Chapter 27: Major and Career Selection
Graciela Martinez and Elizabeth Shaker
Choosing your Major and Educational Planning
In Chapters 25 and 26, we covered self-discovery through engaging in different career assessments and researching career information that may be a good fit based on personal strengths, interests, values, skills, and personality. At this time, our goal is for you to be getting closer to deciding on a career path that will be a good fit for you. Once you know what career path or industry you are interested in, you are a step closer to choosing your major. Having a general idea of what career path interests you will help you determine which major is the best fit for you.
In the United States and Canada, your academic major—simply called “your major”—is the academic discipline you commit to as an undergraduate student. It’s an area you specialize in, such as accounting, chemistry, criminology, archeology, digital arts, or dance. In United States colleges and universities, roughly 2,000 majors are offered. And within each major is a host of core courses and electives. When you successfully complete the required courses in your major, you qualify for a degree.
Why is your major important? It’s important because it’s a defining and organizing feature of your undergraduate degree. Ultimately, your major should provide you with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and/or behaviors you need to fulfill your college goals and objectives.
In this section, we will look at how to select your major and how your college major may correlate with a career. Does your major matter to your career? What happens if you change your major? Does changing your major mean you must change your career? Read on to find out!
Choosing a college major can have a big impact on your career choices, especially if you are following a technical or vocational program of study. After all, it is hard to become a pharmacist if you study computer networking. Students often get too anxious about choosing a major or program of study. Certainly, many two-year students have a very clear idea of what they are studying and the job they expect to land after completing their degree, and you probably feel confident enough in your choice of major to make the investment for tuition in that program. But there is no need to panic over your choice of major or program of study:
- Your choice of major or program will be important only for your first job after college; most people change careers (not just jobs, but careers) five times or more in their lifetime, so there is no possible major that will cover that level of flexibility.
- Many majors and programs share foundation courses with other majors, so you can usually change your major without having misused your time in courses that will be unrelated to your new major. Chances are, if you change your major, it will be to something similar, especially if you have completed an occupational interest survey as recommended earlier in this c