<p>
Rational in many ways (particularly the debt part, and particularly if grad school is in the equation). However, I do have to say that I have a masters and a doctorate, and in every interview I’ve ever had, interviewers were still impressed with the school I went to as an undergrad. And today, more than 30 years later, headhunters still mention it when they call.</p>
<p>Coffelover64: If your son is not sure, maybe he should do a comm. college for one or two years. It might help him come to a decision about what he wants to study and it won’t break the bank as much, especially if he winds up in college for more than 4 years because of a change in his major. It might also be more feasible for him to get a part time job while attending a comm. college which could help offset the comm. college cost. Many community colleges offer courses that can be transferred to another college and are at a fraction of the cost when compared to the cost of courses at a 4 year college.</p>
<p>"interviewers were still impressed with the school "</p>
<p>-Not in my case (9 jobs, about 40+ or so interviews). They were impressed by my GPA, nobody cared about my UG or Grad. school name. I did not remember GPA, but I remember Magna Cum Laude. My job actually do not need any degree, but some companies do not hire into my position without 4 year degree.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Agree with the first part.</p>
<p>With regard to the second part, it’s important to consider the possibility that the student might not go on to further education after receiving an undergraduate degree or might work for several years before going to graduate or professional school (this path is almost mandatory for people who seek MBAs, for example). In such instances, the undergraduate degree is the ONLY degree, and it very definitely matters where it came from.</p>
<p>BTW, I have an MBA. I do not need it, but in my case it was “why not if employers paid” Later, I discovered, that even in my field it is easier to find a job with MBA. However, again, nobody cared about my school name. it is kind of silly to care after 30+ years of experience any way. I guarantee that nobody would, unless they themselves personally into "fancy’ school names. My D. calls them “fancy”, not my label. She never cared and is happy with Med. School of her choice where most are from very “fancy” UG schools with most likely very “fancy” loans.</p>
<p>While “fancy” school names matter little in medical and law school admissions, and not very much in engineering or CS employment[1], they could matter much more in prestige-conscious industries like finance and management consulting, or lawyer jobs (considering the law school name, not the undergraduate school name).</p>
<p>Academic graduate school also likely considers the reputation of one’s undergraduate school in the major.</p>
<p>[1] Of course, an engineering degree should generally be ABET-accredited, and a CS degree should include sufficient course content. In the CS case, many smaller schools have very limited course offerings, despite claiming to offer a CS major.</p>
<p>Ah, we adults can’t help but be goal oriented: what job . . . what major . . . what career. </p>
<p>The issue about selecting a major is a symptom of something else going on. Some kids know what they are interested in and that gets reflected in their selecting a major or even looking at a specific kind of job. Other kids honestly don’t know what interests them or they have too many relatively shallow interests to manifest commitment to a major.</p>
<p>The OSU has it right to call it “Exploring”, not “Undecided” . … some kids … most kids, actually . . need some time to take different courses in order to learn what interests them. In that case the “major” question is also symptomatic: the reason they don’t have a major yet is that they honestly aren’t ready to specialize yet.</p>
<p>Broke my heart years ago when I was a dorm parent to counsel crying frosh, upset because it was near the end of their second quarter in college and they hadn’t picked a major yet. They felt pressured by parents and compared themselves to the small number of students around them who had already selected a major. </p>
<p>So I stopped asking about majors (since they are symptoms) and started asking kids what they are interested in. The kids that are “Exploring” are a lot more open about their school plans if one talks to them about interests. </p>
<p>There are so many pathways to a happy and fulfilling career for so many different people that it’s useless to prescribe “specialization” or “general education” as The Pathway. It depends so much on the person . . . including the student whose interest is “making a lot of money.”</p>
<p>^That frosh was paying for his college or his parents were paying? I understand being "pressured by parents and compared themselves to the small number of students around them who had already selected a major. "
Frankly, if my kid did not know what to do, I am not sure if he/she would be thinking about it in college. I was fortunate (or maybe planned ahead and talked to both and researched extensively starting in 8th grade) that both of them had no doubt by HS graduation, otherwise, they would not be going to college. The least I would do is to make them flip the coin and stick to whatever comes up. But those choices would need to be the ones that could reasonably lead to employment. For example, “marine biology” was out right after my research showed that there are no reasonable expectation for employment. So, Marine Bio would not be considered in “coin flipping” exersice.</p>
<p>I think a student should start college with an intended major or direction. It is much easier to move away from a major you find isn’t a good fit then to enter college with no idea and wait for it to “come” to you. </p>
<p>It would be like waiting at a train station for some train to go somewhere that sounds interesting. I say, “Get on a train, any train and see how it feels and fits”. If it is the wrong train, get off and get on one that is not going near the first destination. At least you will have ruled out that major and its like ones as an option.</p>
<p>I don’t know about that. Over the years, I’ve seen too many kids cling to a major (usually something science-related) that they have little aptitude for. They don’t move away so easily.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>While this may be heresy to many people here, one possibility for an undecided student is to start at a community college. The advantage is that the community college won’t have administrative requirements to choose a major soon, and taking extra semesters at a community college in case one switches into a major needing a lot of additional prerequisites won’t be as expensive as doing that at a four year school. Once decided and prerequisites taken, the student can transfer as a junior to a four year school and complete a bachelor’s degree.</p>
<p>There are tradeoffs, though. A student advanced in a subject would not have the opportunity to take junior/senior level courses as a freshman/sophomore. And some students may not do as well in an environment with a larger number of marginal students (although this problem may be worse at the least selective four year schools).</p>
<p>Cost wise, the community college option is a good one. If nothing else, the student grows one more year and maybe is better able to decide what interests them. Also community colleges offer more trade type certificates eg CAD or Medical assistant which is another way to move in the direction of a future as well as a way to get work to help pay expenses once that direction is decided.</p>
<p>ordinarylives, I would think if a student does not have aptitude for a major they would not be doing well in it. I would hope it would indicate to them or someone in college advising ( that they should still be seeking guidance from) that that major is not for them and encouraged to broaden their horizons.</p>
<p>@ordinarylives - It can be hard to move away from a science major, if a student hangs on past a semester or two, and it can be hard to tell from performance in intro classes if poor grades are a result of a lack of aptitude, poor preparation relative to classmates combined with a complete lack of effective teaching, and/or a need to adjust study habits to these types of classes. </p>
<p>Moreover, once a GPA is infected by a few misadventures in STEM, a student could find that even after several semesters of stellar performance in another major, they are still all but locked out of some promising careers for top humanities and social science grads, such as law, regardless of whether more than rudimentary STEM competence is needed for the career. </p>
<p>OTOH, outside of medical school, poor performance in some STEM courses will not necessarily mean that a graduate will be unemployable in any STEM field. Lots of scientists and engineers have needed to repeat courses, or not done well in their large intro classes (or even some of their upper-level classes), and many find employment with overall GPA’s that would not get them into medical school or even a mid-tier law school. Of course, this could also change if the job market for engineering grads goes south with cuts in defense spending.</p>
<p>L-mom said: “I think a student should start college with an intended major or direction.”</p>
<p>Most kids DO have interests . . . classes that they want to take . . . courses that they find interesting . . . or fields of employment tthat they think they will like.</p>
<p>Part of the reason for college is precisley to take courses in areas that interest you that you didn’t get in (more basic) high school . . . even if it’s Stage Combat . . courses that are off the Main Sequence leading to your after college career.</p>
<p>In Fall 2010 the Admissions Director at Oberlin greeted all students (and many of their parents) with this observation . . . loosely recalled:</p>
<p>“Remember all those courses that you took in high school to get into a good college? Well, congratulations!!! It worked. You made it . . . and now you have the opportunity to stretch yourself intellectually and academically by taking courses that matter to you because they interest you. Even if they aren’t part of your declared major - and most of you will change your major multiple times before graduation because you will grow and change in the next few years - stretch yourself!”</p>
<p>Yeah, you would hope so, but freshman often really believe “it’ll all work out”. I’ve had kids in my office with Ds and Fs telling me that if they do well enough on the final, they think they can “pull it up to a B” or that they can always see about “extra credit”. Um, not happening. Advisors have a tough job. They need to nudge a kid in a new direction, hopefully without completely crushing his dreams. And kids often don’t listen until they’re facing academic probation. See, they’ve been told they can do/be anything, and they believe it.</p>
<p>Now, I seem to have wandered away from the original question (happens), but my experience is that a kid who is truly undecided and admits it is at least open to looking. A kid who picks a major, even one he’s not sure of, is less willing to do so, even if he really needs to.</p>
<p>What interests you?
What do you want to study?
What do you want to major in?
How do you plan to support yourself after you graduate?</p>
<p>These are all different questions. The trouble with many students is that they can answer the first three, but the last is somehow answered very fuzzily or with wishful thinking. I am a strong proponent of having a double major or a minor and major where one is what you love and the other helps to make you more employable (in the best case scenario a future job would involve both).</p>
<p>When D was in school, she and I had a conversation about her major, and I asked her where she wanted to work with it and then suggested how different choices of courses in junior or senior year would open her employment possibilities - she was shocked when she actually got her job based on the fact that she had taken one of the courses I had suggested. (She also had a second major which was more in line with what she liked to study, but would not be immediately applicable in the workforce, although it certainly was valuable to her education.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>One problem is that many students and parents have inaccurate ideas of what majors have good job and career prospects. Many lump all STEM majors together in the “good” category, even though the most popular STEM major (biology) has rather poor job and career prospects, according to the career surveys at the (few) universities that make them available for all to see.</p>
<p>Another is that the popularity of majors often follows economic cycles and/or bubbles, but the job outlook can look very different four years later. All of the students who went into civil engineering in 2005 when it was the hot thing got to graduate into the construction crash of 2009.</p>
<p>I agree with you, ucbalumnus. But take biology - while there are generic biology degrees, a degree that concentrates on genetics would probably be more employable, and there are genetic specialty courses that can be taken - bacterial genetics or plant genetics, or human genetics, each of which would tailor a degree toward a specific market and none of which (higher than the introductory genetics course) are required for a generic biology degree. Microbiology is also a specialty that I have seen listed in entry level bio job ads.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But what pay level do these microbiology and genetics jobs offer? And the existence of an ad does not mean that there are not dozens of soon-to-graduate microbiology and genetics students applying for the job.</p>
<p>An entry level job at whatever salary is a job and an opportunity to show your competence, so that hopefully you can rise in salary at the company you’re working for and/or have work experience when applying to another company. Even if one has the aptitude to be an engineer or investment banker and earn comparatively high salaries at that first job out of school, many students don’t want to be engineers and investment bankers. Even a salary of 30K is 70k more than the negative 40K of paying for college, and that first year of work will probably result in as much, if not more, education than a year of college - not book, but real life learning.</p>