What should my major be?

By senior year of high school, many students know what they want to go to college for. There are some that know they don’t want to go to college, some that want to but don’t know what for (bad idea), some that just…don’t…know.

Well for those who know what they want to do but don’t know about a major, or those that don’t know what major they want but want to go to college, I’m here to help. For the categories of don’t want to, don’t know if they want to, or can’t decide what or why, don’t go (yet).

For the undecided, it is going to be most useful to figure out what it is you are hoping to do after college. You want to be an artist? What kind? Photographer? Painter? Actor? Digital media artist? Do you want to go into medicine? What kind? Law? What kind? All of these things will help you narrow down what your specific major will be. Of course, you don’t have to be that specific, as long as you are getting the general requirements for whatever you need, whether it be a job or a master’s or a doctorate.

For the decidedly decided:

Pick something that relates to what you want to do, if not explicitly required. Unfortunately there are many options for degrees even if you know what field you want to go in, so it can be difficult without quite a lot of research. For example, if you want to go into environmental science type fields, there is environmental science, environmental law, environmental conservation, environmental sustainability. All of them will have many classes in common. You’re going to choose the one that most closely relates to your end goal (law school, park ranger, wind mill technician). If you want to go into law, your major doesn’t matter at all, but you will want to pick ones that not only prepare you for your LSAT but give you a background in your specialty and/or exposure to many different things (medical law, real estate law, economics, conservation and environmental law; many many english classes for the LSAT). If you want to go into medicine, should you take nursing classes? You could become a fully certified nurse if you wanted to apply to med school as long as you take the classes. Most go with a biology major because it shares many of the requirements with those for med school applications. But there are chemistry majors, health science majors, physical education majors, and even english and art majors that take extra classes in physics and biology and chemistry to apply to school, and then there are those that get the pre-med major (that has many of the requirements of a biology major without the benefit of a degree in anything useful). Similarly, there are veterinary medicine applicants with degrees in pre-veterinary medicine (useless by the way), biology, chemistry, art, physics, and those without degrees at all (a degree is not required). You want to be an artist? You don’t even need a degree! A degree is not even going to help you! But you can get a degree and take classes in whatever you want, you could be an astrophysicist by degree and an artist by trade. Want to be a physician’s assistant? Classes in biology or health science are going to be helpful but there is no degree requirement. Pharmacist? Most go with chemistry or biochemistry because they are most relevant. Want to pick a degree with good prospects and apply for whatever job comes along? Engineering and chemistry have the most opportunities, biology degrees are built up but have very limited options as far as jobs without further education.

If you just really want to go to college:

You can start out as undecided. For the first year you’re going to take all the gen ed classes anyway, you just won’t have the head start of taking classes in your major. By second year, you are running out of basic classes to take and you can get your electives out of the way but you’ll really have to decide. Unfortunately many undecided majors that I have met usually drop out at this point because they still haven’t decided and can’t seem to find anything interesting in their boring gen ed classes and haven’t gained much experience in different fields while dealing with school and a minimum wage job at this point. If you don’t know going in you probably won’t decide at all in four years without doing something meaningful, or you’ll get bored and give up completely. But it’s possible to do this, although it may take longer than four years to graduate if you decide after your first two or three semesters. Many people decide on a lucrative major and switch many times too. That is fine! All of these options are fine! It will cost money and time, but there is nothing wrong with getting experience in many fields and figuring out that you don’t like them early. Many people also go as a non-degree seeking student and take any and all classes they find interesting, and most inevitably pick a major that way, since they are not limited by the constraints of a undecided student (they aren’t required to take gen ed classes or pick a major in any time limit).

For any field you pick, you can find any information on the best majors to go into, but you’ll find most fields don’t have strict requirements for associate’s or bachelor’s degrees. It’s going to be up you and your interests. Some people prefer to get a degree in something they love with many other classes outside their major, and some prefer to just stick with the requirements. I got a bachelor’s in biology because for medical school, it got me all of the classes I required in the four-year span of my degree program and limited the classes I had to take outside of my degree field. However, looking back, if I had not gotten into medical school, I would not have liked any of the options for graduate programs nor jobs in my fields, and it may have been smarter to get a degree in a field I loved (psychology) with many overlapping requirements, and taken quite a few classes outside of my major even if it took an extra year or so. Ultimately, the requirements for another degree are going to be more extensive and costly than getting a tangentially related or unrelated degree and taking some extra classes that you need for your job and/or graduate education.

How do I apply to college?

This topic might seem pretty easy to figure out for most people. As I mentioned in the previous post, I am the first in my family to go to college as are most of my friends. We all figured it out. But I’m starting this blog out by doing this mini-series on which colleges to apply to, how to apply, and which major to choose. So I’m going to go ahead and give at least a brief rundown of the application process.

1. Choose the colleges you want to apply to

This was covered in a previous post. Unlike the applications for many medical programs and law programs, etc., there is no one single app to submit applications to many colleges at once for undergraduate programs. You’re unfortunately going to have to go on each college’s website individually to fill out their application (some have paper applications still, I believe, if you need them, but you will have to go to the admissions office or print them and send them in). Generally the application is easy to find. If you go to the homepage of your chosen school, on the main bar at the top there will usually be a button that says APPLY that will have an option for undergraduates and it should take you to the application. Most colleges will make you submit application fee (usually under $50).

2. Fill out all the details of the application

This will generally take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the length and detail required in the application. Some require an essay. You’ll fill out your personal details, including your name, address, social security number, and date of birth. You’ll be required to fill out your high school GPA (at least, and potentially your grades) and any honors or awards you may have received. You’ll be expected to name your intended major (covered in the next post) and minor. Sometimes they may ask about your parents degree status. Some colleges may make you write a short essay, either in response to a question or about an experience you have had.

3. Send your high school transcripts

Call your high school main office. Ask them to send your transcripts to the colleges. Typically you’ll need the fax number or the school code. For local colleges, they may already have this information. You can find it on the same page as your application form or by looking for it on a search engine of your choice. Some schools may charge per transcript, but most do not.

4. Send your ACT/SAT scores

You should have already taken one (or both) of these at this point. They typically give you an option to send your scores before you take the test or during, and if you did then don’t worry about this step. However, if you didn’t pick any schools during your test or you applied to different ones than you originally expected, you’ll have to login to your account or call them to send your scores to these schools. You’ll need the name of the school and the city, the school code, and/or occasionally the fax number. It does cost money to send your scores after the first few free, so be prepared for that. Also, some schools have a preference for the ACT or SAT, so make sure to do your research (most prefer SAT). The applications will have you enter these scores manually, but you’ll have to send them also.

4. Submit all the materials, and attend interviews

Not all undergraduate colleges do interviews. In fact, I believe most don’t. But if they do, you’ll attend and then hear back for a decision sometime in the near future.

 

TIMELINE

Spring/Summer of Junior Year

Take any AP, SAT, and ACT exams. Do research on colleges and decide what you may want to major in and/or do after college. Send your scores to colleges.

Fall of Senior Year

Start filling out applications for colleges. Send your high school transcripts to those schools. Send any ACT/SAT scores if you haven’t already.

Winter/Spring of Senior Year

You will attend interviews or get your acceptance letters. These will tell you anything you need to know or inform you of anything else you need to do before starting college, usually in the spring or summer. You will usually have to send your final grades and proof of your diploma before the fall.

Tips

• Any school that looks appealing that offers free applications (no fee) that you might be considering, APPLY. It will only cost you time, if you have the option for more free SAT/ACT scores (if not I believe it may cost you about $15). That could be the college you decide to go to!
• If your school offers free and open interviews, GO TO THEM. At the very least, it’s a “safety” or backup option. My high school had an entire day dedicated to the admissions committee from the local university interviewing anyone interested. We filled out the application, printed our transcripts, and automatically got interviewed. We didn’t pay the application fee, we weren’t required to submit any formal ACT/SAT scores, transcripts, or grades. We didn’t have to write an essay. It was very relaxed. We wore nicer clothes, but didn’t have to dress up. We waited, met with the admissions committee, they looked over our application, asked a couple questions, and we usually got accepted on the spot. This is especially good for people who feel they are more appealing in an interview (or are super lazy).
• Some schools may not come to your high school, but still offer open interviews. These are way better than a free application. You have the opportunity to make yourself memorable. They don’t require you to submit the formal application (or fees, or transcripts, or scores, or essays); you may have to do some traveling to the school, which may not always be feasible (depending on distance) but their requirements are usually much more relaxed.It’ll usually be announced via email or their website.

 

In the next post, we will discuss the aforementioned picking your major.

 

 

Which college should I apply to?

I am the first in my family to go to college. The first of most of my friends too. Therefore, I get a lot of questions about how the application process and school actually works. The process is overwhelming and intimidating, mostly because it seems so much more complicated than it really is. I was fortunate enough to get some basic help in high school as far as applying for FAFSA, state-wide scholarships, and interviews prep as well as open interviews for the local university. However, so many other things, especially concerning what to do once I was accepted, were not as easy to figure out. I had to go through the process, ask anyone accessible, and do a lot of research to do and understand even the most basic things, and even then it was so much trial and error and stumbling through confused most of the time to get it figured out. College counselors take for granted the fact that people that haven’t been exposed to college don’t really have help along the way, and that is probably because of the unfortunate fact that if you come from a family that hasn’t attended you are less likely to yourself. Let us change that.

As I said in the last post, the first thing you need to do is apply for FAFSA. It is fundamental, especially if the reason you or your family haven’t already attending college is because of a lack of funds.

You need to then pick which colleges you are going to apply to. Typically you want to pick the cheapest accredited college. There are some caveats that we will discuss, but you want to graduate with as little debt as possible. Student loan debt will follow you (or your family) and is difficult to get away from. It is also much easier to get loans to cover a low cost of attendance. Because I love lists, I will list the important details to consider when choosing a school.

1. Whatever college you choose, make sure it is accredited

Accreditation is, in the most basic terms, the way the government gives colleges a standard to uphold. It is the way that we can make sure a college is actually teaching you what it says it is, and that the degree you receive will be accepted by any school or business that requires it. That degree certifies that you know your field in the most fundamental way, and are capable of moving to higher levels of education or entry level jobs. Any school can hand out that piece of paper, but they must meet certain standards for that paper to mean something. This isn’t usually as much of an issue with brick-and-mortar schools, but online schools are notorious for costing students many hours and even more money, yet providing a worthless degree. If you’ve heard of many of these online schools being shut down, it is primarily because they were scams that victimized thousands before being exposed. Most schools will list their accreditation, but to make sure it is legitimate, the U.S. Department of Education provides a site to look them up. I’ll list it at the end of this post. Be especially wary of online courses. The best rule of thumb is to not attend an online college unless it is attached to and backed by a real school with a real campus that you can verifies exists. (Note: I pulled an interview at LMU veterinary school in January 2017 because they had provisional accreditation until they graduated their first class in Spring 2017, and I’m not entirely sure if they ever actually received full accreditation. I didn’t want to graduate and not be allowed to practice. It’s entirely likely they’d have received it by then but it’s a risk nonetheless).

2. Make sure your choices are affordable…for you

Affordable is different for everyone, but for an undergraduate degree there is no need to spend into the $20,000 a year range for school. Many private or large universities are in that range, and for most fields and most students (that don’t resist the temptation of partying and sliding by at those big schools) they are not worth the price tag. You’ll get what you need at your local university. Cost really depends on the area and cost of living, but $5k-10k a year for tuition alone seems reasonable, and the rest of your cost of attendance is going to rely on whether or not you’re living on campus, getting a meal plan, etc. An upwards of $40,000 of debt is not an unreasonable amount for undergraduate (don’t fret, most sensible people don’t actually graduate with that much debt from undergrad). There are  differences, however, in the quality of education and the opportunities available at a community college versus a small university, that we won’t go into in this post, but for many people, a community college will help them reach their goals.

3. Make sure your chosen school provides the classes and majors you need

You may not run into this problem as much at larger schools, but smaller schools are limited in what they offer. If you are looking for a very obscure majors, such as music with a bagpiping concentration, you may be hard-pressed to find a small school that offers that (honestly it is going to be a highly expensive degree with few job prospects). Some graduate programs (veterinary medicine, medicine, law) may have very specific requirements that your school may not offer. If you need two years of physics for your medicine application and your school only offers one year, what will you do? What if for your veterinary medicine application you need three communications classes (looking at you Mississippi State) and your college doesn’t even have a comm program? This honestly may not be an issue for most people, especially if you just want an associate’s or bachelor’s, but keep it in mind. Many people prefer to go into a pre-med or pre-vet major (you don’t need it, probably shouldn’t do it, but some people like to be that dedicated), and most smaller universities don’t offer that, especially if they aren’t running their own medicine programs.

4. Make sure you actually like the school and town

In high school I applied to many universities (that I couldn’t afford anyway), and got accepted, only to realize I wouldn’t fit in at all and had just wasted my opportunity to apply to any more for that Fall because I wasn’t being realistic. Did I want to go to a private school in Florida with a bunch if rich kids and want-to-be models that don’t care about school for an upwards of $50,000 a semester? Nope. What about a school in Michigan, which I know nothing about? Nope. How about California, the exact opposite side of the country? Probably not. What about in the lower end of my state, completely rural and in the middle of nowhere? I would get cabin fever and go insane. I decided that I should stay near my friends and family, in the beautiful town right down the road, with a very affordable tuition. I still graduated, just with no debt.

5. Make sure to check out the percent of students enrolled that graduate

This statistic isn’t useful for much, but it will tell you the amount of students that are initially accepted that the school retains and graduates. I typically used collegeboard.org (link below) because you can look up many schools, compare, and this statistic is easy to find. It isn’t a tell all, but if the percent graduation rate is too low, it could be a sign that something isn’t working for a good chunk of students. Are the professors atrocious, the classes way too difficult, the staff rude and unfriendly, or is it something else that is making students drop out or transfer? It could just be an unfortunate consequence of the school having really lax acceptance, or it could be that the school is not providing something that motivated students to want to attend through graduation. Don’t put too much weight on this statistic, but it is helpful especially if you haven’t heard much about the school (and always put more research into a negative-looking statistic).

6. If you are planning on applying to a competitive program, make sure to find a school that is going to enhance your application

There’s a reason that graduates of Ivy League schools seem to have an easier time getting jobs or into certain programs (whether this is actually true is a different post entirely). Those schools enhance the student’s application. It could just be the name, or it could be that those schools have a rigorous and competitive application process themselves, which may make the board of a grad school believe that perhaps the student has what it takes to make it into their program. Or it could be that, due to a more difficult curriculum and course load, the student should have no problem handling whatever this program has to throw at them. We can’t all make it into Harvard, but we can be selective about the schools we choose to attend for four years prior to applying to very competitive programs. You can always talk to a counselor prior to you application or acceptance and ask them not only what resources, majors, classes, and other preparation they have for students who are pursuing entry into whatever program you have decided on, but also how many  students they have pursuing it any given year and how many of those students are accepted. This will give you insight into the resources they have to help and prepare you, but also the percent of students they manage to get accepted, because yes the school and advisors have a huge part to play in whether or not those schools view you as a good candidate. If they have accepted students from Dandelion University, and they were all seemingly unprepared for the program, they may believe that all students who come from this school are not going to pan out. Some schools are small but they are neutral or positive in regards to this, so it has nothing to  do with the size of your school, other than the fact that larger schools will have more students and therefore more students pursuing any one path, and will seem that they have a disproportionate amount of students entering into your desired field. Don’t let that fool you. I attended a small school that managed to have most of their students pursuing grad programs get accepted, and most  is a really impressive number when you consider that obviously not all students are going to be competitive applicants.

7. If you aren’t applying to graduate programs, how are your job prospects in your field?

Not all of us are trying to pursue more and more degrees (we appreciate the sane people, not look down on you, promise). Your school of choice is going to be your first line of job connections, so you really need to feel this one out. How are the connections of your professors and advisors in your field? Are they currently working in their fields, are they prestigious in them? Can they help you get a job if you like them? Is your school currently active in your degree field, and bringing in new talent? Is your school known as a major source of new talent in your desired field? In many advice columns on work and management (my favorite is AskAManager), you’ll hear a lot about “networking” and that is important yet hard to do when you are not put in a position to do so. How do you find these people to network with? Well, once you get into your field you can do that with anyone you get to know! However, in college, you are pretty limited to your classmates (if they happen to have any connections) and your professors. Goodness, do not take your professors for granted! They know  people, they know their field, and they know how to get a foot in the door. If you have a connection with any of those professors, ask them for references, ask for job openings, attend events sponsored by them or their companies. But make sure that your school has good professors that are known quantities in their field because they are crucial to giving you references related to your field and work. If your schools is small, or they have a different focus (some are focused on liberal arts, some on teaching, some on everything) you may find your major is available but relatively new or without much in the way of resources put toward it. You may find that most of your classes aren’t even taught by an expert in that field (so will you feel qualified to go into that field thereafter?). Job placement is something that many colleges offer for many fields; they’ll get qualified students into internships or even entry-level jobs in that field based in grades, projects, references, and relevant experience and that is absolutely not something to take for granted. However, many schools only do this for their most popular or prestigious programs, so make sure to research. A good school doesn’t mean it does justice to every subject it offers.

Ultimately, you need to make sure your school of choice suits you. Can you afford it reasonably? Do you like the area, the campus, the resources? Does it have the classes or the major you need? Can it help you get into the jobs or programs you want to be in after you graduate? Will it actually prepare you for a career in your field, or will you slide by with professors that don’t really care, and get a degree but feel like all you did was show up? Seriously consider these things, because it can all affect your opportunities later in your career. You can graduate with a degree, or you can graduate with a degree and experience and a job.

 

Resources/Links:

https://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/

https://www.ed.gov/accreditation

https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-search

https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/majors-careers

Filling out FAFSA can only help you…but it might not help you

Let’s take a minute to talk about the FAFSA. You’re going to deal with it from undergraduate to your doctorate. It is one of the first, most fundamental things you have to do when you go to school. Many people don’t fill it out, either because they don’t need to, don’t know they need to, or don’t know how to. However, it is absolutely necessary to get nearly any financial aid, from the schools you’re attending or the government (your school probably relies on your government aid to determine what you need/get).

The FAFSA really can only help you. It is never going to say you get negative financial aid, and it is never going to make the school charge you more tuition. The worst it can do is tell you that you get nothing. And that  is where the problem lies. The FAFSA might not actually help you, and there is little to nothing you can do about it if you’re in one of those categories that the FAFSA annually screws over.

For the record, no matter if you think you’re getting aid, ALWAYS fill out the form. It really can only help you even if it doesn’t help you. But you can only apply for a short period each year, and if you need it later in the year for any point, which you often do if you’re filling out forms for private scholarships, you cant do it until the next year. Also, there is a VERY small percentage of people that the FAFSA doesn’t help at all. It is unlikely you’ll even be in that category, but I’m here to let you know the possibilities and what recourse you have. Finally, financial aid changes constantly. Each president has their own ideas on how college aid should be determined and it often gets (if only minutely) changed.

So, without further ado, here are the basics of the FAFSA:

1. It is now available to start filing in fall/winter

The form used to only be available to file in January and it was due March 15th. The deadline has not changed, but you can now start filling out the form in November. Just get it off your plate over winter break.

2. You need tax documents to fill out the form

If you work, you will need to have your tax forms/tax returns for the past year handy to fill out the FAFSA. However, because the application is now available in the Fall, it allows you to either wait to put in your tax documents (important if your income has significantly changed from one year to the next) or it estimates your income using the previous year’s returns. It uses your income to estimate the amount of aid you need.

3. You need your parents’ information to fill out the form

This is because, until your 24, you are considered dependent on the FAFSA and they assume your parents will be helping with either the cost of living expenses, tuition, or both. Therefore if your parents make over the threshold that they have designated, you may not get any aid. There are some important exceptions and non-exception to this rule.

Exception: If you are orphaned, were emancipated before you were 18, or in extreme cases of abuse and subsequent estrangement from your parents (I believe you have to have not been in any contact with your parents for 2 years following extreme abuse), you are considered an independent on the FAFSA and your parents income does not matter. It also counts if you are married and, I believe (correct me if I am wrong) having your own dependents as two other exceptions if you are under 24 years of age. In these cases, it may use your spouses income or any child support as income, although I am not certain.

Non-Exception: If you claim yourself as independent on your taxes or live on your own, you are NOT independent if you are under the age of 24. Even if your parents give you no money for anything, you still need their information and your aid is determined off of that. SO if your parents are millionaires that cut you off and you haven’t heard from them in four years, you are unfortunately still bound by their income. Typically the only loans you’ll be eligible for are loans co-signed by a parent (which doesn’t help if you’re estranged or if they aren’t willing to co-sign). If you don’t have your parents information (you need their address, all sources of income, their social security number, date of birth, etc.), you can probably still file, but they will probably manage to find tax returns or contact your parents (again I am not sure, correct me if I’m wrong) and then determine your eligibility.

This is the part that really screws a lot of people over, especially with the increasing number of people whose parents do NOT financially support them while they’re in college. This is presumably to save the government and schools from providing aid to students whose parents are funding their education and providing them residence, so the money is going to students who require it. This may have been a better system when parents let students live at home, paid for food and necessities, and co-signed (or took out loans wholly) for their children which, although still happens, is much less common. I have seen more money go to students living at home than have gone to students estranged from their families, but it is luck of the draw. There are other ways to fund your education that will be gone over in another post, don’t fret.

4. You do not need your parents information when you’re in graduate school

Presumably because at this point you have established yourself as an adult (I would hope that I wouldn’t still be under my parents care in medical school). When you apply for FAFSA while going for your doctorate, you are no longer required to enter your parents’ information as their income has no bearing on the amount of aid you get. I am not entirely sure if this works for a Masters program, although I do not believe it does, or for Ph.D. programs versus health programs. The government wants to churn out doctors, vets, and dentists so they are expecting, regardless of your or your parents’ incomes, for you to need the full amount in loans, since the programs are not cheap and no one is working while in these programs. Essentially no one in these programs has any source of income, and even if parents help, they’re surely not making a dent in $50,000 a year. You also don’t need a cosigner for the loans you’re offered.

5. The FAFSA is extremely easy to fill out 

It gets easier every year, especially once you have filled it out once and it auto-completes most of your info. Setting up your account takes a bit of effort, and is the most confusing part, which is why my high school had us do it my senior year with help. I’ll give a basic overview here, but there are always high school counselors, or if you are an older student, college advisors and financial aid counselors that will help you fill it out (yes even if you don’t go there yet). And then there is always the FAFSA website and Google (I’ll link the sites you need below).

You will go to the studentaid.ed.gov link, and under quick links on the page (mid-way) go to The FSA ID. Here you will create your account, with your pin (remember this, you’ll need it every year), email, and other basic information about yourself. You’ll activate the account via your email.

Then you’ll be able to go to the FAFSA page (either by going to the home screen on studentaid.ed.gov by clicking the top left corner, clicking FAFSA: Applying for Aid, or by googling FAFSA). Click fill out your form and you’ll be doing it for the next school year (i.e. if it’s January 2018, fill it out for Fall 2018-Spring 2019, or 2018-2019. This format is how all your school years will be shown in college).

You’ll fill out your basic info (name, age, SS number, address) and your tax information, what school you are or may be going to, and some other information to help determine your aid (some grants you can only get once or under certain conditions). Then you’ll fill out your parents information if you know it. And then you submit! You will typically get information on how much your EFC (estimated family contribution, or how much the government expects your family to help with tuition and living expenses) is, which determines your “need”. Your need determines how much you will get. Some very basic formulas are below, to give you an idea:

Estimated family contribution (EFC) = based on your family’s income , their dependents and how much “extra” income they have to help you [not taking in bills, mortgages, and debt, of course, because the only expenses that people have not qualified as “extra income” are children]

Need= (Tuition and books + Cost of living) – EFC

What you need is not always exactly what you will get, and often it comes in many different forms (1/10 grants, 4/10 subsidized loans. 4/10 unsubsidized loans, and 1/10 not their problem (cash or personal loans), for example). not all of which you will be guaranteed to be able to take out. The cost of living estimation is typically based on the school’s COA calculations based on the immediate area, and is not accurate for non-traditional students, those who don’t live with parents or on campus, or in the immediate area.

 

Well… there you have it. A very very basic rundown of the FAFSA, and as much as it can be a really messed up process, there is no penalties and fees for filing it (or not) and it takes usually about 30 minutes, but it can only help you, so just file it. Then next year it may only take ten minutes, and your aid can change year to year. Sorry for the long, in no way comprehensive post, but I wanted to cover some issues I have personally experienced that there’s very little information on. Of course, if you have further questions about the process, send a message using the form on the contact page and I will try to help.

 

Links to Financial Aid websites:

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/

https://fafsa.ed.gov/index.htm

It’s all fun and games until…

 

You spend $100,000 on a degree you don’t need or want.

 

The first thing ask everyone considering school or those in school and miserable: do you NEED this degree? The answer always seems to be “I don’t know.”

Second question: Well what do you want to do? “I’m not sure yet, I’ll just take some classes until I get an idea.” Well college isn’t going to give you an idea. It’s going to take your time and money forcing you to take classes you hate to get a degree (or no degree) you don’t need. If you don’t already know, the chances of you finding out in college are slim, unless you stumble into a class that you love that is tangentially related to your current degree. But even then, it can cost money and time if the degree program you are switching to doesn’t require any of the classes you have already taken.

Many of these people think they hate school because they are bored, and drop out. This accomplishes two things: Wasting time and money on credits that may not be transferable if you ever decide what you want to do, and making many people believe “school isn’t for them.”

School is for anyone that has a passion for the subject they are studying and a desire to work in a field requiring the degree they are seeking. You need those two things: passion and motivation. Very few people are going to realistically choose a night in studying for an exam or doing six hour long homework assignments instead of binge watching GoT or drinking at the local dive. Seriously. Even the best of us sometimes want to burn our retinas on Netflix for a week straight instead of being productive.

The last question is always, “why are you going to college if you don’t know what you want to do or if what you are interested in needs a degree?” Friends, don’t waste time on a degree in a field you don’t want to be in or one you may not even need for your field (for example, many people get degrees to be a pharmacy technician when in fact you DON’T need a degree to do that job and in fact can get paid to get certified). The best way to explore what you want is to go have hobbies and work as many jobs as you can that genuinely interest you, before you have actual financial obligations and job-hopping on your resume begins to look less like exploring your interests and more like unreliability. Seriously, go get paid to work and explore fields, and use that money to explore hobbies, save for college, or travel. Many of those things take a back burner in college anyway, so now is the time. Do this, instead of paying money for other people to tell you what classes to take and when, because before you know it, you’ll be in debt, burned out, and will still have not taken a single course that interests you (and you may begin to think you don’t even have any interests anymore).

And a degree is not the ONLY way to make money. Many millionaires have no degrees. There are non-degree jobs that make twice as much as some of those that require degrees. Business Insider has a nice article here listing some of the highest paid blue-collar jobs, and this list is nowhere near exhaustive:

http://www.businessinsider.com/high-paying-jobs-you-can-get-without-a-college-degree-2015-11/#2-first-line-supervisors-of-police-and-detectives-24

Of course, if you know what you want to do, or are just that passionate about going to college, by all means GO! It’s truly a wonderful experience and an opportunity many people take for granted. And if you don’t believe me after this post, the rest of this blog is dedicated to you!

If you want to understand the spirit of our nation, the good and the bad, you can enroll in college, sign up for classes, take notes and pay tuition or you can study the life of Sam the Banana Man. –Rich Cohen, The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King