People who have gone to college or are soon..

[durrell]

Well the time has come from me to decide what in God's name I want to do with my life. All my teenage years I have figured upon being an engineer. Even recently, I got the major requirements for a B.S. in Engineering. But it is also recently that I have realized how much I have a sincere hatred for math. So engineering is looking worse and worse by the day. My best subjects are History and English. I also enjoy politics. I've considered majors in History and Political Science, with a minor in business? I know I would enjoy either of those, but the question is what I could do with them. History covers such a broad spectrum of things, I really would have the option to do things in many fields from journalism to being a historian.

So basically what I'm asking is..when you went into college..how did you decide on what major to choose? What did you base it off of? Did you just always know you wanted to do that major? I just don't like this feeling of being a high school senior and not knowing what major I want to go into. I do know I'd like to go to UNC Chapel Hill, which is more of an arts and social sciences school. It has always been a dream of mine to go there and I plan to transfer there from my local community college.

Any input is GREATLY appreciated from you older, wiser members.

And please, no one come in here and tell me to go somewhere for partying. I don't party and I never will. It just holds no interest for me. So unless you have something to contribute to solving this dilemma for me, then don't bother with the "college is for partying" BS.

[shunut]

You are young and will probably change your mind 10-20 times on what your major is going to be. My suggestion is don't declare your major yet, go get your pre-reqs out of the way and you will figure it out somewhere in there.

[Nader]

I'm not Older and *ahem* Wiser.....but I agree with Shu; it's what I'm doing now.

[timmyshoota]

I changed my major 4 times before settling on Photography. I had always seen the pics the local photo buffs had taken on a local car forum and I got interested. Bought a camera and got hooked. I'm going for my associates in applied art right now, and after that I'm gonna enroll in a school for the arts to get my bachelors.

I think you should go into politics. Maybe not in the representative aspect, but in some other way.

[durrell]

Originally Posted by timmyshoota

I think you should go into politics. Maybe not in the representative aspect, but in some other way.

Any suggestions? Are you speaking of something like maybe a lobbyist or something of that sort?

And I have already gotten almost 30 hours of pre-reqs out of the way as a high schooler..so I really need to start seeing if there's anything I can get out of the way for my actual major while I'm getting my 2 year at the community college.

[FredPo]

D, you are going to want to go into something that really interests you. If you hate math, I am highly advising you not to go into engineering as you already know it'll be a lot of math. I too wanted to be an engineer in high school but I realized that I hate math. I had read a little bit of psychology and I was really interested in it, hence I took up psychology. I enjoy reading most of the psy textbooks I have and being interested allows me to easily engage myself into the subject. In essence, you should choose something you enjoy studying and in college, you'll figure out what you want to do with your knowledge in your area of interest. Don't be persistant on knowing your career before you enter college as you may change your mind throughout college.

Fred

[timmyshoota]

Originally Posted by durrell

Any suggestions? Are you speaking of something like maybe a lobbyist or something of that sort?

And I have already gotten almost 30 hours of pre-reqs out of the way as a high schooler..so I really need to start seeing if there's anything I can get out of the way for my actual major while I'm getting my 2 year at the community college.

I'm not really sure of all the jobs in politics, so I can't think of something that would fit you. I agree with Fred though, do something you are REALLY interested in. All my friends who dropped out, and I, were not really interested completely in our majors and dropped out. I only recently went back when I found something that interested me.

[calebh]

college is for partying :P

but seriously. im more of a take life as it comes kind of guy. im a senior, and i dont have a real specific idea of what i want to do with my life either. i do know im not going to a community college. i want to get as far away as possible from my current rest-stop-on-the-interstate/town, cuz it sucks. and somewhere different will have different opportunities for me to find something that truly interests me. right now, the list of majors im interested in is pretty long. poli sci, theology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, anthropology, music, business management (esp. music business management ), comp. sci, law, heck, most forms of art appeal to me, whether photography, writing, design, architecture... you get the idea. if general scholar is a major, its for me

anywho, my plan is just to experience as much as i can the first few years of college and go from there. whatever i end up doing, i want to help others. i dont want to be some 40 year old guy who gets burned out cuz im not living for anything or anyone but myself.

[Hoppy11]

OK.. Well as soon as I took my first drafting class my sophmore year in HS, I was hooked. So throughout HS I took more drafting classes and CAD classes (4), and one year long architecture class. I loved it. So my junior and senior year I really started looking into what colleges have good archi programs. Well there are only 3 colleges in Michigan that have archi programs.. so I applied to all three.. got accepted to all three and got scholarships to all three. So then I had a decision and long story short, I found out that the college I am atending now, Lawrence Technological University, is one of the most acredited colleges in Michigan and even the nation for arch. So here I am now, writing this post at 4 in the morning from my dorm at LTU. I am very happy so far and should have a good future ahead of me.

BTW - If any of that sounds like complete bogus or w/e it is prolly because I have gotten about 7 hours of sleep in the past 64 hours and spent a majority of that time hovering over a drafting board.. my brain feels like a big ass pile of mush. Welcome to architecture ..............

[vikingshadow]

I was the guy that teachers always chose to be the future "teacher." I don't know why, but I hated the idea - there was no way I was going to be a teacher.

When I went to college the first time, I was geared to go into advertising because I loved the show "Who's the Boss?" where the main female character was in advertising and made it sound awesome. BUT, I also considered coaching (I played baseball at the time.) Then, I went through a couple of computer classes (early 80's, wish I had foresight ability back then!) then a few art history classes before finally coming full circle to advertising and graphics design.

When I graduated, I got into advertising (finally) and ended up HATING it. I had recently gotten married, and she had tons of nephews and neices - seriously, like 20. I was spending a lot of time around them, when one day it hit me - I think teaching would be cool, but not at the HIGH SCHOOL level, I'd teach GRADE SCHOOL!

Went back to school and got my teaching degree, now I love it and couldn't imagine doing anything else.

What I'm saying is, you never know what you're going to like until you actually get into it. First thing you should do is speak to your high school counselor - ask her for some information on the fields you like. Then go to your prospective colleges/universities and see what kind of degrees they offer (one of the cool things I found was that there were so many degrees within each subject!)

Then, once you get to college, keep an open mind. Don't declare a major for a couple of years - get your basics out of the way and talk to your advisors. By then, you should be able to come up with an idea....

Also, find a school that has an active partying scene - not necessarily for the parties (though you should attend a few - networking in college is one of the best things for your future you could do.) What I've found is that at those colleges, the teachers are more relaxed and loose and actually TEACH you what you need to know, not just give you cold facts and stuff...you can also get more personal with them.

Relax! There's plenty of time for you to "find yourself." I think with History and English as your primary thoughts, teaching might be good. The world needs more good teachers - you can start with teaching in mind, then move up to politics or teaching in college or whatever....