None of my kids have any idea, and the oldest is a junior in HS.
I figured out what I wanted to do right around my 21st birthday, when it was way too late to change my major.
HS graduating DS decided when he was completing his Naviance profile his junior year in HS - Biochemistry.
DD#1 has no real idea and I’m suggesting something science related, such as pharmacy or chemistry/physics. She is a rising junior, so we will see. Maybe finance.
DD#2 said years ago at 11 that she want to study architecture at Cornell. (Thanks to Minecraft server building opportunity.) After watching DS’s college search, she is willing to consider other schools but still wants architecture. She’s doing very well in her math and science classes but resists if I suggest engineering.
Well, OP here… and I was never going to college, but due to the fact that my boss nearly blinded me by ramming a cutter into a metal piece, which then exploded and some landed in my eye, I literally decided to go to college right then… I was 19. I asked myself what I like most in life, and it was tech / gadgets… I applied to go to school to learn radio / TV, and was accepted for the next semester.
I walked out of college with a job in TV and worked 25ish years in TV.
Point being that SOME people can make a choice.
My older D probably decided when she found herself applying to public universities that seemed to strongly recommend choosing a major at the time of the application. So my vegan animal lover ended up applying to animal science and wildlife bio majors. She just had a pretty good freshman year in the chosen major, so I guess it worked out!
Younger S19 has ruled out English, communications, foreign languages, humanities, all business fields, the arts, the social sciences, life sciences and health-related occupations, teaching, etc. Pretty much everything but engineering, math, chemistry or physics.
D was a HS junior when she decided to become a special ed teacher. After getting a masters (5 year program) and working in the classroom for one year, she decided she hated teaching. She recently began her 4th post college job as a customer support person for an educational technology provider and she loves it.
S17 decided in junior year that he wants to be a stage crew person so he is going for a BFA in theater tech and design.
@twoinanddone - I did the opposite of you, sort of. I wanted to be a lawyer but decided to major in journalism. After the first year, I switched to poli sci but didn’t go back to journalism.
@AbsDad - Wow. That sounds like the mother of all wake-up calls!
DS declared his major in 2nd grade. Kids are weird.
Happykid knew what she wanted to do by 10th grade and never waivered. Three years out of college now, and she has never had a job in anything else.
Some kids just know.
I have a bachelors in a liberal art, a masters in a science, and a masters in a third educational field completely unrelated to either of the first fields of study.
Some of us spend our whole lives trying to figure things out.
Years ago DS17 told his 1st grade class he wanted to be a scientist. I think that was the year he watched the Brian Greene miniseries on string theory etc. It was pretty clear all along that physics was his main interest–though math, chemistry, geology, and engineering were also fun.
He’s also been interested in computer science all along the way – mainly because it comes easy to him and he really enjoys CS theory and the math that is more CS related. I expect that he will find some way to combine physics and CS, but his primary aim as he heads off to college this fall is still physics. We’ll see if it stays that way…
DS21 has variously been interested in theater, architecture, art, game programming, construction, bicycle repair, surfing, and more. He’s starting a 4-year HS program in art next fall. I don’t know if that will stick. His interests change rapidly, so who knows.
- When I went to college, I knew I wanted to be anything but a lawyer. Then, when I went to law school, I wanted to be anything but a lawyer like my father. Now, all I wish is that I could be a lawyer more like my father.
- My wife started college completely convinced that she would be a psychologist working with autistic children. Her first real job after college was doing low-income housing development. She spent some time as a lawyer doing disability cases, then she was a public health official. She found her real career more or less by accident when she was 34 -- a job she got based on her area of public health expertise required her to cover another area, too, and that's been the focus of her career ever since.
- Child #1 started college absolutely convinced she would be a writer. She took a Teach For America job because she thought teaching high school was a great day job for being a writer. She got interested in education reform, and that's been her career so far.
- I'm waiting for Child #2, 28, to figure out what his career will be. He started college all "locked in" on becoming a doctor. Some really bad Organic Chemistry grades later, he found happiness doing social science research. He's still doing it, although his ability to grow in the field is really limited if he doesn't get a PhD, and he doesn't want to get a PhD. All through college, he also did tons of tech work in theater, and for five of the first six years post-college he had a substantial moonlighting job in theater management. He quit his theater job a few months ago when he wasn't offered a full-time position when it came open, and someone with no better credentials than he was hired. I suspect if he had been offered the full-time theater job, he would have taken it.
S decided in late HS that since he liked and was good at math, physics and computers, he might as well try majoring in engineering. He refined it to EE after some chatting with H, who thought it would all go well with S’s interests and abilities. He has worked I. That field since sophomore year in college thru now, 10 years later and seems quite happy.
D has flipped and flopped around and I suspect will continue to do so. She got into the School of Cinema and got a BA in cinema, but time will tell where she ultimately ends up. She is very artistic and great with people.
Both of mine zeroed in on what they want/ed for a major around 9th grade. The Elderkid decided on computer science and hasn’t wavered thus far. Despite this, his favorite college classes to date have been in the English department. The Younger (rising hs senior) is set on music education alongside math education. The ‘funny’ part is that Elderkid is strongest in math/sciences; the Younger in languages/humanities (but she hates ‘social studies’ classes).
I was an English major - declared at the last possible moment - and later got an MBA. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
My son knew when he was in high school that he wanted to pursue a career as a computer game designer. He was not only intrigued by how they were programmed, but he was fascinated by the characters, the music, the dialogue, the plot lines, etc. I knew without a doubt that he would end up with a degree in computer science so imagine my shock when he called us sophomore year of college and told us that he had changed his mind!
After attending computer science classes and researching the field as a career, he realized that it definitely was NOT what he wanted to do. He said that if you wanted to pursue comp sci as a career, you needed to have a portfolio of projects outside of what you did in school. He had no interest in working on programs in his spare time, and he didn’t really want to be a part of that community.
In sophomore year, just before declaring his major, he called us to say that he had decided to pursue a degree in Psychology, which I thought was a terrible idea, but I tried to be supportive anyway. There are so many psychology students without jobs in their field, and with a computer science degree, he can easily make $95,000 and up right out of college. But psych became a passion, and he suddenly began doing research on it outside of his classes. Then he figured out he could use his comp sci knowledge to work on psych projects.
Years later, my son has graduated as a double major with honors in comp sci and psych. He works for a prestigious college as a researcher/comp sci software engineer in a neuroscience lab. He makes half of what he would make as a computer software engineer in the business world, but he’s so happy. He followed his passion, and found exactly what he was looking for. The new field of computational neuroscience is exactly what he was looking for. Couldn’t have seen that one coming!! 
My dd also wanted to be a PT, and senior year in HS decided to change to a PA. She is planning to major in exercise science at college next year. We’ll see where it goes. Hew twin sister is planning to be a hospitality/business major.
Eldest S was always sensitive, the linguistist, historian… and now he’s a computer engineer but dislikes every day of it. Told me recently that “If (he) knew then what he knows now, (he) would have been a plumber because not everyone should be chained to a desk all day”. Hhhmmmmm…
D is one of those over-acheivers from the cradle, winning awards in every subject from chemstry to French, history, literature, etc but always knew that she wanted a degree in music performance. Starting out as a talented instrumentalist, she made the shft to voice in 10th grade and now has her B.M. and M.M. She’s got a good paying day job while she waits for her voice to “grow” a bit more but she’s making money singing and and has started her own business which came out of a project in grad school and is helping young singers in her city with classes and training.
Youngest S somehow ended up back in my home after 2 1/2 years of college and has had a breakdown from stress from his abusive father and everything else he couldn’t deal with. I’m at my wits end with him at the moment but I sure hope that he eventually figures out what he wants to be “when he grows up”.
We do not have children yet, but I knew in 6th grade that I wanted to go into biological sciences. My husband, however, is 5 years past his college graduation and still wishes he had majored in something different. Two totally opposite ends of the spectrum!
D1 changed majors a few times the first two years of college, STEM, then not. Entering junior year she was decided, and has graduated without regrets.
D2 was registered for freshman year of college on a STEM track, then abruptly changed her schedule over the summer before setting foot on campus. Humanities. Then, she announced she was applying for a pre-professional health major that is a two year program. She seems set on that, but we’ll see.
D locked in pretty early, by 13 or so—public health with an emphasis on infectious disease. She’s 20 now, a rising junior, and still headed in that direction.
My son, on the other hand, always answered “retired billionaire” when asked what he wanted to be.
I always believe that we don’t choose our majors as much as the majors choose us. Both my kids are strong over all, but they do not have world class STEM aptitude. Because they have good quant skills but very strong writing ability, I told them that the social sciences may be the area where they can shine.
I recommended that they give business studies a try because there are so many areas of specialization. Through direct and indirect competition with fellow classmates, they did find where their competitive advantages are.
One ended up in executive compensation and the other in supply chain. Neither major in those areas in college, and I was totally unable to predict where they eventually ended up.
As I said before, it is not what you think you are good at, it is what the employers think you are good at that matters.
S locked in shortly after a University of Maryland rep came to his high school and spoke with him. S expressed an interest in engineering and the rep went on and on about the quality of UMD’s aerospace engineering program. S did his research, became very interested, and decided that was what he wanted.
Ironically, he was not accepted to UMD aerospace engineering, but rather to their Letters and Sciences degree program. So he’ll be studying aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech.
So many interesting stories!
I went to college “well-rounded”, loved everything. I choose my major based on what would give me the most flexibility to take other courses (outside my major). Political Science won. Got my PhD in a related quantitative social science and worked in that for 10 years. Then went back and got my MD and now practice as a family physician. A little bit of everything works well for me. I still am undecided I guess.
Husband knew from 10th grade he’d be a chemistry major, he’s a chemistry professor now.
Kids are funny. My oldest thought math, now in process of switching to Econ and/or linguistics. Next thinks maybe chemistry. My youngest has been determined for several years to be a marine biologist, study whales, and work at an aquarium. (She’s 10! So I’m assuming this probably will pass.)