{"id":2871,"date":"2020-01-30T19:27:41","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T02:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.decidemymajor.dev.cc\/?page_id=2871"},"modified":"2020-03-27T10:46:28","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T16:46:28","slug":"identifying-majors","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.decidemymajor.dev.cc\/main-sequence\/identifying-majors\/","title":{"rendered":"Identifying Potential Majors"},"content":{"rendered":"
Whether you’ve got your top majors picked out or you’re still struggling to find a single major that excites you, now’s a good time to do some brainstorming.<\/p>\n
One common approach to brainstorming is to look at a long list of majors. Unfortunately, seeing the names of majors doesn’t help you understand what they actually entail. By relying on a list to discover new majors, you end up judging them based on how familiar you are with them and how cool their names sound. Consulting lists can be a fine way to pick a name for your new goldfish, but it’s inadequate for deciding how you’ll invest four years of your life.<\/p>\n
So, let’s try a different approach to brainstorming majors. If you’ve settled on either career prep or self-improvement, read only that section. Otherwise, read both.<\/p>\n
Here are two options for you to try:<\/p>\n
To start, identify the career factors you want most. Are you looking for a high salary, a stable 9-to-5, a fast-growing industry, or something else entirely? Whatever it is that most resonates with you, try Googling it with the word “careers”. This should lead you to jobs that match your priorities. For each job, research the optimal degree path to become qualified. (The easiest way to do this is to search for “major for” plus the name of the job.) If the qualifications seem do-able, add it to your list. For each major you add, make sure to jot down its corresponding career and what key factor makes it appealing. Don’t worry about trying to compare the majors you find; we’ll talk about how to do that on the next page. Your goal now is just to brainstorm good options.<\/p>\n
As an example, let’s say that I am particularly interested in trying to land a stable career. (Maybe my parents were both laid off from separate industries during the 2008 recession, so stability was ingrained into me as a top priority.) Searching for “stable careers”, I was able to find lots of potential job options. One of them\u2014database administrator\u2014caught my interest, so I did a follow-up search for “major for database administrator”. The results told me that the most relevant majors would be information technology and computer science. Both of these are feasible undergraduate degrees, so I added them to my list.<\/p>\n\n