When did your kids "lock in" on what they want as a degree?

Parent Cafe
1

I have twins, so double the drama.

Twin 1 is a fantastic writer, and always has been. Her teacher has written a big selling book and he told her that she has what it takes to be an author… She always wanted to be a writer… ALWAYS. Now as we approach the time to pick a college to attend, she is not at all sure what she wants to do in life, and she is pretty sure it is not writing. HUH??? I think it is a confidence thing. But she has no idea what she wants to do in life. Asking her about it either makes her cry or makes her angry.

Twin 2 wanted to be in pharmacy - like my wife is - for 3 years… Then 6 months ago, she decided that she wanted to be a physical therapist… She seemed locked in, and even could give you a dozen reasons why… she knew starting salaries, she knew all the colleges with a reputation for PT… you name it, she know it - even the expected job growth by the year she would become a physical therapist. LOCKED IN, or so I thought.

Then last night Twin 2 says “Dad when did you know what you wanted to do in life?” I never really “knew”. I will just say it involved a college visit, a girl’s dorm, an early Saturday morning AND the only phone on the floor being in the hallway. ( 1982 ). I was a machinist at that time and hated it, and was pondering college.

Then, last night, “2” drops a bomb on me… “Dad, I think I want to be a psychologist instead of a physical therapist.”

Thud… bomb dropped.

We had their gifted program annual meeting yesterday. There were at least 4 teachers there, their guidance counselor, and the woman who is in charge of the gifted program. Casually they asked the kids what they want to do in life, and neither could give an answer.

I had no clue really, until I was 20, what I would do in life. No clue.

These days it seems like it is expected that kids know their whole life plan by age 16 ( four months from now in my daughter’s cases ). So much pressure.

2

My S1 is the exception that proves the rule. He knew he wanted sports broadcasting from his junior year in HS and found a program at an in-state regional university that is well-known for its excellence. He earned departmental scholarships and graduated with honors, on time, with a double major. He was hired as an associate producer by our local CBS affiliate and is still there, 2.5 years later. Don’t ask me about S2, though.

3

For some goals, one has to know in 12th grade or college frosh year, due to sequenced prerequisites or restricted admission to a major. For other goals, a college student can go in undecided, sample courses, and decide in sophomore year.

4

D1 knew what she didn’t want by her mid-teens: she didn’t want a career in math or science. She knew she liked art (painting, especially) and writing by college but struggled (and continues to) to make them pay. She is 26, lives in NYC, and supports herself, mostly, with a job as a server while doing as much freelance writing as she can. D2 selected a double major (math and economics) by junior year of college. She is now almost 24 and seems to want a career in academia (teaching economics). We shall see.

5

It’s fine to go into college undecided. Students decide on majors by the end of the sophomore year, but even that can be stretched in some schools. Also college major and career do not have to match, exactly or even at all. Liberal arts can train students as generalists and often that results in higher level positions ultimately. So both twins can go in and try out different fields by taking classes and getting to know departments. They can also intern, volunteer or work during the school year and/or summers and get a better idea.

Of course, for nurses, physical therapists, engineers, musicians and so on, the decision is made earlier due to the sequence of classes, as others have said, but one can always change early on.

Since your kids are not sure, I would encourage them to understand that they do NOT have to have their lives planned out as yet and can enter college with an open mind about what they want to study. They can study anything that interest them even if a career connection is not immediately obvious.

I think it’s helpful to look at craigslist, hireculture.org, and investigate career services at school eventually, to get a realistic idea of the job market. Kids are taught by schools and career surveys etc. to think in the big categories but as you know the work world isn’t really like that except for law, medicine, nursing, engineer etc.

No matter what the undergrad major is, entrance to grad schools and professional schools (the aforementioned medicine, law, nursing etc!) is available to those who hold a bachelors degree, as are many jobs on the market.

6

My older child knew what he wanted as a career when he was about 8 years old…and I am not kidding. He never changed course…at all. He is a freelance professional musician.

My younger child got an undergrad degree in engineering. She picked up a double major in biology as a junior, and got degrees in both. Career? Well…she really had no idea. She knew she didn’t want tombe an engineer, and jobs in biology were not appealing either.

So…she applied to and was accepted in the Peace Corps. She spent two years teaching science in a very remote village in her assigned country. She loved the PC. During that time she did a lot of soul searching, and also met a great mentor. She came back, worked for three years, and is pursuing a grad degree in another field.

Some kids know sooner than others.

I would add…we knew this about our two kids. The older one seldom changed his mind about things. The younger one frequently did. Plus younger one really needed a college when lots of options could be tried. She chose a college with a very strong core curriculum. That gave her the chance to take courses across lots of disciplines.

7

So your D’s aren’t even 16 yet? No wonder they aren’t “locked in” yet! Most aren’t at that age, and what’s more, many, many college students change their majors that they supposedly had “locked in”. When your D’s talk about what they’re passionate about at the moment, they’re trying careers on, looking to see what their parents, friends and whoever else they talk to think. They may be very certain at the time but it’s more likely that they’ll change their minds than not.

Like one of your D’s, I wanted to be a pharmacist like dad. Until I got to college and it’s wonderfully had a 1st semester course covering what we’d be doing for the next 5 years. I knew I’d be miserable and switched to my real love, writing. I’ve never regretted it. My H thought he’d be an engineer and also realized in his first semester how wrong he was. He also switched to communications and has never looked back.

My older got her career inspiration from a summer job-changing completely after her first year of college. My son went the vocational route and is in high demand in a niche field-out-earning many college grads. MY youngest has ever always wanted to teach, and that’s what she is studying in school. She has friends who have changed their career plans/majors several times since enrolling in college-it all works out. I think that the worst thing anyone can do is to choose and lock into a major to make others happy. The key is to go to a college where they’ll have the freedom to explore and declare a major later-or take a gap year-that’s IF your D’s (and others like them) have still not decided by senior year. Your girls have plenty of time.

8

I have only begun this journey but wanted to say that I agree there is too much pressure on the kids nowadays.

My son considered Engineering (because all the top kids do that) or Business (like me his Dad). He looked at private business schools and private tech schools but none of the schools that had both. As we got closer to application time I told him he needed to decide and if he could not then that is fine but he will have to go to the local city state school to “find himself”. I explained that at $40-$50K per year, I just did not have the money for him to figure out what he wanted to do at a private specialty school.

The cost of college is so crazy expensive now that one really has to know from the start in order to finish up in 4 years. To me it is sad. College should be a time of exploration and discovery, not going thru a dictated, predetermined path to get a degree in four years.

Who the heck really knows what they want to do at the age of 18? I recall seeing a stat that said students will change majors 80% of the time. Even if the data is wrong, I would guess it is north of 50% which is one out of every two. Huge odds your student does not really know what they want.

9

Picked a major the summer before senior year when researching colleges. Changed it slightly (biomedical engineering to chemical engineering) after a year in college.

Perhaps D1 is leery of majoring in writing because of how hard it is to break in / make a living at it? That’s why I’m in something other than creative writing.

10

My kids both knew while in high school.

I think they are deeply strange.

In both cases, I initiated conversations just before they started college about the merits of considering different majors and maybe even taking introductory courses in two or three fields so that they would have a choice. I got blank looks (they were probably suppressing the eyerolls). They knew this would be a waste of time because they both knew exactly what they were going to major in. And in fact, they did major in those subjects and have pursued careers that logically follow from those majors.

Freaks. Both of them.

11

About four years after she graduated… when she decided to return to school to study speech pathology.

12

From a young age, I was set on going into medical research. At some point in high school, I realized I liked the humanities and social sciences way more. I picked my major freshman year and didn’t look back.

I realized what I wanted to do with my life halfway through my master’s program… and it wasn’t even in the ballpark of my master’s program (went from public health to history).

Let your Ds just explore. You need to calm down. Everything will be ok. Deciding you might not want to major in writing is NOT a “bomb.”

Most people change their major more than once while in college. Make sure they have a well-rounded high school education and everything else will more or less work itself out as they get closer to college (and while there).

ETA: Funny enough, I always did love history and was set on being a history major when I was in high school. But then decided I didn’t like the way it was taught so I only took one history class as an undergrad- the history of medicine. Now that’s what I’m getting my PhD in but it was a very long, winding path to get here :slight_smile:

13

This is why when I am helping teens choose colleges I always, if possible, steer them toward schools that do not rope you into a major before you even get there. Now I understand that some majors are very restricted, like engineering, and that you need to start on the path freshman year to be done in four years. But for liberal arts, pre-med types and law school folk, they should be able to explore before setting their major in stone. Most kids don’t have a clue of the breadth of stuff out there. A school which allows you until the end of sophomore year to choose for most majors is a good thing IMHO.

14

My older son figured it out at seven. His fifth grade yearbook says he wants to be a computer programmer.

Younger son had no idea at the end of junior year of high school, as we started looking at colleges he got interested in this major called International Relations. He liked history and was generally interested in the world, loved to travel and was sure he didn’t want to be an academic. He graduated a couple of years ago. After working at a couple of NGOs he decided to join the Navy. He’s at Officer Candidates School now.

My husband always knew he’d be a scientist. He majored in biology and physics and took enough chemistry he could probably have had a triple major. His PhD is in bio-physics.

I went into college thinking I’d major in History and Literature (a combo major). I figured out pretty quickly that being an academic would drive me crazy and I majored in Visual and Environmental Studies which combined various arts, architectural history and art theory. Ironically I did a fairly academic thesis on low-cost housing in Europe. I went on to study architecture in grad school.

15

When my first was a middle schooler, she had a voracious appetite for books about the holocaust. So not surprisingly, during a conversation about college she announced “when I go to college I want to do genocide”. She’s now a college sophomore and still has a clean criminal record! (Doubling bus admin/econ, decided within the last two years).

16

@Capecodder2014, this reminds me of my younger daughter, who said at some point that she wanted to concentrate on conjoined twins.

17

@AbsDad How old are your kids? I can assure you that they do not need to know what they’re major will be or profession in life is going to be at the age of 16. 80% of college students end up changing their major!

18

My D16 narrowed things down to one or two majors (animal science and wildlife biology) when she was applying to schools, but didn’t give it much thought before that. 1.5 semesters in, she’s happy with her choice of school and will probably stick with the major if she survives a difficult sophomore course load.

My S19 likes math and thinks he’ll really like physics. He knows he doesn’t want to major in anything related to the humanities, social sciences, English, business, medical professions, life sciences, etc. By process of elimination, it seems like he’ll end up in math or engineering. He has no idea what engineers do, based on his question to me the other day: “What do engineers even do, anyway?” That might have been the first sign that he is actually thinking about these things, lol, but I don’t think he got as far as looking anything up.

19

D1 knew her major(s) in 10th, was certain, and did major happily in both (related fields and a combined major.) She knew at that point what career she wanted, but since it was also DH’s, and he knew the opportunities were low, he freaked. She ended up in a business career.

D2 had to - and this is important- go to college, to experience the field I knew she would love. Even with AP in hs, kids just don’t get exposed to what I call “the buffet of choices,” til they get there. She’s working in her field.

What they can do, is get a rough idea- eg, that their curiosities lie in stem vs writing, social sciences vs classics, etc.

I “discovered” my major in junior year; after one course, declared it, (grad’d on time.) Perfect match. Except for one position, didn’t work in it. No regrets.

20

My twins are a year older than yours. One is sure he knows what he wants to do and is doing what he can now to prepare for it. I keep telling him he may change; he disagrees. The other has only a vague sense of the areas she might want to study. This seems normal to me, and I am sure she will eventually find something to do and do it well. I think there is too much pressure to narrow down and choose a career, but it’s probably less than in other countries (based on my limited knowledge of other educational systems).