Many a high school graduates (and current college students) have soiled their drawers over the prospect of choosing a college major. Your time in college—a very demanding and very expensive four-year-long commitment of your life—will ideally lead to a job that both provides you with a means of living as well as doesn’t make you want to shoot yourself in the foot. To get such a job one must choose a major carefully, so here are a few tips to help you out:
1. Choose Something You Love.
If you don’t like learning about your major, then you won’t actually learn it. You should choose to study something you love because you’ll work better—and probably find a job more easily— if it’s something you would do even if you weren’t being paid for it. This doesn’t have to be a specific job either. No one is asking you to pick what law firm or music studio you want to work for and what position. If you are just generally fascinated by law or music and like to study them in your free time, go with it. Of course, many of us have hobbies that are neither studious nor practical (like Netflix), which brings us to…
2. Make Your Major Valuable.
The reason for jobs, and thus the reason for majors, is that they add value to the world in some shape or form. If what you do betters the lives of others in some way and is well publicized, people will give you money to continue doing it. Keep in mind that the type of job you will have after graduating may not exist yet. After all, someone had to create the ideas of Netflix and the bag of Cheetos to go with it. Value is created when there is a need that is being fulfilled, just like your stomach is fulfilled with that bag of Cheetos. Finding a currently unfulfilled need and then actually fulfilling it will, of course, take more time and effort, but this will not be a problem if you…
3. Know What You Are Willing to Sacrifice.
If you are willing to have an unsteady or low income if it means you get to do what you love, do it. If on the other hand you are unwilling to sacrifice luxuries like Netflix and your bag of Cheetos, try to find a balance between having that cheesy goodness versus the aforementioned shooting of yourself in the foot. No matter how much you can buy with your job, you will not be valuable as a worker if the job makes you miserable. And how do you tell if your future job will make you miserable? It’s if your major does.
If these tips still leave you scratching your head wondering what you’re going to do with your life, keep in mind that that’s a big part of what college is for: learning about yourself. Few people go into college knowing what they want to major in, and those that supposedly do wind up changing majors ninety percent of the time. So relax, be involved in clubs, get to know yourself, and while you’re on that couch watching Netflix, just do a little introspection in between bites of Cheetos.
