<p>1) I’m having trouble picking a major. I’ve narrowed it down to lawyer, vet, journalist, or social worker. I was wondering if anyone here knew which of those majors has the highest succes rate after college?</p>
<p>2) Would it be possible to start college in the spring, take summer classes the first year, and graduate at the same time I would have if I had started this fall?</p>
<p>1) Of those you listed, only one or two are actual majors. You’re applying to an undergraduate program, right? Pre-law students can major in just about anything and those who don’t major in pre-law do just as well as or better than pre-law “majors”. You also apply to veterinary school after undergrad and it’s pretty flexible in major too. As for social work, they usually major in sociology, psychology or political science?</p>
<p>There are some schools with social work majors, too, but otherwise ptontiger16 is spot on. You may want to think about your reasons for going into these fields beyond their “success rate,” which is a pretty ambiguous term (successful in terms of job security? pay? job satisfaction?). You may also want to make sure you know what it takes to get into the graduate programs for veterinarians and lawyers, and for the latter, you’ll want to decide if it’s worth going if you get into anything lower than the top schools (check out the Law School subforum for a million reasons why you shouldn’t consider law at all ever :p).</p>
<p>For your second question, yes, it’s possible – in theory. Many times, schools may not offer the first part of a sequence (e.g. Bio 100a vs. 100b) in the second semester, or they may not offer the second part of the sequence over the summer. Examine the course calendars of the schools you plan on applying to carefully before attempting your plan.</p>
<p>I would say vets. The others…not really.</p>
<p>Have you done research on what each of your career choices involves? I don’t know much about being a lawyer (except that there are about a gazillion of them and unless you are head-over-heels IN LOVE with studying (and eventually practicing) law, law school is tedious. Veterinary school is about eight years long, involves a lot of math and science, difficult tests and nasty, slimy, bloody “hands-on” experience. Then, after vet school, you will “shadow” a vet for Deity-of-Your-Choice-Knows-How-Long, then you will work odd hours (unless you are a surgeon) driving from place to place making house calls if you are a large-animal vet. And if you’re going to become a vet, for the love of everything sacred, spend at least one summer getting your hands dirty (and I mean full of blood and guts) in a rural area around animals (even if you want to work with small animals, because there’s going to be plenty of that on the job and you CANNOT be grossed out by it.</p>
<p>Yes, my mom wanted me to be a vet.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about Journalism as a major, but it doesn’t seem too traumatic as law or vet school (which are traumatic AND heavenly, IF you’re in love with them). As for social worker, do more research on what you’d actually like to do as a social worker.</p>
<p>Some colleges let you “try on different hats” and change your major accordingly. If it were me, I’d take a gap year and try out different things until I had more of an idea of what I wanted to do (since you listed some very drastically different options). Spend some time living around animals, lurk in a law firm (which permission). Spend some time writing and learning about the media and research some social work-ery things.</p>
<p>But yeah, my humble advice.</p>
<p>You could eventually get a graduate degree in any of these fields, so why not major in something that interests you and explore your options during your college years? In terms of the most successful field, lawyers easily make the most money, but you will have to face intense competition for literally everything your entire working life and the US is currently oversaturated with lawyers and would-be lawyers who deeply regret their career choice. The other jobs are more stable. I think social workers are all pretty poor, but it sounds like a very rewarding career. Journalism is the only career that can make you a celebrity–of course, you could also wind up on the police beat at 20K a year, it depends. Veterinarians do pretty well, unless you work for an animal shelter or other nonprofit.</p>