So, I read sometimes, listen to music, draw (but I’m not THAT good), and idk. I mostly just look at Niche and question my life choices lol. I like English and History Class, and I Like Stats, but I don’t want to major in that stuff because it is associated with low-paying degress and I am not into teaching.
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That’s not necessarily true.
Get off Niche.
Do a match me.
Here’s a template.
People could recommend schools - but maybe a liberal arts school would work for you - where you don’t give a major.
Find a prof who will take an interest - plenty of people in many majors make lots of money and some even in majors that are deemed better fail.
In the end, it’s up to you.
Your life’s success isn’t contingent on your college major - or even solely your college years.
Life is a marathon - not a sprint.
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Personally, I’m not sure about doing one of those “No major” colleges as those kinds of places, like The Evergreen State, feel a bit too Hippie in comparison to what I’m looking for. Those colleges are more for people who want to do writing or arts which I’m not sure about as being an artist or author is not stable imo
I didn’t say no major college.
I said - you don’t decide a major until after two years.
Is Stanford a good school? You don’t need to declare a major until the end of the 2nd year.
MIT - also by end of 2nd year.
Bowdoin - in your fourth semester.
Are those good schools??
You need to relax - your life isn’t determine at 16 or 21.
And you need a more positive outlook - that will matter more than if you major in socilogy or business.
Focus on your studies to give you more options - and get off of niche. Please.
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Yes, it is true that anyone can start a business. No, it’s not true that everyone started doing it. And it’s not a new thing that people have been starting businesses. Whether it’s a restaurant, or a car dealership, or a barber shop, or a cleaning shop, or an insurance practice, or a legal office, people have been doing start ups forever. And they’re only risky when people take on too much risk rather than building slowly and conservatively.
But my point was that it’s possible to be financially successful without a college degree. In fact, a college degree can be risky for anyone who gets into too much debt in order to get the degree. But I understand that you are averse when it comes to too much risk and prefer to choose a different path. Since financial security is the one thing you’ e identified as your motivator, I’ll again point out that you don’t have to go to college to achieve that. Where I live, there’s a submarine building industry. Kids are going through a 6 month program right out of high school at the local community college to get trained as welders. When they come out, they can start out making 6 figures. If they specialize in underwater welding, they can make double that. There are similar industries all around the country which hire workers into good paying jobs once they get some basic skills. A local kid was written up in the local paper recently for receiving a public service award. He’s going to lineman school in upstate NY to learn how to work on utility poles. He too will step into a 6 figure job when he completes the program. He too can double that income if he’s willing to travel to high need areas during emergencies like storms. And we always need plumbers, and electricians, etc, none of which require a college degree. If you don’t want risk, teaching is well known for providing job security but that does require a college degree and eventually a master’s.
I’m not saying that you should do any of these things, but you are beginning to identify some priorities and they can all be addressed - many without even going to college if you are open to all possibilities.
Not in college yet either but California’s pretty chill. If you choose to go to a UC or transfer in at some point there are a lot of options and you’ll meet a lot of cool people (as you would anywhere but I’m just saying) If you’re worrying about stuff being expensive then I mean it kinda is sometimes.
Tbh, I don’t want to do anything trade school-y or blue-collar tbh, as I want to do a more academic path. I do not want to spend my life repairing HVACS to be honest. It is too rough and pickup Truck-y for me. Same with teaching, people say to avoid that career and it only really sounded fun for me when I was around 12 ngl.
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Isn’t college typically the place where people figure out where they want to do? Of course college is not for everyone, but no one needs to have their life mapped out beforehand. Even for those who do – don’t most people change majors?
I had no idea what I wanted to do when I started college. I changed majors, changed career goals, and didn’t figure it out until I had been working full-time for several years after I graduated, at which point I went (back) to grad school. I landed in the right place. I’m glad no one steered me away from college just because I didn’t have my entire career planned when I was 17!
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I get told to pick courses based on what major I want but I hate this as I feel like people my age pigeonholeing themselves into a major but I wish I was like them my future feels mentally blank
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Okay. By a process of elimination, we’re getting somewhere. You don’t want to do trades. You don’t want to do business. You don’t want to do teaching. You seem very decisive about a number of things that you don’t want. Now we’re getting somewhere.
Not every college major translates into a career path. Really only pre-professional degrees like engineering, nursing, teaching, accounting, etc, which prep you in a specific skill do. So, whatever you major in, when you finish college, what will I do? The biggest employer is the government, which employs people in a wide variety of fields. Otherwise most college graduates go to work in the corporate of ca sector or they go on to grad school in health care, law, or higher ed. Many college students wait until the end of college before they start thinking about what they’ll do. You’re way ahead of most by thinking ahead. And you’ve made progress by already eliminating a lot of possibilities.
You’re probably best off by aiming toward Arts & Sciences (which includes social sciences) simply because it offers the most flexibility. And you may do well to find a college with maximum curriculum flexibility, sometimes called an open curriculum, so that you can experiment. When you get to college you should take advantage of career planning workshops. Think of it as life work planning because that’s what you’re seeking - what it is that will become your life’s work. Most colleges have a Career Center, which is where such workshops are typically offered. There are also private career counselors who offer such services. I’d also suggest that you look for part time jobs or volunteering. It’s amazing how much you can learn about yourself by engaging with the world in that way.
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This is not true. Yes, starting salaries out of college tend to be lower for humanities majors, and these degrees are often stepping stones to career paths that benefit from graduate education. And over time, the gap narrows.
Check this out, for starters: https://www.historians.org/resource/what-can-you-do-with-that-history-degree-exploring-the-data/
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This is not great advice. Pick course based on what will challenge you and develop your academic skills. Assuming you are college-bound,also keep in mind what colleges consider the essential foundation for higher education: four years in all core subjects, and three years of a foreign language, at least a year of art, etc. Your goal should be to develop your academic skills, not to prepare for a specific major that chances are you’ll switch out of, anyway.
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I want to avoid humanities as I’m not planning on doing Law School or teaching. I just don’t want to be a Humanities person as it feels too… English Major-y and Hippie which I’m tryna avoid
Idk abt the social sciences to be honest. I am not really interested in psychology or anything arts-related as arts don’t pay well…
Look at schools that will allow you (actually require you) to take a broad general studies program before choosing a major. You’re working with a lot of misconceptions and incomplete information, which is actually to be expected for someone your age. But it would help, I think, to expose yourself to a lot of different perspectives, ways of thinking, and career paths. Like I said above - you don’t know what you don’t know. So get comfortable with that, and go find out.
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Social Sciences also include Economics, Anthropology, International Relations, and Criminology. Another non humanities major is Geography, which is in increasing demand these days for data mapping and other related disciplines. Especially in the age of shifting weather patterns which are making planning difficult in many fields, specialists in many applications in this field have a myriad of opportunities both in the private sector and in government. Another high paying field is actuarial science.
Health care specialties pay well these days and many areas are experiencing shortages.
@PutgatoryPicnic, how about kickboxing
Seriously, or kind of not: imagine one day you come home from a trip and you learn an asteroid has landed on your house and wiped out your entire family. You have no money. What would you do to live?
So I will be a little blunt because I think it will be useful.
Right now it appears to me you have reasons in your mind for eliminating essentially every significant category of major. However, many of those reasons strike me as not really based in anything substantial. You have some vague impressions of necessarily what sort of person does various majors, necessarily what jobs people with those majors end up getting, necessarily how much they are compensated, and so on, but I am very confident as an adult with a lot of experience involving higher education and professional paths that your impressions are incorrect. Not that no one and no path may fit your descriptions, but there is so much more real world variety to the educational and possible career paths these majors can be part of that your stated impressions seem to be failing to capture.
OK, so what do I think you should do?
Well, I agree if you really are not enthusiastic about going to college, you can take a pause. It doesn’t have to be forever, but you can try working for a few years and see what the working world really looks like. Many people who do that eventually come back to college, but with a real focus on what sort of career they want, and what sort of educational path will get them to that career.
However, if you basically like school, and are excited about more school right away, just intimidated by this whole major question as you have nothing but negative impressions right now . . . you could in fact start in the sort of exploratory program others have been describing. Again, your initial impression of those seemed to be very negative, but to be blunt again, you also seemed not to be aware that most Ivy and Ivy+ and similar sort of colleges actually have an exploratory model.
So these exploratory models were not designed for “hippies” or such, they were designed by elite families in cooperation with these elite institutions of higher education in the United States. And these exploratory models were acknowledging a basic truth, that many of the future leaders across various career paths–including in licensed professions, business, politics and policy, arts, academia, and so on–had no idea when they were age 16 what they wanted to study, let alone do for a career. Because they have experienced so little at that age, how could they? Indeed, even if they think they know, they easily could be wrong.
So these elite institutions are structured that way because elite families recognize that core truth, that most kids need more time to explore both academic subjects and career options before making these decisions. And to be fair, there is a bit of an ugly truth here, which is most of these families have the family resources not to need their kids to get high-paying jobs as soon as possible, that indeed their kids might move on to other long paths through further education or initial career levels where the financial payoff is eventually quite good, but not necessarily right away after college. They can afford to give their kids all that initial time to more gradually build their careers because they are already comfortably well off as a family.
But in any event, the model does work. Like, the vast majority of graduates of these sorts of colleges regardless of major will end up doing a career they find both personally and financially rewarding, enough to be quite satisfied with their lives.
OK, so if you buy that, you can put aside your current negative impressions of all these majors with the understanding you really are not yet in a position to form such impressions, and go to such an exploratory college–whichever gives you an affordable offer and is otherwise generally your favorite among your offers–with an open mind about where that might take you.
But if you still don’t believe it, well, then maybe take a pause on school.
And I am confident either of those paths will work out fine for you. Like, you won’t end up in a low-paying job you hate by following those paths.
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Great because data is involved with everything. And every major. Likely every job. Not just calculating but interpreting.
But you are in hs. You need English, foreign language, social science, lab science, and math.
Major in history. You need English, foreign language, social science, lab science, and math.
Major in stats - you need English, foreign language, social science, lab science, and math.
Major in Tourism, you need English, foreign language, social science, lab science, and math.
You need these classes plus whatever is required to graduate - if there’s an arts or other type class.
And when you get to college, you’ll likely have a general education core regardless of major and you’ll likely need - you guessed it - English, foreign language, social science, lab science, and math in addition to major classes - but you’ll have more options then, many interesting.
Now, you are over analyzing. Step back. Excel. Get a great test.
Find the budget. And things will work out.
If you need a year off, that’s ok too.
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