S/O: when did you know what you wanted to study in college?

[AnnieW625]

I knew for sure by my sophomore year in high school, but tbh I think this was highly unusual. I didn't have to complete a certain track of classes just the state A-F requirements for state college (the college prep route). I studied television and film with the intent of working in sports broadcasting and had that goal since I was a little kid. I kind of wish I would've done sports management or hotel management but neither program was big when I was in college. I don't work in either field now, but am still happy with what I studied. I work for the government in insurance.

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[niccig]

At 36! I had no idea what I wanted to be in high school, and little guidance from family or school counselor. I had excellent grades and was advised to go pre-med or law school (law degree is undergraduate degree in Australia), no one asked what do you enjoy? My first college class was contract law. I hated it! Now, I'm retrained for a health related field. I should've done the pre-med bachelors.

I want DS to have more guidance and exploration of options.


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[bisous]

My career is, at this point, nonexistent so take this with a grain of salt!

As I'm getting ready to think about working again, with my youngest set to start TK in a little over a year, I find myself mulling over the same three passions that I did my freshmen year in college which I find interesting. I ended up going with one of the three, (which I'm still passionate about) but didn't decide until my sophomore year in college. I guess I feel pretty lucky that the University I attended was very broad and flexible!

[lalasmama]

Wanted to be a midwife when I was in high school. But then went on to become a medical assistant. Now, 20 years later, I'm heading back to school more than likely, but no idea what for! Humorously, my middle daughter is now about to start school to be a medical assistant.

I've been in medicine since I was 16 years old (my first long-term babysitting family had a preemie with a heart defect, and I was caring for him 5 hours a day, 5 days a week when he was 6 weeks old), started in a medical office at 17 years old, and never stopped. I went for some additional classes to become a doula, and did lactation consulting classes, but never took my licensing test (didn't have enough hours when they changed the requirements).

So, medicine is all I know. I'm having a hard time trying to figure out what to do now!

[gymnbomb]

I figured out my major during the spring semester of my second year of college, but went through a few potential career options (with different grad school requirements) over the next year or two after that. Took 1 extra semester to graduate from undergrad since I changed majors halfway through. So glad I took my time and chose what I did though, I love how things ended up!


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[nfceagles]

I can't remember not knowing that I wanted to major in math and I did, but I think That's pretty unusual. Decided I wanted to be an actuary when I was a junior in high school and did so. Always knew I might change my mind, but never did. I never struggled with those decisions.


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[specialp]

I knew before freshman year HS and worked in the field for years before becoming a SAHM. It's unusual, but my two closest middle school/high school friends were the same way. I didn't, however, have a good idea of the type of life I wanted outside of the career and how the chosen career would fit in with that.

[klwa]

I went back & forth between a couple of options until my senior year in high school. I finally realized that no matter how much I thought I'd like the work done by people in the other degree, I hated the biology requirements involved. So, engineering it was.

I didn't catch the multiple entries on the poll, so I didn't put down that I work in the field I studied, so add one mark into that column.

[anonomom]

I decided when I was 8 that I wanted to be a lawyer, and that never changed. However, since I was going to law school, I didn't have a specific college major in mind and didn't actually declare until sophomore year (english lit). I've been a SAHM for 11 years, and I'm edging closer to employment either back as a lawyer or in some kind of political public service. I loved practicing law and still love using the research/writing/critical thinking skills I learned in law school.

There are times when I wish I could switch gears entirely and retrain as a librarian. I love working with books and think being a school media specialist is pretty much a dream job. But at this point, getting the education that would qualify me for such a position would be prohibitively expensive, especially since there's no chance I could ever earn a salary that would pay back those costs.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Never. I randomly picked a major then switched after semester 1 in college. Turns out I didn't really find it to be the right fit either (elementary ed) but I was pretty far along. The classes for ed are such a hodge podge that I just worked with my advisor to complete a BA.
There are so many interesting careers out there but I feel like you don't hear about them, at least not the way you hear about traditional jobs (doctor, lawyer, teacher, accountant, engineer, architect...).

ETA- in hindsight, my original major (communications) probably would have been great for event planning (I do corporate conference planning now).
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[TwinFoxes]

I knew the field I wanted to work in ever since I can remember. Knowing what major to do was a little harder, there's no one major that fits my field. I majored in one of several that are common in my field.

I will say, a lot of people that I went to undergrad with knew what they wanted to do when they started college, and are working in the field they studied for. Especially people in the sciences, all of my friend who are doctors went into undergrad saying they wanted to be doctors. All of my engineer friends started out as engineering majors (at Berkeley it would be very hard to decide when you were say a sophomore or junior that you wanted to get into the school of engineering.) My friends who are attorneys all majored in subjects that involved a lot of critical thinking. It might depend on the school, but in my experience a lot of people knew what they wanted to do and worked to make it happen. Of course, it's not true of everyone, but I don't think it is as rare as people seem to think. And even if you know your major, you usually still have to take a certain number of courses outside your major to graduate (at least that's how it was when I was in school) so you still get a well-rounded education and have the chance to explore other options.

[minnie-zb]

I knew prior to high school and I've always worked in my industry.

[meggie t]

I decided when I was 8 that I wanted to be a lawyer, and that never changed. However, since I was going to law school, I didn't have a specific college major in mind and didn't actually declare until sophomore year (english lit). I've been a SAHM for 11 years, and I'm edging closer to employment either back as a lawyer or in some kind of political public service. I loved practicing law and still love using the research/writing/critical thinking skills I learned in law school.

There are times when I wish I could switch gears entirely and retrain as a librarian. I love working with books and think being a school media specialist is pretty much a dream job. But at this point, getting the education that would qualify me for such a position would be prohibitively expensive, especially since there's no chance I could ever earn a salary that would pay back those costs.

Funny how those two degrees can be aligned. I knew in high school that I wanted to major in history and then get my library science degree. I did, worked for two years and then decided to go to law school. I loved legal research. Got a job in that field before having children. I SAH now but still love my educational choices.

[khm]

I got a degree in engineering. Regret! I started on that path and was too stubborn to "quit engineering and major in business" as was common. I wish I had a more general degree, and had had exposure to different things.

Anyway, it is a long way behind me now and I've managed to not be an engineer. :) But, I don't have a really..... specialized career.

Unless my kids have a real real certainty of what they want, I hope they start out with something more general until they figure things out!

[gatorsmom]

Annie, you aways post the most interesting polls!

I knew what I wanted to study when I was a high school sophomore. I wanted to be a child psychologist/therapist. I started studying those classes in college and loved them. Somewhere in my junior year I started having doubts and I went to 2 different college advisors to discuss. They both talked me out of psychology. I don't remember exactly what scared me off. I think it was a combination of things- the job market was tough to break into then, I'd have to get a masters to be taken seriously in that field and that meant school loans which my parents talked me out of, etc). One of the advisors suggested getting a business minor and working in Human Resources. I added on the business minor in my junior year. I did end up working in Human resources for 7 years and I learned a tremendous amount. I had a fantastic mentor who I am still in contact with even after quitting HR to be a stay at home mom 14 years ago. I don't regret changing my job goals but now that my youngest are 9 years old, and I've done so much research trying to figure out ds3's issues (ADHD, SPD and anxiety) as well as DH's issues and it's given me the urge to go back to school and pursue therapy again. So I'm quietly and gradually considering and researching my options and avenues. DH and I have talked about it and he is totally supportive. I'm considering going back to school when the twins are juniors or seniors in high school. Nothing (at all) definite about that yet.

[egoldber]

Ha! Never? I was undeclared until I started spring of my sophomore year. Then I had no idea what to do, so I majored in math. Come senior year with graduation approaching, I still had no idea what to do with my life. My advisor convinced me to apply to grad programs in statistics, saying it would give me various career options that paid well and played to my strengths. And he was right. ;)

[abh5e8]

I knew I wanted to be a doctor from middle school or junior high age. I didn't have a strong preference for an undergrad major, but my dad insisted I study engineering, "just in case." I didn't really enjoy it, but it was also not overwhelming. I survived. Maybe it gave me that extra little motivation to get into med school. I love my work and can't see myself ever doing anything else.

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[lizzywednesday]

I made a decision my Senior year of high school to major in my major (English) but really didn't think about what I'd be doing with the degree once I'd graduated. My father regretted that I hadn't gone into business or something (I had no interest whatsoever in a business degree) but he didn't tell me that until I was a Junior or Senior in college, by which time I'd missed the opportunity to take any business courses or apply to the business school.

While in school, I worked in the microforms & current periodicals room at the university library (work-study freshman year) and then for the university information & referral service, which had partnered with undergrad admissions the year I began working there (November of sophomore year.) I started as an inbound call-center rep, helping prospective students, their parents, the university community, and the general public navigate the complexities of the university. I added "historic walking tour guide" within a year, then I earned a spot at the email Q&A service, and the prerecorded, low-energy, informational radio service over the course of the next few months. When I was a Senior, the service created a job that seemed custom-tailored to my skill set and interests. I was able to pick up a few tech-ish skills and get into HTML (I helped maintain the calendar for the bus tours offered by undergraduate admissions, for example, and we edited that in plain text HTML because GUI-based editors were still in development at the time) and think a little like a programmer.

Anyway, after graduation, I started out searching for positions that required the tech skills, but without a CompSci or CompEng background, it was hard to be taken seriously. The job I eventually got combined the markup language skills with the writing/editing involved with my degree (sort of) and led to a stint as a junior content editor layered atop the original job ... and then back to the original job, where less and less emphasis was placed on the tech skills and more emphasis was placed on project management because so little of the markup editing & troubleshooting was being done in-house.

So, to an outsider, yes, I used my degree in my line of work because I worked in publishing, but to me, I didn't really use it.

However, I'm not sorry I majored in English. I feel like there are plenty of places where I'm using it, even if they're not immediately obvious! I insist I don't have professional writing experience, but I wrote an awful lot when I was transitioning projects, giving instructions to outsourcers and offshore partners, and communicating needs to my managers.

[chottumommy]

I wanted to do computer science right from when I was 10. My mind works in patterns and it was very easy for me to understand and pick up computer science. I never looked back and none of the other majors really interested me. I was in the top 1% nationally and got easily into my college of choice and in my major of choice.

But this terrifies me when I think about my kids. I have no way of guiding them regarding choosing majors if they are conflicted. DS1 is a lot like me and his interests and his apptitude for robotics makes me think that's the direction he'll go. DS2 on the other hand is all over the place.

[StantonHyde]

I ALWAYS wanted to be a veterinarian. Then the summer before college, our cat got really sick. We were giving her infusions at home. She cried when we put the needle in. I couldn't handle it. The idea of having to hurt an animal to help it. I was used to worming horses and giving them shots but that was for healthy animals. So I figured I would still major in Bio. Well, I changed my mind when I studied 20+ hours for my first Chemistry exam and got a C. I wrote a 5 page paper for Poli Sci in a short amount of time and got an A. Clearly, I had found my niche.

I have an MA in International Political Economy with a Latin American emphasis. I was going to work for the World Bank or IMF doing political risk analysis (I graduated college in 87). My first visit with my grad school advisor--he says Political Risk Analysis is a dead field. Look at doing international trade. okkkkkkkk.

Got my degree and started in banking to be a loan officer--trying to figure out some stuff, maybe work in the International Lending area. I HATED IT!!!! Thank goodness I got laid off after 9 months. It took me 6 mos to find another job. That led me to work in Quality Improvement and Training/Development. I went to a SMLA college. I had no idea you could even work in HR. My parents worked as a doctor and a nurse. To them, you trained for a science profession and that is all you did for the next 40 years.

So I crafted my own path. The MA has gotten my foot in the door for other jobs so that's good. I would say that what my degree gave me was the ability to write really, really well. My family life taught me how to talk to clinical people. I now translate what is clinical into regulatory-ease. And people love me for it because they don't want to do my job. And I won't do clinical work--for a number of reasons. I have been happy facilitating quality teams, then training, then managing the Training and OD department, then stepping aside after kids and doing regulatory compliance. I now have a broad range of skills that will allow me to work in a variety of positions. If I hadn't had to be on the mommy track, i could be doing a great deal more. But I am where I am and that's ok.

[AngB]

I have a teaching degree that took me 6 yrs to earn since DH was in the military and we moved 3 times while I was in school. :thumbsdown::thumbsdown:

I am back in school for sonography and graduate this winter. I like it a million times more but that's easier to say while still in school (though granted basically working for free now since we have 4 days of clinicals each week.)

[DualvansMommy]

I had a love of books and the languages, but not awfully proficient in languages though. So that deterred me a bit from it, and went with a general BA track however fell in love with the Social Work course I took as an elective. Rest is history, graduated with BA in psychology but went on to earn MSW as I knew I wanted clinical areas. Just wasn't sure what/where, and it just seemed my life decisions dedicated the career path I've been on since 1999. I worked in mental health field the longest over my other two sub fields, when I left the workforce to raise my boys. Now I'm feeling a new path with domestic violence and sexual violence, particularly within deaf community. It's something I've grew passionate after working with many of my patients needing mental illness help. It's all tentative right now, but it's with the idea I'll enter back into the community as a volunteer to help me see the whole field much better.


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