Unfortunately, they do not have a Business Minor in this college. Instead, they have whats called a “Business Essentials Certificate” which includes four classes (Principles of Marketing, Principles of Financial Accounting, Business Law or Principles of Information Technology or Corporate Finance 1, and Managing Organizational Behavior.) Plus, you have to pay $100 which is a way for them to be a greedy college instead of offering it as a minor like most schools.
juillet I appreciate you trying to help here especially since you’re the moderator of this website, but I do not think your advice is practical for my situation because you do not know me and have to look at the full picture. I need financial aid to go to school and I have been relying on it since freshman year. I get plenty of financial aid and in fact if I take a break from school now and do something else, I can still get financial aid. Once I get my degree though, the Financial Aid Door shuts. Say I go back to school for something else cause I want to work in another field, well now I going to have to pay more money cause I do not get financial aid anymore. So I might as well change, especially if I am not passionate about the subject. I do not want to just graduate just for the sake of getting the degree.
As I was exploring here and other sites, I found an article that relates to my situation. I think you should read this too juillet because it is showing not everyone is meant for the liberal arts path.
"I only have 12hrs left in my major and 36hrs left in my degree. If I stay, I’ll graduate next spring with a BA in sociology. However, I hate my major, and it doesn’t really give you many career options except being a research assitant or a receptionist. Both of which sound like hell on earth.
I know the smart answer would be to cut my losses and switch majors. Except I really have no idea what I want to do or what I would want to major in.
Should I finish my degree in soc and try to find a career, or just take a break from school until I figure out what degree to get? How did you guys figure out what to major in?
Best Answer: As a former sociology major who was in a similar position, I say take some time off and figure out what you want to do, and here’s why: Financial aid! Once you have that diploma in hand, the financial aid door slams shut and it’s goodbye grants and scholarships. You still have the option of loans, but if you’re almost maxed out (like I am), it makes working toward another degree that much more difficult if you eventually settle on a field that requires higher education (and after age 25, you’re considered independent – if you’re working a low paying job at that time, or not at all, you’re pretty much looking at a free-ride to college).
I graduated with a B.A. in sociology in 2007. I worked as a victim advocate for 3 years before being laid off because a majority of social service positions are grant based (and when the grant is gone, so is the position). It was a difficult career with high stress, long hours, and very, very, very low pay ($33,000 a year in NYC which is about $1,500 more than was is considered low-income here – after paying rent, utilities, student loans, and buying groceries, I was left with about $50 a month to myself for incidentals…like cough medicine or Band-Aid’s, not the life I expected as a college graduate). After I was laid off, I was forced to make a career decision to either continue in the social service rat-race (the only field a sociology major is really qualified for) or go back to school for a direct entry career. And, that’s how I ended up in nursing – pretty much by process of elimination.
And you’re right, sociology majors are NOT in high demand. Essentially, the degree is not worth the paper it’s printed on so even with that degree in hand, your job prospects are pretty low. If you KNOW research is not your thing and you’re not completely sure the direction you want to take, then take a semester or 2 off. Focus on internships that will expose you to a variety of fields and hopefully narrow your interests. Try to find a job, any job, and see if that gives you direction. I had a friend who started college for entertainment management, she worked at a dental office and then ended up becoming a dental hygienist. I had a sorority sister who was an English major, took some time off, interned at a small company, caught a mistake on the paperwork that saved the company a large chunk of change and she was offered a full-time position – she ended up finishing in business and obtaining her MBA. I had another friend who started as an education major, he was a cart boy at a grocery store, and ended up entering their management training program and is working his way up the managerial ladder. Yet another friend was a philosophy major, on a whim she took a phlebotomy course, now she’s a phlebotomist.
Also, don’t underestimate the quality of life you hope to obtain one day (meaning do you want to own a home one day, or is renting fine; would you like to buy a car, or is public transportation okay with you; do you want to have money in the bank or is the air in your lungs all you need; are you expecting to support a family, or are you sure you’ll remain child-free, etc.). I say this because when I was an undergrad, helping people and “changing the world” was ALL I cared about and I didn’t think about how I would eventually pay my bills. It wasn’t until I was working full time for low pay that I realized exactly how important money was to my future career plan. That’s another reason why I ended up in nursing because while I DID enjoy helping people, I also enjoyed being able to put food on the table – and with a starting salary of $75,000 in NYC, nursing was the only field that filled my criteria of 1. Affordable education; 2. Maximum pay for minimum education; 3. Ability to help people; 4. Opportunity for advancement.
Bottom line, college will ALWAYS be there when you want to go back – ALWAYS. If I could do it all over again, I would have taken some time off to figure out what it is I really wanted to do before I wasted $70,000 on a useless degree. A lot of people will try to tell you a college degree is absolutely essential, and it pretty much is, but it’s not essential to obtain that degree at age 22 – you still have a lot of time to figure out a life plan. And when you do go back to finish, you’ll be amazed at how much more fulfilling it feels because you’ll actually WANT to be there."
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