Jobs and majors

[Sip]

For God's sake don't major in English if engineering is at all a possibility in your future It is easier to start down the engineering path and then fall back on one of the "other" majors than to go the generic route and then try to retarget yourself towards engineering. The main reason is once you waste a couple of years taking those misc liberal arts courses, anything you did manage to have in terms of math will be gone and it will be much more difficult to try to recover and take the more technical courses.

 

I don't know what sort of academic background you have but the good news is, it usually becomes very clear very fast whether you have what it takes to go down any of the engineering paths. But even if you do decide to do English, Communications, or any of the wide array of other random non-techy majors, then at least try to take a couple of math courses here and there to keep your brain active. You should at least have multi-variable calculus, differential equations, and either some complex analysis or discrete math in your first year and a half of college.

[Sip]

By the way, this is not to say that English major is a "dead-end" per se as there are those that major in English and then go on and take the MCAT and go to med school. It all really comes down to what kinds of courses you take ... do you focus on 12th century middle english classics or intro to matlab. I can pretty much guarantee you that 99.999999% of jobs out there will require one a LOT more than the other (and no, it's not the 12th century classics -- even though I made the name up)

[Sip]

Ok and while I'm on a roll here ... the other thing to keep in mind is that the more books you end up reading (with lots of words) in your particular major, the less money you will make at the end. That's just a basic fact of life. So if money is what you want, stay away from the kinds of majors that are going to require you to read and read and read. That's not where the money is at.

 

Note to self: Remove foot from mouth later

[nairi]

You can always write a best-seller and be done with for the rest of your life. Or go into publishing. An English major can get you into many places, including journalism, politics, and education. If you have the smarts, the energy, and the passion, you can reach quite high and make enough dough to make engineers, lawyers, and doctors alike wish they had majored in the liberal arts.

 

[vava]

You can always write a best-seller and be done with for the rest of your life. Or go into publishing. An English major can get you into many places, including journalism, politics, and education. If you have the smarts, the energy, and the passion, you can reach quite high and make enough dough to make engineers, lawyers, and doctors alike wish they had majored in the liberal arts.

 

Again, I think it's less about your major and more about your attitude and work ethic.

[Stormig]

The unlikely idea: earth sciences. Great fun, and you never know where you end up. I had no idea at the time when I was making my choices that a geologist could have a couple hundred K - or more - in shares in the consulting company he worked for alone. Of course, it depends on whether you are motivated enough to take the risk of metabolic syndrome. Even if not, still it could be great fun, entirely satisfying, depending on what floats your boat.

[shaunt]

Studying law, and hoping to find employment at the UN, State Department, CIA, or FBI (in that order).