I am hoping to start this thread as a resource and for info for kids who are very stressed out picking a major. While it is good to be sensible, it is also difficult to know for sure what you want to do when you are eighteen. Many people changed majors, some more than once, and others have a career doing something very different than their major prepared them for. So, please feel free to share.
My Major: Journalism
My Job out of college: Credit Analyst for a major credit reporting company, eventually went into sales for them
Adding H’s too =
Major: Business Marketing, German
Job out of college: Insurance claims adjuster. Eventually became VP of claims for large insurance company and now works an industry expert for a software company that sells to insurance companies.
I just did a presentation on this at work for a bunch of the 20-somethings. Here’s how my department broke down:
Major: Computer Science Job: Manager of web technology group
Major: History Job: IT Project manager
Major: Biology Job: IT Project manager
Major: Mechanical Engineering Job: Senior IT Project manager
Major: Biology Job: IT Project Coordinator
Major: MBA Job: IT Business Analyst
Major: Nursing Job: Front-end developer
Major: Fine Arts Job: Web Usability Architect
The list of different careers we’ve all had through the years was quite extensive…
I was a psychology major in college (no computer science classes). I have a PhD in psychology too, for context. I work as a user experience researcher at a technology company.
My major was Occupational Therapy.
My First Job: Occuaptional Therapist in a state psychiatric hospital. I have worked in Occupational Therapy for 30 years in a variety of settings including psychiatry with adults, adolescents and children, chronic pain population , acute rehab , subacute rehab , skilled nursing, home health, assisted living , independent living and memory care. That’s the beauty of OT , lots of options.
I started with a major in visual communication, but changed midway and graduated with a BFA in illustration. Did some illustration (plus package design) in my first job out of school. Since then I’ve done mostly graphic and package design. My husband majored in industrial design and has done that for his entire career.
My major was History, with an emphasis on British History, post-1789.
My first job - activist with a nonprofit working in solidarity with Central American refugees.
My current job - I work as a Systems Engineer for a Fortune 100 tech company, fairly senior role that’s both technical and leadership. (And yes, my liberal arts degree did help prepare me for this job, and quite well.)
S16 is entering college as an Undecided student, with interests ranging from science to sociology, an excellent writer as well as a mathematician. He’s in no hurry to pick a major, and knows that what he ultimately does may not be precisely what he studies in college, too.
Major: Political Science/Economics
First job: Event planner
Major-related jobs: Governor’s staff, state education dept., economic development project analyst
Current job (last 15 years): home schooling mom
I also caution students about this exact thing at career day speeches!
Undergrad: Advertising
Worked in advertising for three days…and I was one of those kids who KNEW what she wanted to major in from middle school on. Ha!
Graduate school: Elem. ed
Current career: Private tutor
Major: Economics and French
First career: Telecommunications Analyst and Project Manager
Current job: full-time mom deciding what I want to be when I grow up
First jobs: Not many engineering jobs when I graduated so for 2.5 years I worked first as a manufacturing operator on an assembly line for a medical device company, then as a QC Technician for a chromatography (separation technology) company. Both gave me very valuable experience - although at the time I felt that I was wasting my degree.
In between: QA Engineer and QA Manager
Now: Consultant for medical device and pharmaceutical industries, mostly for quality system remediation projects
Major: Medical Technology (called clinical Laboratory Science in more, ahem, modern parlance) - Worked in this field in hospital labs full or part time for 13 years at many different places, the part times being wile going to…
Grad School: Masters in Molecular Biology and Immunology, did enough coursework for my PhD, but never wrote my thesis since I learned that I hated research, so…
Law School: Went part time, while working in the hospital lab as an administrator full time.
Hired out of law school to do medical malpractice, so of course I became an expert in…real estate and contract law.
Currently: Government position where I am a regulatory attorney in an agency that oversees both business and healthcare fields…and believe it or not, working in an office in the same building that used to be the hospital where my last year of UG and first two years in the work force were spent. Yes, kids, we do sometimes go back to the very beginning again (-:
DW: AS degree in nursing earned in the Navy, then RN and BSN as an adult, all while working in different nursing positions and places.
Grad School: MS in Healthcare Informatics
Currently works full time in healthcare insurance program compliance and quality assurance, works part time staying current in clinical nursing.
Major: Journalism (with a bunch of science courses because I was a geophysics major for 3 semesters)
First and only career: Technical writing (as an employee for ~10 years and as a consultant after that). I mainly write for users who are programmers and scientists. I took 4 community college programming classes after my BS, and those were very helpful for the type of technical writing I do.
Side careers: School board trustee. Event coordinator–ran a regional professional conference and organize monthly luncheons with scientific speakers. Occasional journalism-type writing.
Major: Psychology Minor:Math with Elementary Education certification (LAC)
First and only career: Elementary Teacher (25 yrs) Masters in Educational Leadership
Spouse: Major: Economics Minor: Acct (LAC) MBA
Works in finance - compliance and risk (almost 30 yrs.)
We both “just knew” what we wanted to do since we were little and our careers fit us. Hard to understand the struggle our child is having in finding themselves.
Of the people I have encountered working in software, the most common college major that they completed a degree in is computer science or something similar (like computer engineering). However, there is a non-trivial percentage of people with other educational backgrounds, such as majors in physics, art, philosophy, religion, history, etc., plus some with no college degree. Obviously, the latter had to self-educate the needed knowledge and skill (which is probably not as difficult as in many other technical fields, though it still requires significant self-motivation and the type of applicable thinking skills).
