But I realized after all that, that I was too results driven to wait 10 years to come up with a maybe through research.<br>
Nice to find out when you are finishing 
</p>
<p>So I took a career by accident and discovered what I really loved about the research, delving into problems and behavior, analyzing the problem and trying out solutions, transferred well into the business world first as a negotiator then in process improvements. You never know where your major will lead you, but if you look at the specifics of what draws you to a major you can take it out and try other things with those same skills.</p>