<p>The good - 20 year old rising junior daughter has worked at a prestigious resort for the past four years. Two years ago she was offered a job in human resources training by a manager that didn’t realize she was only 18. By all accounts should be offered a “real” job when she graduates in 2015. </p>
<p>The bad - she is ADHD inattentive and has truly struggled at college. She loves the school but she continues to make poor decisions that make life difficult. Her GPA is average and she has been on academic probation. </p>
<p>And now the major question. She is insistent that she has to continue with her difficult (for her) major of business management. She thinks as she goes through life that it will more marketable than an “easy” major like English or communications. My feeling is that she has experience at a well known company and will have a degree from a well known (in our area) school and the major doesn’t matter that much.</p>
<p>So … should it be the stressful, more marketable major or the easy, less marketable major?</p>
<p>I’d opt to respect her opinion, i.e., the harder, more marketable major. Once she starts working full-time, her success on the job will matter mor. You also don’t know that English or Communications will be any easier for her. Courses intended for majors can be significantly more difficult than courses for non-majors. The inattentive ADHD will make it difficult for her to comply with deadlines in any course of study. So, it’s not a choice of easy major/better grades or harder major/worse grades. It’s possibly easy major/worse grades or hard major/worse grades.</p>
<p>If she finds her major extremely difficult and has been on academic probation, Business Management is not a marketable major for her. It’s one of the most common majors out there, and there are may who love it and excellent GPAs. Tell her to choose a major that she loves and does well in; a decent GPA in a supposedly “useless” major that she is passionate about will always be more highly regarded than a bad GPA in a supposedly “good” major that she hates.</p>
<p>I think that as she goes through life, her major isn’t going to matter all that much, but, assuming she graduates, neither will her grades. I’d let her major in whatever she wants. I also wouldn’t assume English or Communications would necessarily be easier, either.</p>
<p>Young kids with a business degree who know how to run a hotel well and are willing to move are incredibly marketable. Grades literally do not matter.</p>
<p>I’d have her finish the business degree. No one will ever see her grades her entire life and that degree coupled with her on the ground experience in hotels is really, really hot right now.</p>
<p>If she believes that she “settled” or “compromised herself” for her major she will feel “less than” in her career until she “makes up” that perceived lack in some way (e.g. MBA). If she were to decide that you influenced or pressured her in her choice of major, she would hold you in part responsible for that “less than” feeling.</p>
<p>As long as she is getting good enough grades to graduate, she should choose her own major.</p>