Thinking About Your
Major? Good! You SHOULD be.
First, let me skip through all of
the obvious stuff quickly. You know that
changing your major in the future may require you to spend more time in college
to meet the new requirements. More time in school usually means more tuition,
room, board, books and supplies. And some of the various majors may have
entirely different requirements. A philosophy course that can be applied toward
the English major may not count toward a philosophy degree. A calculus course
for business students may not count toward a science degree. Some majors require
that you submit a portfolio of your work, to be approved by a jury of
professors. Some majors limit the number of students who can enter the degree
program because of a glut of professionals already in the market. There are lots
of considerations, headaches, red tape, forms, and additional costs when it
comes to changing your major. But it can be done. The longer you wait to make
your decision, the more likely your major change will require additional tuition
and time.
So, very high on my list of
recommendations: may I suggest that you choose your major early and then stick with
it? (This advice, of course, comes
from someone who changed his major each time he read a new book or was impressed
by a new professor. You might say I learned the hard way.)
Most undergraduate programs are
remarkably similar to each other. Most have a core of general coursework that
will force you to become familiar with a little bit of everything offered by the
academy. Therefore, extremely few, if any, professional or graduate degrees
require applicants to have one particular undergraduate major. And all “four
year” degrees provide opportunities for you to take additional courses in other
fields. This will enable you to customize your degree somewhat, adding the kinds
of preparatory coursework in the field you hope to study in your graduate
school. What a four year degree indicates to a potential employer is that you
are willing and able to achieve a medium-term goal, even when it gets difficult,
and especially when you would rather be doing something else more fun. The
degree attests to your ability to express yourself in a professional way; it
shows that you can learn, and that you have attained a basic introduction to a
particular field of study. No one
expects to hire an expert, based only on a four-year degree.
So with a few exceptions, you
should be able to pick a major that deeply interests you, that has the kind of
requirements that you can imagine yourself enjoying at 3am on a Monday morning, and in which you perceive
yourself to have particular strengths and advantages. If you want to be an
accountant, by all means major in accounting. If you want to be a nurse, or a
public school teacher, or if you hope to manage a golf course, then you had
better major in the correct field from the beginning. But for most any OTHER
career, I suggest that you pick a major in the liberal arts, humanities, and
sciences that will serve as a good broad foundation for the specialization you
will receive in graduate school. In these fields, you will learn to ask
questions, to communicate, and to present your suggestions. All other
professional skills will be learned on-the-job, or in graduate school. Remember,
you are asking for my opinion here.
So that is all of the obvious
stuff. Now, let’s get down to specifics, the most frequently asked questions.
How do you find help
in picking your major?
My answer to this question may
scare you. My intention is not to provide additional anxiety, but to prevent
heartburn down the road. First of all, you will have to make this decision on
your own. It is your career, your education, and your tuition budget; YOU will
be living with the consequences of your decision. That person who made being a
history major sound cool when you were a sophomore will be nowhere in sight, in
four years, when you discover that your history major will not get you certified
to teach in a public school. Most
universities have an “advising” or “career services” department. The people who
work in these offices are there to help provide you with information about your
strengths, weaknesses, and options. They know the various major requirements and
can help you understand what you will have to accomplish to get into the right
program. And they are very objective. These are the "experts" in helping you find
your future. Go by the advising office
and make an appointment to meet with an adviser. A good way to begin the
conversation is, “Help! I am enrolled in college and do not have a major
yet!”
This leads to my next piece of
advice. Talk to objective and trained
experts. The biggest mistake
students seem to make in choosing a major is when they ask the wrong people for
help and information. Your roommate, and your favorite professor, and your high
school guidance counselor may all mean well. In fact, they probably do. But for
various reasons they are usually NOT your best choice. Your roommate and your
high school guidance counselor may not have an updated list of correct course
requirements and prerequisites for the various degrees. And your favorite
professor probably works for a department that wants to increase the number of
“majors” to get a larger share of the school’s operating budget and hiring
priority. Also, most professors are so involved in their own work that they
easily imagine it to be right for everyone else. There are better and more
objective sources of information for you. And they are not hard to find.
If you are still undecided about
which field, then talk to the Advising Office on your campus soon. If you have a general idea of the kind of career
you would like to pursue, then start looking at the job requirements for the
entry level jobs in that field. If you want to be an accountant, for example,
then start by reading the “accountants wanted” advertisements. You will see that
entry level accounting jobs usually require an accounting degree. If you have a
good idea about the kind of career you want, then find out now what backgrounds
the employers are seeking. If your “dream job” requires professional, trade, or
graduate schooling, then look into the entry requirements of those kinds of
schools.
Too many people take the opposite
path. Many of us picked a major because we liked to do the coursework in that
major. Then once we got the degree, we went looking for jobs that would consider
people holding that degree. We discovered, usually, that there are so many of
our peers competing for the few generalist jobs that we may have been better off
with another major. The best time to make this discovery is when you are an
undergraduate freshman. But to do so, YOU will have to do the footwork.
Joe, I want to be a
Lawyer, Physician, Dentist, Veterinarian, or a CEO, what should my major
be?
Law, Medical, Dental, Business and
Veterinary
Schools
Joe, I want to teach
in the public school system.
You have chosen a noble and highly
competitive field. Because of the particular licensing and certification
requirements in Pennsylvania, you should already be talking to the advisers in the education
department. In most cases, the History, Philosophy, English, and other Liberal
Arts degrees will NOT be the best degree for you. You should be talking to the advisers in
the education department!
Joe, I want to be a
history or philosophy major because I want to work in a library or in a museum.
Careful! History departments have been seeking ways to
get their own majors employed, and the market is already glutted with history
majors seeking a position in “public history.” This notion of “public history”
is, in many ways, a product of the effort by history departments to get more
majors, and does not reflect market conditions, in my own opinion. The “want ad”
evidence suggests that libraries are more interested in students from library
science programs than people with only a four-year degree in history. Museums
may hire history majors, but this is usually to fill only the very entry level
positions that might have accepted almost any kind of degree. The historians who
have become curators generally have graduate level degrees in history.
Professional level positions in museums usually require advanced degrees,
fundraising background, and administrative experience. If you hope to apply to
work in an entry level position in a museum, perhaps you might consider the Letters, Arts, and
Sciences Degree, mixing history, communications, writing, business,
accounting, and fine art courses.
But Joe, I want to be
a History Major or a Philosophy Major because that is all I ever think about,
it’s all I ever do, and it’s what I love. There is no foreseeable future for me
without research, writing, and teaching History and/or
Philosophy!
Aha ha! That is not a question but
a declaration of love for the two most interesting fields in the universe. YOU
may be one of the very few people out there for whom majoring in History and/or
Philosophy actually makes sense. Understanding that this choice of yours will
determine other eventualities, you realize that you will probably never
accumulate a fortune as either a professional historian or a philosopher. And
you know that there are many people with advanced degrees in these two fields
who have not been able to get paid for their work. You probably know that you
will have to attend grad school. Most likely, only a top grad school with a
great reputation in these fields will suffice if you want to someday land a job
in academic history or philosophy. You must also recognize that these kinds of
grad school experiences are only available to the already rich, or to the hard
working and highly gifted scholar. There is no room in the field for any
mediocrity. Naturally, your grades are among the highest of your classes, with a
high enough GPA that you could choose almost any field of study. Chances are, you are already a History or a
Philosophy major, and since your very first class in these fields you have never
even considered being anything else.
For you, I have one piece of
advice: become a history or a philosophy major if you have not already. And
don’t ever look back!
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