Help with college

[locked&loaded]

Im applying for colleges and am starting to get worried about what I want to do. I know many go into college undecided and pick there major in two years but Im not sure ill make the right choice. Im worried that my major will be useless and ill be paying off college with a job i dont need a degree for. Trutfuly i like working outside, i thought i would major in conservation but i feel its a dead end, any opinions or hints>? anything?

 

[Yeagermeister]

Computers/IT these things are going any where

 

[Chief]

Im applying for colleges and am starting to get worried about what I want to do. I know many go into college undecided and pick there major in two years but Im not sure ill make the right choice. Im worried that my major will be useless and ill be paying off college with a job i dont need a degree for. Trutfuly i like working outside, i thought i would major in conservation but i feel its a dead end, any opinions or hints>? anything?

These are the best times of your life, so try not to worry too much. The worrying comes later, with kids, mortgages, etc.

You mentioned working outside in some sort of conservation job. Talk to people who are in that field -- forest rangers, Bureau of Land Management guys, etc., and find out from them how they got there. Talk to people in the private sector, in the workforce, because the people at the colleges are many times clueless about what goes on outside their campus.

Also, college isn't for everyone. If you can find a trade you enjoy, pursue that through an apprenticeship, trade school, etc.

 

[joseephuss]

Start taking the basics for an engineering degree. Get the initial math, chemistry and whatever other pre-requisite classes out of the way. You can then focus on which type of engineering you want to get into. You can go into environmental engineering. There will always be work for an environmental engineer and I think it will cross over to conservation.

 

[Danny White]

I don't think conservation is a "dead end." I think it's actually a high-growth field.

I don't know if you'll ever get rich going into it, but if you end up going into a field like environmental engineering, as Joseephuss mentioned, then there's probably good potential to make some money doing that.

But most of all, do something that you enjoy and will love doing. There's nothing worse than finding yourself in a field you hate. No amount of money is worth that.

I ended up majoring in English Lit, because I knew I'd really enjoy it... even though it has a rap for being a soft discipline and a field without much of a future outside of teaching. Anyway, I ended up finding a profession that took advantage of that background... a job I didn't even know existed when I was in college... and I couldn't be happier.

So follow a path that you know will make you happy, and then worry later about finding a good job that fits your talents and aptitudes. There are so many professions out there that you probably don't even know about, but will reveal themselves once you're in that field.

Hopefully that all makes sense.


Good luck.

 

[locked&loaded]

All great advice. I know I want to go to college, even if i didnt its pretty much a must. the idea of conservation engineering is tempting, although I might hate the math. i suppose ill end up going into college undecided than in two years pick something. I was thinking maybe i would major in something useful and minor in something i like. Is this a bad idea?

 

[masomenos]

All great advice. I know I want to go to college, even if i didnt its pretty much a must. the idea of conservation engineering is tempting, although I might hate the math. i suppose ill end up going into college undecided than in two years pick something. I was thinking maybe i would major in something useful and minor in something i like. Is this a bad idea?

I did what you're talking about and just went into college without a real plan at first and thought I'd figure it out as I went along. Don't do it. It's much more difficult to stay committed to your classes when you don't have a plan. You end up questioning why you're there and it just creates more anxiety about your lack of a declared major. Talk to an adviser at the college that you're thinking about attending and tell them what you've told us. You say that you may hate the math required for an environmental engineering degree but maybe it's not as bad as you think.

Go in with a plan and don't only take Gen. Eds. your first two years. You'll get bored and lose focus. If you talk to an adviser and don't think you can handle engineering, then go with conservation. Take courses aimed at your major as soon as possible. You'll be able to tell early on if it is something that you're going to enjoy. If you decide that you don't like it then you will have wasted little time. If you wait two years and are still unsure (which is very possible) and then decide to take conservation courses then you'll waste a lot more time and money. At that time, with all your Gen. Eds. out of the way, you'll be taking full semesters aimed at one discipline. So, if you hate it, you end up wasting an entire semester.

That's my advice.

Also: If you major in something useful, like accounting, and minor in something you enjoy, like conservation then you won't get a lot of use out of the minor. Typically a minor has value when it provides emphasis to your major by complementing it. For instance, majoring in Political Science and minoring in Philosophy, or majoring in Economics and minoring in Stats. A minor, by itself, does not really provide a lot in the way of career opportunities.

 

[Doomsday]

I wouldnt worry about your major as much as just getting a degree. Most people change careers multiple times in their life, as long as you have a degree you can do pretty much anything you want down the road.

 

[masomenos]

I wouldnt worry about your major as much as just getting a degree. Most people change careers multiple times in their life, as long as you have a degree you can do pretty much anything you want down the road.

That's a good point too and that's another reason why I think it is important to just choose a major from day one.