It happens. You just turned 18 and graduated high school. All of a sudden, you're heading off to college and making decisions about what you want to do with your life.
The most important decision you'll ever have to make in regards to your education is choosing your major. From literature to engineering and social work, colleges offer a plethora of learning opportunities for students to choose from.
These opportunities can help students decide on what career path to take, gain knowledge or insight about a particular topic and develop new skills. Skills such as critical thinking and strong technical backgrounds can enable us to do well in school and increase our chances of getting a job. However, I do not believe that people should pursue a degree solely for the sake of getting a job or making as much money as possible.
With a job market more competitive than ever before, education has lost its true value. Nowadays, many people only attend college in hopes of becoming desirable to future employers. Articles listing reasons why you should major in engineering or why liberal arts degrees are useless can be found all over the Internet.
Although it is true that certain professions such as engineering and law are more stable and offer higher salaries, that doesn't give us the right to disregard fields such as communications and liberal arts as worthless.
Colleges offer a variety of educational programs to choose from, and each program is unique. Each program contains its own curriculum and helps individuals develop different skills. Regardless of what college major you end up choosing, you will leave school with a lot more knowledge than you originally had.
I am not saying that you shouldn't pick a major based on a career path, but that your education is not just limited to what you learn inside the classroom. The knowledge and wisdom you gain inside the classroom are not only useful for your career, but it can also fuel your curiosity about the world.
It will allow you to learn more about a topic you were previously not very well-informed on and broaden your perspectives. Your sociology degree will help you understand how society works. Your engineering degree will strengthen your analytical skills. Your musical theater program will fuel your creativity and passion for the arts.
Business degrees are useful. They allow people to run successful companies and create products necessary for people. STEM degrees are useful. Without STEM fields, technological advances would not be possible. Art majors are useful. Without art or creativity, we cannot celebrate each other's individuality or encourage freedom of expression.
Having a college degree and a career are important, but keep in mind that there's more to life than just making money. There's more to life than doing things that look good on paper. Don't try to impress other people and major in whatever you want. Life is about learning and moving forward, and how we want to achieve that path is up for us to decide upon ourselves.
