<p>As a parent, how do you guide a kid who really doesn't know what he wants to major in? How do you know if a LAC or university would be best. If the kid is not interested in being a doctor, lawyer, teacher or anything to do with English...what would you suggest?</p>
<p>I've seen too many people go to LACs with a generalized degree and have a tough time finding a good job. My gut tells me to guide my son to a specialized field, but where is the question?</p>
<p>He still has a few years to go before college, so hopefully it pans out. But, besides the Ivy type of kids, from my experience, many, many kids really don't have a clue what they want leaving high school going into college.</p>
<p>My gut says just the opposite, let the kid find the major, and the jobs will sort themselves out. My sister-in-law majored in English. She spent a few years as a children’s librarian, then wrote for a small town newspaper, then taught nursery school, and most recently has become a real estate developer. She’s enjoyed all her jobs. I’ve seen too many people get specialized into jobs they hated. A broadbased education isn’t all bad.</p>
<p>The local university offered free vocational assessments, so I had my kid do that. He learned through that that he would be happiest in some kind of job that would allow him to use his artistic skills while working closely with people.</p>
<p>I also had S take courses and ECs related to his interests and talents. That included his participating in a 7-week summer engineering program on a college campus. S also became a certified facilitator in a youth leadership program.</p>
<p>When S applied to colleges, his interests ranged from engineering to education, psychology, sociology, and art. He chose a LAC because he wouldn’t have to pick a major until junior year, and the curriculum required him to be exposed to a variety of fields.</p>
<p>I encouraged him to pursue his interests there including trying courses and ECs that he was interested in, but hadn’t had prior experience with. College is the last time in most people’s life in which they can easily try new things.</p>
<p>S is now a soph majoring in psychology, minoring in theater, and considering becoming a film editor, a career that was not at all on his radar until he went to college. It’s a career, however, that does match many of his talents and interests.</p>
<p>Since most people change careers at least 5 times in their life, and since some of the careers our kids will enter haven’t even been created yet, I am fine with where S is in terms of his future career.</p>
<p>There are very few career paths that are dictated by choice of undergraduate major. I’d let the student find a passion, and advise him or her to be ready to switch as the passion shifts. My freshman daughter is undecided on a major, but was really intellectually excited by a Gender & Sexuality course she took last fall that tracked the evolution of GLBT issues in the popular media. She says she’d like to take more courses in similar areas. Is her future career along that path? Probably not, but her future life and career will both be more successful and enjoyable as a result of the skills it helped her develop in critical thought and synthesizing information from multiple sources, and the insight she gained regarding the evolution over time of societies’ responses to human differences.</p>
<p>Your S has a few years to go before college so he might start determining what he’s interested in as he takes the HS subjects - Math, Chem, Bio, History, Music, Psychology, etc. If he’s still unsure at the time of entering college he can still take additional classes in the first year or two of college to try to determine what major he’d like. Keep in mind that a lot of students in college switch majors a time or two anyway.</p>
<p>One other approach as it nears time for college is to review all available majors at a few large universities with him (even if he ends up choosing a LAC that has fewer available majors). It might be easier for him to determine what he’s NOT interested in as opposes to what he is interested in. </p>
<p>But, given that he has a few years left before college, it’s not anything to worry about yet. Maybe is interests will become focused in HS.</p>
<p>Keep in mind too that there are all sorts of college majors that don’t even exist in most high schools. Linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, sociology just to touch on a few.</p>
<p>One of the reasons we actually supported our DD’s choice of a (expensive) LAC was the core course requirement her school has. Each student must take courses in ALL disciplines as part of their course of study. Their point was that for the undecided student (our daughter was undecided), this gave the opportunity for students to really take a variety of courses that still fulfilled graduation requirements at their schools. The reality is that many many (if not most) students switch majors multiple times in college, and others do not end up having careers in the “majors” they chose in college. Of course this can be done at a university as well…but since this is what ALL students are required to do at DD’s school, we felt this was a good option.</p>
<p>In addition, many folks change careers multiple times after finishing college.</p>
<p>I personally would not insist upon a “major” with career aspirations for my kids. The reality is that some jobs that will be around in ten to twenty years do not even EXIST now. Our kids need to be flexible.</p>
<p>Many, if not most, college students will change their major after they start college. Do the college search on the basis of all sorts of “best fit” factors. Many college freshmen will take courses to fulfill breadth requirements and find a major they like. Don’t worry about your child not having a major until s/he is going to need extra semesters to complete one in order to graduate.</p>