Choosing the Right Major for Your Career Goals

Webinar Transcription

2024-11-14 – Choosing the Right Major for Your Career Goals

Anesha: Hi, everyone, and welcome to tonight’s webinar. My name is Anesha Grant. I’m a senior advisor here at CollegeAdvisor, and I will be your moderator today. Today’s webinar is, “Choosing the Right Major for Your Career Goals.” Before we get started I just want to orient everyone with the webinar timing. We’ll start off with a brief presentation and then we’ll answer your questions in a live Q and a.

On the sidebar, you can download our slides under the handouts tab, and you can start sending your questions whenever you get ready in the Q& A tab. But first, let’s meet our presenter, Mariko. Hi, Mariko, how are you?

Mariko: Hi, I’m doing well. How are you?

Anesha: I’m good. Tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background before we get into today’s conversation.

Mariko: All right. Hi, my name is Mariko. I am also a senior advisor here at CollegeAdvisor. I’ve been here since 2020, and I graduated from Yale technically twice, uh, once as an undergrad in the history of, um, science, medicine, and public health, and a double major in our ethnic studies program. And then I also I also completed my master’s program, uh, at Yale.

Graduated a year later, um, with my master’s in public health and Social and Behavioral Sciences. I’m from la, which is where I’m located now, and I work for the CDC and the Cal CDC Foundation and the California Department of Public Health, um, in drowning prevention. Uh, so that is currently what I do day job wise and.

I’m really excited to talk a little bit about this because I do think that, um, my path and my majors in college have really helped in creating, uh, sort of the life that I have today in many different ways.

Anesha: Looking forward to get it started before we let you take it away. We’re just going to do a quick little poll.

So folks, let us know what grade level you are in. If you are a parent or a teacher, we welcome you can go ahead and select other. We’d like to know who’s in the room. And I guess, as we are waiting for responses to come in, I’m wondering if you had, if were you always sure of your major? Did you change majors weaned along in your college journey?

Did you actually finalize and pick your major?

Mariko: Absolutely. So thanks to a really helpful high school internship. I knew that I was really interested in public health from day negative one. I really liked the flexibility of the field. I liked that the scope of public health was something at the population level, and it was something that was really close to home as someone who has had a family members who have really had to navigate the medical system.

And one of the reasons that I had chosen Yale was because I knew that they had this combined masters in public health and undergrad programs that I would be be able to get two degrees in five years as opposed to the usual six. The ethnicity, race, and migration major was something that I added a little bit later in large part because in 2019, there were a lot of protests and conversations around the future of ethnic studies at Yale and in particularly, In particular, paying faculty members for their labor in this department.

And so once I became more involved in those, I thought, well, I might as well take the major if I’m going to fight so hard for it. And I think for me, that was really useful, both in terms of getting the faculty support that I needed to pursue work that I was really passionate about. And also because I think a lot of the classes that I was taking were the classes I would have taken anyway as my.

Optional or elective credits at Yale. So I was like, you might as well count those towards a second major. And I’m really grateful for that because it’s allowed me to build out a very specific niche in focusing on racial and ethnic disparities and drowning, which is what I do now. And that would not be.

possible without both of those majors and without being able to sit at the intersection of those two things.

Anesha: That’s awesome. That’s amazing. I’m so impressed by your, your journey. Um, so I think you’ll be great actually to, to lead this, the conversation today. I’ll go ahead and close our poll. We have a ninth grade in the room and then, um, a variety of others.

So teachers and parents, I’m sure some folks who are looking for guidance and how to support students around this. Um, so I’ll stop talking. I’ll turn it over to you and I’ll be back a little bit later.

Mariko: Absolutely. Okay. Welcome, everyone. And just a reminder that as I talk, you can feel free to drop questions into the Q and a box.

Um, and I will answer those hopefully by the end of the presentation. So before getting started, I feel like this might be I feel like common sense to a lot of folks, but I really sort of want to talk about what a major actually is in terms of understanding what it is from an academic standpoint, you’re committing to when you decide on a major and excuse me, I’m also an adjunct faculty member.

So thinking about what a major looks like within the context of an academic education is something that I also do part time for a living. And so I think what’s. Really important to understand here is a major is an academic discipline, and that discipline is both defined by a larger field of folks who are all studying the same thing, and also the priorities and focuses of whatever institution you’re going to.

So, um, for example, the institution that I teach at Loyola Marymount, their African American studies program Their goals, their visions and who they’re recruiting is going to look very different than my undergraduates African American studies program in terms of all of those things, even though, um, you know, they study the same topics and have a lot of the same baseline knowledge.

So you really just sort of want to consider those things within the context of, like, how you’re getting the actual classes you’re taking in a specific major majors have focuses right? And so those focuses include things like scale. How big is what you’re paying attention to in the world? Um, how specific?

Is it what is the timeline of what you’re focusing on and when you’re focusing on it and sort of what is the location, um, both in terms of like geographic location on a map, but also, are you talking about a full body part? Are you talking about cells? Are you talking about groups of people? Whatever that might be right?

Um, and every major has a set of epistemologies and those are theories and ways of seeing the world. And sometimes those epistemologies go together across majors. Okay. But sometimes they directly conflict based on, um, you know, who created that major and who’s studying it and why. So a good example of that would be in public health, um, public health as a discipline believes that surveillance is really good, that the more we can track what’s happening to people and what’s going on, the better we can make sure that entire populations remain healthy.

Um, that being said, in ethnic studies, there’s a lot of pushback to traditional surveillance because that kind of surveillance is, Often very harmful in both design and practice to marginalized communities, right? And so those two things will be in conflict between those two majors, right? And everyone sort of needs to sort out what that might mean for the state of the world at large and also for your individual academic career.

Each major will have methods, right? How you accomplish your goals and learn more about the world, right? Um, for example, biology and business both study to a certain extent. Humans, right? How humans do what they do, why humans do what they do, but in very, very different ways with different approaches and different goals.

So whether you’re using a microscope or whether you’re trying to do predictive marketing, right? You’ll learn different skill sets to do those things. And so when you think about the methods, I think that’s also a really important part of especially distinguishing between majors that might Great. Be a little bit similar to each other.

So things like sociology and psychology, right? Being able to understand a difference in what those methods are and what you’ll be trained in is going to be really crucial in identifying what skills you might want to take with you into the workplace and beyond. And also in just thinking about, you know, what do you care about or what do you want to learn?

Right. Or what does the student in question want to learn? And so it’s really important to note that choosing and completing a major will look really different at different schools. And so this must, I really strongly suggest that this goes into your sort of like overall calculus of what you end up majoring in.

Different schools have different timelines for when you have to declare a major or decide that this is what I’m going to be specializing in academically in college. Places require you to have, like, a concrete designated major when you enter, um, as a first year. Some places, and Yale is one of those places, um, you aren’t required to officially declare a major until the end of your second year.

Does it help in terms of overall getting through all the classes? You need to get through if you know and stick with the same major in terms of getting things done in a timely manner, yes. But also, the first two years at Yale are designed for exploring and designed to allow you to really hone in on what makes sense for you to specialize in and to get a lot of knowledge across many different fields.

different disciplines and many different ways of thinking and knowing. So that is a hugely different experience than a place like a technical school like Cal Poly San Luis Obispo where you’re very much expected to know, um, pretty specifically what you want to do. And, uh, the school is sort of very divided by discipline in terms of the resources and things you have access to, um, depending on what major you enter in with.

And, um, That being said, right, changing majors can thus be very easy or very difficult, right? Um, if you are at a place where majors are more flexible and you’re encouraged to explore, you can flop your major officially maybe two or three times, but there are some places where it’s almost impossible to change majors.

Change your majors. And what should be kept in mind in both of these cases too is that in some schools certain majors are deeply impacted, which means they have more students who are in or who want to be in that major than they have the capacity for in terms of staffing and resources. So that can also factor into this process.

Completing a major also depends deeply on the school and on the subject, how many classes you have to take, um, and what kind of classes those might be can really, really look different. So most schools have a list of major completion requirements on their websites. So I really recommend comparing, especially if you know what fields you’re interested in, you want to figure out what the best way is for you to explore that field in more depth.

And keep in mind, right, that for some careers that definitely require further schooling, the two most clear examples of this across the board are law and medicine. Some schools have dedicated pre majors, so a pre law or pre med major, but a lot of schools do not. They will have requirements, so you’ll be like told if you want to go to medical school, you will need these 13 classes for medical schools to consider you, but you will be able to choose a major of choice, right, and so that can, Really fluctuate depending on what you might want to specialize in, right?

Um, if you’re interested in specializing in neurology, your major could be neurology and you take your pre med, pre med classes. Um, but if you’re not entirely sure, then you can do like a biology or chemistry major, or even an art major, if you’re really interested in potentially doing like art therapy or something, right?

So being able to sort of designate again, which path makes most sense for you is a really important part of. getting to the point where you would choose a major at all. And so when you’re factoring your major structure into school decision making, and also into just general major decision making, here are some things that I would invite you to consider.

Number one, do you know what you want to do with your life? Because ultimately, the hope for a major is not that just That you learn new things, but that you eventually apply those things in some way, shape, or form. If no, if you’re like, I absolutely have no idea what I want to be, then that’s totally okay.

Choose a school where majors are declared later. If you want more exposure to lots of subjects and fields, also consider a school with stronger baseline core requirements. So you have to take classes across a variety of subjects before you choose. And I think There are so many cases where some people, where people find, um, deep passion or deep discovery through this exploratory process.

So I really want to encourage folks, um, if you are anxious about not knowing what you want to do with your life, or you’re anxious that your child doesn’t know what they want to do with their life, that’s totally okay. Just choose schools that will support that because also deciding what you want to do when you’re 18 and sticking with it for who knows how many years.

is really difficult, regardless of who you are. If you sort of know what you want to do with your life, but you want some flexibility, I would recommend choosing majors that encompass flexible requirements. And so that is what I chose to do when I entered college. I knew that I wanted to be in public health more broadly.

I knew that I wanted a job that helps people and that helps people specifically Heal or get better, but I wasn’t quite sure what that would look like in terms of the actual roles that I want on it. Right. You can be more in the research side of things. You can be more in hospital administration. There are tons and tons of jobs within public health as a field.

And so I wanted to be able to sample a little bit of everything and also to have the freedom to then start to customize my career and the skills that I was going to. learn that we’re going to further that career, um, based on the things I did know that I cared about. And so having flexible requirements and having majors where a lot of classes for me counted, um, for the major, even though they were across different departments, that was really crucial for me because that allowed me to take both, you know, um, Pretty intense, like statistical classes and more STEM oriented classes and also classes that were really focused on, you know, social conditions of medicine and history of medicine.

I spent a lot of time on medicine in the slave trade, which is not something I would have gotten to do in like a more applied public health major, like biostatistics or something. If you do, though, know exactly what you want to do and you are locked in. And again, this especially goes for folks that have careers that have a lot of additional training involved.

Look for schools that specialize in your major and also specialize within your major. So a really good example of this is if you are interested in engineering, I always recommend that students look at schools like Northeastern, because Northeastern has a really, really good Impressive job co op program where you’re able to work for different engineering companies while you’re still an undergraduate.

So if you know engineering is what you want to do, and you don’t mind living in Boston, that’s a great school to at least apply to because it’ll really help you get applied experiences. Earlier, it’ll give you a taste of what it actually looks like to work in your field, and it’ll give you really important networking and connections that will set you up so that you are ready to go off the bat when you graduate, as opposed to, like, having to build that infrastructure yourself.

Right? So these are things that I would consider. Or someplace like Purdue, right? Really well known for engineering. And, you know, obviously just talked a lot about careers, but it’s important to acknowledge that, you know, your major doesn’t have to, right, necessarily align with, um, your long term goals or arguably even your personal values, right?

A lot of it really depends on both the major itself and your personal life timeline, right? Um, as mentioned in the Northeastern example, majors can be a huge early career boost if you find the right program that’s aligned with your later goals. And your later goals there then stay the same. However, many people move laterally across fields.

I’ve seen a lot of folks in healthcare consulting move into other consulting that isn’t necessarily based in healthcare, but has the same consulting and problem solving skills. Um, Conversely, I’ve seen folks that were really coding or computer science specialists that have then moved into, um, being able to program and provide technical support for healthcare, right?

Whatever that might be. And so I would just say that acquiring flexible, but concrete skills is always a good thing. So being able to code, being able to project manage, being able to analyze literature, right? Analyze a series of academic. Whatever those skills that you feel might be helpful for you and your future, um, based on what you know you like and what you know you might want to do, regardless of field, there’s always something to look out for.

And again, right, different majors, different disciplines, different methods, so what skills you learn and how you’re learning them are going to to differ between majors. So those are things that you can think about. Um, but I would say, yeah, there are lots of folks that I know in college who majored in something that has nothing to do with what they’re doing now.

And there are lots of folks for whom their major drastically changed and deeply positively influenced what they’re doing now. So unfortunately, there’s no one great answer. I’m sure parents and teachers in the audience can probably affirm that. And it’s also always okay, um, to switch fields or to adjust fields if you aren’t happy or aligned with what you’re doing, even if that’s what you majored in.

It just might take a little bit more time and that’s okay too. In terms of being able to research different majors and potential career paths, I would say CollegeAdvisor is a great place to start. Um, we have a really helpful summer opportunities database that allows you to look through lots of applied, um, opportunities in, uh, That can really be beneficial in helping you narrow down what major choices you might be interested in if you are a client or a student with us on a plan, you can also look through the bios of other CollegeAdvisors and see what they majored in and also see what they’re doing now.

And if you want, and you have the hours in your package, you can ask your. primary advisor to set up a brief call with whomever it is might be aligned with you, just so you can ask more about their experiences. College websites, again, lots of information about, information about exactly what it takes to complete a major, and so I would really, really recommend that Going on to those major pages and reading in depth, like what does the major actually look like?

What classes am I actually going to have to take? Um, professional and informational interviews can be great. I find that the best way to get a better understanding of Basically, anything that you want to know more about is to ask someone who’s good at or at least has a lot of experience in that thing.

And so talking to people in, if you’re interested in a particular field and saying, what did you major in? Do you think that major helped you? And of course, then asking, right, what school did you go to? Do you think that would be different if you went to a different school? Is something that I think is really, really useful.

Um, conversely, you can definitely ask people that, you know, that are in college in a particular major. If you feel that they feel that that major is a worthwhile or beneficial experience. So, in general, talking to folks strategically. And intentionally can be really great. And if you’re an educator or a parent, being able to facilitate those kinds of opportunities for students can be really life changing and helping them have more guidance, or at least seeing a picture of something that they could be in the future if they wanted to be.

I also think that internships are really helpful. And I’ll talk about that a little bit more later. But internships are a great way to then. be able to ask folks, right, all of these questions and also to see what kind of skills are really going to be needed in jobs that you might be interested in pursuing post college.

The other thing I will say here is that, you know, a lot of this information can also be evaluated and discussed by folks in the great wide world of the internet. While a lot of things on the internet can and should be taken with a grain of salt and understanding what bias comes from, it’s Each source, places like Reddit, are sometimes really helpful for getting a wide range of lived experiences of folks who have taken a certain major at a certain school.

YouTubers and other social media influencers who talk about their collegiate life in depth can also be useful resources here as well. So again, be thoughtful in what you’re doing. You look at and what you evaluate and how trustworthy that information is, but I’ve actually found Reddit to be quite helpful.

Um, in terms of getting on the ground, up to date feedback about certain programs. And even if it’s not the sort of truth of what the program is, what people think about the program can sometimes be just as important in the world of academia. So in addition to that, you can think about sort of how you can identify your passions and interests to guide your choice of major.

I think that where people. often start is sort of what topics do I like, right? Um, am I really interested in, you know, social studies or am I really interested in English or history or whatever that might be? And I think that’s super important and super relevant. I would also think about how you like learning though.

Um, because again, depending on the school and depending on the major that learning may look different, right? Um, and um, Do you want a major that’s really focused on conducting interviews or really learning about the world from people directly, right? Um, and so you get to do a lot of interaction, get to do a lot of field research and learn more about folks.

Um, are you someone that is primarily A person who learns by doing and really wants a lot of applied classes in whatever field they might choose, right? Um, alternatively, you could just be like, please give me my screen, please give me my code. I will learn, I will regurgitate, it will be fun, right? So, whatever kind of learner you are, that’s going to be relevant here.

I would say as someone who’s pretty interdisciplinary, um, I really wanted to think about how different and Topics connected to each other and being able to synthesize across classes and across, um, across time periods and across Understandings of the world is where I find that I’m most interested in learning regardless of what the topic or the subject is And so I really wanted to choose a field that was conducive to interdisciplinary thinking and to partnership work and that’s something that’s paid off in dividends because I get to work with so many different people who do so many different cool things across the field of public health, and that, for me, is what makes me interested in continuing to pursue that field.

Also, I would really encourage folks to think about their larger life values, and you don’t necessarily have to figure those out, um, you can also, Use college and use your major as a starting point in thinking about these things, right? Um, stability is real, right? Are you going to be doing the same thing every day?

Or do you want to be someone that does something different every day? I have friends that are in disaster and crisis management response. And their work is really high adrenaline inducing. Um, you know, you never know when you’re going to get called into a new project. But it’s also really high impact.

And I am very impressed and grateful for the work that they do. And that simply could not be me. Um, so you really just want to think about, you know, sort of what makes sense for you in that regard. Also, your work life balance, right? Some fields are going to be really, really demanding fields like medicine, where you’re going to be working, you know, 14 to 24 hour shifts as a resident for another three years and doing another three years of really intensive medical school, right?

Um, yeah. That may not be what you want your 20s or 30s to look like, and that’s totally okay, but you do want to consider those things and then maybe choose a lower lift profession that will still do things that you are really interested in and still may provide you with the financial stability and the sort of ethos that you might feel like you’re getting from medicine, right?

Wealth. Important to acknowledge and just say out loud. Earning potential is higher in some fields than in others. Purpose, right? Um, do you feel like purpose is something that is necessary for you to get into the classroom or to wake up every day and then potentially go to a job? Or is it not really so much?

And is there, does there need to be purpose in just like work that’s being done? Like the goals of that work? Or does there need to be purpose in how you’re actually doing the work? Um, I have some friends who work, uh, you know, for food advocacy or for incarceration advocacy non profits, but they’re in communications or they’re in something that, um, you know, really isn’t intense, often traumatic on the ground work.

Um, and that allows them to have, right? Um, purpose in, you know, Who they’re serving, but also they don’t necessarily feel like my day to day tasks need purpose, right? And so when you’re thinking about major, and then how major can be then applied to a specific field, finding that kind of balance is something that I think is really important to at least start thinking through, um, as a college student.

And lastly, pacing. Again, some jobs and some majors are much more fast paced, um, do not allow as much time for exploration. again. And do not allow as much time for sort of learning at your own pace. And so you figuring out what makes sense for you, maybe you really rise to that challenge and maybe that’s not something you want to see in your life.

Either of those things totally okay, but you do want to keep that in mind before you hit week 11 of a semester and you feel really tired and burnt out in a way that is potentially adjustable if you choose a different major or focus in on a different field. Okay, I’ll turn it back over. Uh, for another poll.

Anesha: Yeah. Hi. So we’re going to just take another quick poll of where everyone is in their common application. I know that we have a fairly young group with us. So totally fine. You have not started, but I wanted to say, I really appreciated your approach in the last slide, Mariko, thinking about values and sharing some examples for each of those.

I think that’s actually really smart. Um, obviously, and then also something folks, it’s helpful to do at various points in your life and in career. I found that to be really helpful in changing over time or as you as you move forward. And so I really appreciate that reminder of checking back in with your values and thinking about how you move forward through the work.

Um. So yeah, thank you for sharing that. All right. As we are waiting for responses to come in, I’m wondering, was there one value for you that stuck out in your mind as you’re moving forward? Maybe not into college, but as you left college and were thinking about specific or left your master’s program or thinking about specific roles that you wanted to take on?

Mariko: That’s an excellent question. And I think for me, a lot of that value was being able to feel like I was doing something. important work and contributing to the world, but also that I could close my laptop at the end of the day and have a life that was separate. Right. Um, I think that a lot of work in health and healthcare can be really exhausting and really draining because you’re not seeing people who are at, um, what we hope to be.

They’re going to be right in terms of all the sort of problems that impact health in the world. And so being really mindful about choosing areas of specialty, where I am really passionate, I do want to make the world better, but also where Some of it is a little bit more contained, um, and that there’s a lot more joy in the field is something that’s really important to me because not everybody, not all my colleagues get that, right?

Um, because in drowning, for example, right, um, there are negative impacts obviously, but the really exciting part of that that I love, um, of being in sort of water safety is we get to also teach a lot of folks how to swim. We get to teach a lot of folks how to engage with the water. I get to be in the water sometimes, which is super awesome.

And as someone who played water polo in college, um, it’s really, really exciting to see access to that space, expand and to see more people, um, you know, fall in love with something that I was able to fall in love with as well. So thinking about, right, the fact that that was really important for me. And not necessarily something I flagged until going through COVID 19 and being in public health, I think.

Anesha: That’s awesome. No, I mean, you, you’re bringing up so many like really, really important points about work life balance and, and having that. And I think also having the thoughtfulness of like, if you are comfortable not having a life and kind of some people get, are very passionate and want to get thrown into the work and want to be working all the time for a period of time.

And so I think it’s helpful. to stop and ask that question of yourself as you move forward in the next steps. Um, all right, I’ll go ahead and close our poll. The majority of folks have not started. Again, we have a pretty young group, so it’s totally understandable, but we hope that tonight’s conversation continues to give you some context as you think about building your list and even as you go towards building essays, etc.

All right, I’ll stop talking. I’ll be back a little bit later for a Q& A and hand it back over to you.

Mariko: Great. Okay, so I’ll just continue to sort of talk through various factors in this section that might influence your major choice. Um, Beyond the sort of structure of the major itself and sort of getting more, um, continuing this sort of bigger, broader, like, more meta look at what a major can mean. Um, the first thing that I think comes up a lot, especially when talking with parents is, well, what about job markets?

Right? I want to make sure. My child or I want to make sure I am secure. Right? Um, I would say that in terms of considering job market trends, part of it depends on how much risk you want to accrue for yourself. Um, and I would say. It like this, some markets are more steady, but you’re earning potential might not be as high.

Right. And so an example of that is something like healthcare, right? There are certain positions you can choose in healthcare where we’re always probably going to need someone doing X, Y, and Z, like, we’re always going to need nurse practitioners, we’re always going to need doctors, we’re always probably also going to need like epidemiologists, right?

Um, yeah. And if you want to talk about like sort of real, real wealth, there is sort of like a cap to how much folks earn, right? There’s like a, unless you get really, really specialized in something. Similarly, education, we’re always going to need teachers, right? Um, there is a huge teacher shortage in this country right now.

So employment, probably. Earning potential is also going to cap, right? Um, and, and I think, A bigger comment on that is we should pay our teachers more, but right, whatever that might be, um, some markets have more potential growth and earning potential than others, right? And those markets might potentially reach some sort of bubble, right?

We can talk about tech as being an example of that, where there was a huge, huge boom for tech, um, in sort of the, like, Late 2000s through, I would say, like mid to almost late 2010s, but now we’re seeing some crashes in the market as a whole in terms of big tech companies laying folks off, not everyone necessarily being in that steady growth state all the time.

And there are a lot of other comments I can make about the industry right now. But all this to say, right, is that, like, there was a very, very lucrative time that was a little bit more high risk reward when folks are joining places like Microsoft or even Squarespace on the ground, right, in a more startup oriented space.

Um, some of those startups panned out and some of them didn’t, right? So you just want to think about, you know, what your level of risk is and what your level of reward is. The award ideally will be right. Um, this also sort of factors in also your level of post graduate competitiveness, right? How hard do you want to compete for limited, very lucrative jobs outside of school?

And that also factors into your longer life term goals. For me. I knew that I really wanted to come back to California after college. I have no intention of ever leaving California again. If I’m staying in the US, at least not for an extended period of time. And that is also. Going to and has shaped my choices in major in terms of what I focused on, um, when I was given the opportunity to do sort of individual projects within my major and also who and in what context I’m choosing to be employed now and where that might lead me in terms of next career steps.

Right? And so I think those things are okay. And I also think it’s okay. If, you know, You will, you are very happy to go wherever the most competitive job is, right? So again, those things sort of are going to factor into what that might look like for you. In terms of graduate school, right? Which might be one of those next steps.

Um, keep in mind that some graduate schools do look for or require specific undergraduate requirements, and again, this is. primarily medicine and to a certain extent law. There are certain things that they expect to see on that undergraduate transcript. Um, and I would say not just medicine, like all healthcare, right?

Nursing, um, therapy, social work, um, dental school. Right. There are certain prerequisite things that you need to know about the body in order to go on to graduate school. And that being said, if you don’t end up majoring in the thing you think you’re going to be majoring in, there are a number of good, what are called post bacc programs, or like a, uh, which is like, stands for like post bacc programs.

Baccalaureate or post bachelors programs that can allow you to complete all of those requirements after graduating from undergrad. They’re a little intense because you have to take a lot of classes over the course of one or two years. Um, and that will cost more money, probably, unless you get a scholarship.

So those are things to keep in mind. But, um, so it’s not the end of the world if you don’t end up choosing a major that works for you and you decide suddenly that you want to go to medical school, but do keep in mind, right, um, there is some long term planning for Most careers that you sort of know are going to be extra schooling anyways, right?

So I would recommend taking a look at what those graduate schools look for. If you think you might be interested in that, right? Um, and to a certain extent, things like business, right? We’ll be looking for similar things. Um, what I would say is equally important always though, is the story that goes along with the application.

If you can spin what major you did choose and what you learned from that major and potentially combine that with practical experience. Experience into a story that is compelling and makes sense for a graduate school. You may be considered over someone who has good grades and just the sort of standard courses, because you are sort of more interesting.

And there’s a very clear way in which you are going to contribute to the school and know, um, sort of why you need this degree or why you’re envisioning this degree for yourself. I think that was something to me that was really interesting to see in, reviewing, um, successful versus unsuccessful applicants into my specific five year program because there were some people who knew from day one I am going into this five year program, I am structuring my undergraduate major and degrees and summer opportunities to be as Fully set up as possible for, um, what is a pretty competitive application process your junior year.

I was one of those students and there were some people who applied pretty close to the last minute, but still got into the program because they knew how to spin what they had done and why they needed this degree and why they needed this degree then. Right? So just keep that in mind. Um, that that’s always a huge part of it.

This leads into, um, something I briefly touched on earlier, which is internships and practical experience in terms of determining the right major. I think that they’re really huge, um, and there may be folks in different fields that disagree with me, but You do not get a sense of how your major will potentially be applied to fields you’re interested in, and you don’t have a real sense of what the actual fields you might be interested in are until you actually go and do the thing.

Um, you may want to change paths after experiencing careers associated with a major in real time, right? Um, either in terms of further specialization, moving laterally in a field or deciding you don’t want to do that thing at all, right? Um, do keep in mind that one internship and one experience. At one school in one major may not reflect the entirety of that major or that field or that internship even, but I think it’s something that can be really, really useful, especially if you’re not sure.

Prior to college what you think what you think you might be interested in doing, right? Um, I would say like that was the case for me where I knew that I wanted some sense of purpose or some sense of meaningfulness in my career, but I had zero clue about discipline and I partook in a clinical Like ear nose and throat, um, medical internship in high school.

And I came out of that sort of very clearly being like, I could never, ever be a doctor. I could never be a clinical physician like that. The way that they learn and what they learn and how you have to learn it. It’s just not for me, but I did make it really clear that I wanted to go into healthcare and also exposed me to the world.

To a ton of other jobs and specialties that were in the field that I didn’t know about, or wouldn’t have thought to ask about before being in that program, because I saw folks who were doing those jobs and got to meet with and talk to folks in those fields. Um, and even in the clinical things that I found personally that I didn’t like, identifying dislikes is one way that you can sort of identify your likes through contrast, I knew I didn’t want.

X, Y, and Z, and therefore A, B, and C become much more viable options, right? Um, those kinds of things. Or I would see, right, hey, you know, we’re not really talking about this, or hey, there doesn’t seem to be a funding source or like a place in curriculum for this thing that feels really important in understanding people’s health and in studying medicine.

Why is that and how do we change it, right? And so, um, that was very much sort of my, Way into like health equity, um, and, and thinking more about how to combat medical racism, which has been something I delved really deeply into in college and it’s still something that I now focus on. Right. So I think that again, these kinds of experiences are huge.

And also keep in mind that, you know, um, folks are connected to other folks. So internships can be as internships and also that these are again, places for, um, Good informational interviews, because even if your supervisor or someone that is working with you does not have the answers or the experience that you might need to clarify or help shape your path in college and beyond, um, they might know someone who does, right?

They’re able to refer you to someone else. And so I think that is also something that’s been really key. And my growth and development has been really utilizing those professional. Connections. Um, sometimes it’s like a two or a three hop, but you end up in the place that you’re supposed to be. So I do think that’s really useful.

And I do like really strongly suggest that in terms of getting these in. And again, you know, having a lot of experience early, especially in high school is not a bad place to start. To be, and once again, when you’re thinking about like, oh, well, will this translate into a legible or strong college application, it’s again, sort of the skills and the tools and the lessons that you’ve taken.

from those internships and practical experiences and how you demonstrate how you’ve used those things to help your community further your own personal and academic growth, um, and how you’re able to write about them in the context of becoming the person that you are in the here and now when you write your application.

Um, and so you can bet that that clinical internship and how that helped me realize I didn’t want to be a doctor. All appeared at some point in my college application supplementals, even though it wasn’t like this sort of really clear and linear path. Like I wasn’t using it to brag. I was definitely like, this just taught me something about myself that I think is really useful and has helped me through a lot of other experiences, right?

So, In short, definitely recommend internships and practical experiences for determining the right major and also identifying what classes you might want to take, um, to improve your skills in the workplace once you’re there. So, I think that these things have sort of been touched on here and there throughout this presentation, but I do want to close with a sort of really comprehensive list of broad factors, um, that you can prioritize when making your final decision on a major Both in terms of your academic and long term fulfillment, um, in college and beyond.

The first thing I would recommend are identifying your constants or deal breakers. And these are things that I say are, you know, things that you could not live without. And again, you may not know all of these things, and that’s okay, but it’s good to start thinking. About what these are, and this also applies to things like developing your college list and choosing where you actually want to apply.

Right, what are your deal breakers or your must haves for school, which may include things like major and what are the things that, um, are going to automatically eliminate a school or a major or a field. For you, right? Um, the first two things I would say kind of go together. The more existential things are value and values that you hold, right?

Um, what are values that you really need and expect to see around you for you to feel like you are living your best life, whatever that might be. Right? Whether it’s service, whether it’s curiosity, whether it’s ambition, right? Knowing that those things are going to sort of be grounding in your academic career and in your career beyond that.

That’s going to be really important. And also, what is your sense of purpose in doing this, and do you need one, right? Again, some folks must be purpose driven in order to really buy into what it is they’re doing on a daily basis, especially in school, because, as I’m sure everyone who’s ever been to school knows, there comes a time where you don’t want to do the things that you’re assigned, right?

So you need something that’s going to be able to push you through that, and so being able to know what that thing is for you, um, and what continues to get you up in the morning when you would rather be in bed, um, is something that I think is really important to start thinking about. And you don’t have to have a set answer.

That answer can also really change over time. I would say mine has, for sure. Um, but being able to start articulating what that might be, or definitively what that might not be, right, um, are things that are really, really important to identify. Or at least to start thinking about in terms of your own personal and self development, um, within an academic context.

I would say for majors, also, really thinking about your learning style and your learning strengths, right? Um, you will probably, both in your major and outside of it, take a variety of courses that are, um, designed to expand, um, your skill set and for you to learn things that are new, that are out of your comfort zone, or that you might struggle at.

And those are really, really important parts of college. At the end of the day though, unless again, the sense of value or purpose is so high that it’s going to override this, you’re hopefully choosing something to specialize in. That plays to your strengths, right, um, or is something that you are hopefully, like, competent enough at that, like, you will be happy and you will make the other people around you happy for basic workplace functionality purposes, for grade purposes, and for life satisfaction purposes.

This is so starting to think about right, even if I don’t have a topic that I know I excel in, um, I know that I have certain skills that I see across different classes or across different experiences that seem to be valuable and lend themselves well to my academic career and my career at large, right?

Um, and again, those may differ between people and similarly, learning All right, learning style is going to be really different across different majors. And so you do want to think about that really critically and really carefully. Um, if you’re in microbiology, you might be in front of a microscope all day looking at very small cell samples.

If you’re in marine biology, you might be out in the field collecting anemones, right? Um, which is not something you would necessarily do. And you’re like really nitty gritty microbiome, right? Um, if you want to be that person that’s chilling in the lab, She’s micro. If you want to be the person who’s out in the field, she’s Marine, right?

So thinking about your style as well, um, and, and what’s going to again sort of make you feel fulfilled within that sort of value and purpose, right? Conversely, I would think about sort of what do you want or hope will remain flexible for you? So how do you hold space for the things that are not known or the things that you hope that at some point in your life you’ll have the capacity to change, right?

So it could be again the type of work you do, right? Um, whatever the topic of that work is. So if you become a really strong coder across a couple languages, you can hop fields or hop types of jobs, right. Um, or acquire different kinds of specialties within the work that you do. And. You can allow that to remain flexible, right?

Moving from a place like Apple Sound Design to video game construction, right? Very doable, um, if you have the hard skills to do both of those things. If you are someone who is hoping to travel, if you are someone who is hoping to live in multiple places, if you are someone who really wants to work remotely, right?

Considering that kind of location and what jobs are compatible with that, what majors are compatible with that. Can be really valuable and useful as someone who really, really benefits from in a number of ways from working remotely, both in terms of just like my overall capacity to do things, my love of my living room and my couch, and also my love of traveling and having family across multiple states and multiple continents.

Remote work is really important for me, and it’s really important to keep that flexible, right? Um, so. Thinking about how to choose a field that will support that is something that’s really important for me, but not may not be important for everyone, right? Um, and then also, right? Do you want your daily tasks to be flexible or do you want them to be really set and sort of dedicated to a specific routine, right?

Uh, there’s so much flexibility in what your job could look like, but there’s also so much. specialty and focus and what it could look like. And so figuring out which of those things feels better for you, um, is also something that you can definitely consider because that may impact the major that you choose, both in the learning within that major and also in the jobs that you can acquire afterwards.

All right. Okay. So I believe that’s all I have today. Um, but we can certainly now take some questions and answers.

Anesha: All right, before we transition over to our questions and answers, I’m just going to do a quick little PSA. So for, uh, Folks who are in the room and not currently working with CollegeAdvisor, obviously we’ve laid out a ton of steps and components and things to keep in mind as we go through the college admissions process.

And so CollegeAdvisor has a team of over 300 format admissions officers and experts who are ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process through one on one advising sessions. After looking at our 2021 through 2024 data, we found that CollegeAdvisor students are over two times more likely to get Schools like Harvard, Stanford and Princeton.

You can increase your odds and take the next step in your college admissions journey by signing up for a free 60 minute strategy session with an admission specialist on our team by using the QR code. That’s on the screen during that meeting, you’ll receive a preliminary assessment about your academic profile.

So some guidance around what are the subjects that you’re taking? How do they align with the majors that you’re expressing your interest in along with some initial recommendations on what you can do to stand out? Um. And yeah, so honestly, you can, we’ll keep the QR code up there and then we’ll transition to our questions.

The way that questions went the wrong direction there, the way that questions will work, you can go ahead and submit them in the Q and a tab. I’ll read them aloud to give medical an opportunity to respond and then she will obviously go ahead and share her response as well. Okay. So our first question, um, came as you were kind of talking about changes in technology in the future.

And so it’s a little bit to how do you plan for like, especially if we have a lot of ninth graders, there are a lot of jobs that don’t exist today, you know, that exists today that didn’t exist decades ago. So how do you plan for a shifting kind of technology field where there might be roles, um, in the future where, um, The job doesn’t necessarily exist today, but you’re trying to figure out how to build a roadmap to to a potential job in the future.

What advice, I guess, would you give to students thinking about that long term changes in careers?

Mariko: That’s a great question. I would say the first thing is to definitely keep in mind sort of what is at the cutting edge or what is at the forefront right now, and being as literate as possible in These new things, whether or not you decide to pursue them.

Right. Um, I think the like obvious low hanging fruit here is like understanding at least what’s happening with AI and also how it might, and hopefully will be like regulated in the future. Right. Um, I would say that in terms of tech development and, um, sort of tech skills, there will always be bread and butter skills that like will be useful for you to know, no matter what.

In the field, right? Um, and this is where this sort of, like, again, being very professorly about it, right, but the epistemological cornerstones of discipline will change, but they’ll also kind of be the same, like, they’re the same inquiry lines or the same Ways of thinking. You just might be thinking about new things and using different formats, right?

So being able to understand sort of what is the culture of a particular field and how people are learning the things that they’re learning. And how are people approaching problems in that field? Because. Even if the problems themselves change, the lens through which they’re approached, that can often take a lot longer and is a lot more for positive or negative resistant to that kind of change.

Um, so I would really recommend sort of thinking about that. And then also just knowing that there are some skills that kind of never go away in the workforce. So things like being good at time management. Right. Um, and being able to demonstrate that through like clear examples or like portfolios that you have of completed work, even if it’s not in field, um, being good at communication, right?

Um, being someone who is. Reliable being someone who’s a team player, right? All of these sorts of things that are sort of basic Workforce skills that I think will hopefully never go out of style So I would say that being able to develop again those sort of very basic building blocks as a younger person can really make a difference Um, especially in those early years when those things can really set you apart from other people who haven’t had those experiences

Anesha: Thank you.

Um, the next question is, is somewhat similar, but it’s building on changing majors. And so someone asked, what if I choose a major and later realize it’s not for me? What is that process and how do you kind of recover in the, you know, in college when you want to change your major if you feel like you need to change your major?

Mariko: Yes. So first of all, I would, whether you think you’re going to change your major or not, I would be, Well up to date on your college’s major change policies, right? Um, better safe than sorry. Number one. Number two, it tells you a lot about the flexibility of the administration, both in what they’re willing to do, and also what they like infrastructurally, like, can or cannot do.

Right? Because there are some things that, like, you are a university. For lots of different bureaucratic reasons may not be able to do. And it’s important to keep that in mind. It’s like a larger thing that happens within sort of collegiate landscape. And I would also say that, um, Even if you don’t change your major, you might have friends, right?

You likely will have a friend who wants to. So being able to be a source of help and support is never a bad thing. So that’s step number one. So before you even got into college, research the major change policies and see how hard it is. Right. Um, I would say the second thing in terms of changing majors is.

Is thinking about how laterally you want to hop, right? Like what things can potentially copy over from your first major into your second major. And also what things can you potentially petition for, even if they’re not normally counted as part of the second major. Right? So I would really recommend meeting with your faculty advisor, meeting with your new department head and meeting with your old department head to really advocate for yourself, um, because that can make it.

I think I maybe got out of like four or five classes that way over my time, which is a full semester’s worth of classes, um, at Yale, because I was like, hey, based on what I learned in this class, I’m pretty sure I don’t have to take this other requirement. Right. Um, and they were like, yeah, we have never had someone do this sort of back.

Or path before, so it never occurred to us, but you’re right, right? Um, the content of this class and we see the syllabus is the same, right? Or close enough. Um, and the one time I didn’t do it, I regretted it immensely and had to go to class at 8 a. m. every single Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So, I would really strongly suggest doing that.

Um, and the last thing is I would just really encourage you to Encourage yourself to give you courage you to give yourself grace and time. Changing a major can be a really difficult decision that can come with, you know, either internal or external social conflict in terms of how you feel about yourself.

Especially if it’s difficult to change majors or you’re changing a major from something that might be more competitive and lucrative to something you really enjoy or makes more sense for you. So I would just be really mindful about sort of if this is going to be a big decision, checking in with yourself, having a good plan for how you’re communicating this to others and building healthy boundaries within that.

And also logistically, it might mean that you’re path looks a little bit different than some of your peers. And so, um, both proactively mapping that out and having a good plan for yourself, um, are the best plan you can, but also again, sort of letting yourself be okay with the fact that no one’s progress is as linear as it might seem.

Um, and it is okay if that is you in this moment.

Anesha: Oh yeah, that’s, that’s great. Yeah. Um, I was just thinking about Just several students in my own kind of journey going through and backtracking. But also what you shared as far as I think that changing your major, the potential changing major should also influence your college list to some degree.

As you kind of saying at the start, I think about UCs that are very difficult to switch out of majors or, or certain majors. And so you do have to be very, very thoughtful about what you’re going into. And I think to your point of having conversations, it might be having some interesting conversations with your family about, is this going to be the right.

school for me if it doesn’t allow for that flexibility. Um, in talking about family’s next question is what if my parents want me to choose a certain major, but I’m interested in something else. I had this where I have a student who wants to be a music major, but his parents are telling him he needs to go major in biology and become a doctor.

So how do you kind of, you know, straddle those lines?

Mariko: Absolutely. So recommendation number one, there are often really cool ways that seemingly unrelated interests can be combined, um, if you start to really look into it and commit to that. Um, for example, music major and doctor. There are doctors who specialize in taking care of professional singers.

Um, I got to intern for one. She’s super dope, right? Um, so there are ways in which you can tailor your undergraduate experience towards that kind of specialty and also ways where like you can get your parents more on board if you’re like, no, like this will make me more uniquely employable, right? Um, by giving me a sort of niche or specificity in this field, that’s going to be useful, right?

It’s again, how. How you spin it. It’s what the story is around what you’re interested in. I would also say this is where minors are really great. This is also where study abroad programs are really great or summer programs are really great. Um, minors allow you, if your school has a minor system or double major system to pursue things that you might be interested in with a little bit less lift in terms of the number of classes you have to take.

Um, If you enter into a more concentrated summer program, especially if it’s only like a four week summer program, you can do that and a professional internship in the course of one summer. And you can have your four weeks to like, learn what you want to learn or do what you want to do right in a way that might still get counted for college credit, but allows you to take a little bit of a break from just sort of being long term goal focused all the time.

The last thing I would also say is that I would again, therefore be thoughtful in what you’re potentially choosing as your school going into it, right? Does the school have the resources to support potentially doing two very disparate things? And also, if you’re not going to be able to swing it, does the school have the elective flexibility to allow you to at least take classes in the things that you enjoy, right?

So if your major load is such that you’re going to be overhauled every semester with only major classes, That maybe won’t be as sustainable for you as going like, okay, so four of my classes will be pre med, but I will get this fifth credit. That is music. Right. Um, so I think there are a lot of different ways to go about that, but definitely people are into some really niche and specialized stuff.

And I think like the weirder and more interesting it is to you, the more likely it actually is that you’re going to stick with it.

Anesha: Yeah. I, yeah. And I think you, I think to your point about spin and being marketable, the more niche that you are, the more, um, commodifiable your skills are, uh, I think the better, better chance you have in the job market.

Um, our last question for you, um, is just, are there common mistakes that you’ve seen students make in choosing a major? Or are there, you know, things, I guess, guardrails or things that students may want to avoid when they’re thinking about choosing their major?

Mariko: Definitely. So number one is, I would say the, Strategy and choosing schools that absolutely is is right off the bat.

And if you are choosing schools, I think the UCs are a great example. Deadlines are coming up, um, that have really intense major systems. Be super smart and what you’re choosing In terms of the selectivity of that major and getting into the school first right because there are some majors at the UCS where you really do have to be in the top top percentage of students who are doing that in order to make it in on that major, but there might be a.

major that is adjacent to that, um, that still encompasses a lot of things you’re interested in, but it’s significantly less impacted. So you can like check the, and impacted again means too many people, not enough spots. So really check if you’re in that kind of situation, um, what the landscape looks like.

And then the second thing is bear in mind that like the topic And how the topic is taught at your school and in your major may look very differently. Like, I love biology, but the way that biology and intro biology was used as like a way to like weed out potential people who weren’t going to be pre meds at my undergraduate institution was really not fun.

And I did not like taking biology at Yale. Sorry, Yale biology 101 primer folks, right? Um, just because that wasn’t what I was super interested in and that wasn’t the way that I wanted to learn.

Anesha: All right. Thank you so much Mariko for, um, your thoughts and this presentation tonight. Thank you everyone for coming out.

We appreciate you. That is the end of our webinar. We hope you deepened your understanding of the connection between your college major and long-term career goals. Also, we hope you’ll join us for our future webinars. I will be back on November 18th for a session. I’ll preparing for college interviews, which is picking up, um, in the next few months, especially for folks who applied early on November 19th.

We have, we’ll have AO insights on what makes. So you get to hear from some former admissions officers about how they review applications and we’ll close out the month before Thanksgiving with a session on boosting your application with strong letters of recommendation on November 25th. So, until next time, take care and have a great evening.

But thanks for joining us tonight.