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What's My Major? by Darius M. Rejali Copyright (c) 1997 by Darius Rejali, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that the author is notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of the author at rejali@reed.edu Darius Rejali is teaches political science at Reed College
What's My Major? You're anxious about what your major is going to be. It's an important decision, but not for the reasons you think. After you leave college, no one will ask you what you majored in. They will want to know whether you can do what they want you to do. Many employers won't chance hiring college students without experience because they aren't confident that a degree in a major represents real skills, knowledge and work habits . Choosing a major isn't even important for graduate school in most cases. There is no required major for many fields. What matters is that you have good work habits, grades, and references. Choosing a major matters for other reasons. By realizing what you like, you are learning about what gets you active in the morning, and in that is a clue about your future. Choosing a major is also about learning how to plan and execute a project over three years. That's why they're called disciplines. Choosing a major matters because you have to justify it to mom and dad who have hopes for you. The care, fortitude, honesty, and even anger you bring to this discussion shapes you and your relationships, for good or ill. Should you choose a "practical" major? Well, practicality depends on how you measure it. Driving cars is practical if your standard is speedy movement but impractical if you value reducing pollution. When your Uncle Joe says "Be practical", he's really saying choose a major using his values And he values living prosperously very high because prosperity can buy you the freedom to do the things that make life worth living. Sadly for you, there's no department of "Prosperity." Would majoring in science lead to a wealthier life than majoring in theatre? Maybe. You could major in the key industries of the future: bio-engineering, microelectronics, new materials industries, robotics, computers, and transportation. But before you choose one of these, consider a few other things about the new economy. The US Bureau of Census says that the wages of eighty percent of male Americans have declined between 1972 and 1992 when adjusted for inflation. Wages of male college graduates between 45 and 54 (their peak earning years) suffered a one third reduction in median earnings Household incomes have stayed the same largely because women have been working, but real wage gains in this area are unlikely to continue. So future engineers may earn more than journalists, but we're not talking about real prosperity here. For many, we're talking about getting poorer at different rates. So does this mean you shouldn't major in the key industries of the future? No, but if the reason you do this is because you hope to become rich and have lots of leisure time, then you may be disappointed. Becoming a computer scientist isn't going to guarantee you anything near Uncle Joe's current income in real terms. In fact, the odds are that tomorrow, you'll be working just as hard to earn less and so you will have less freedom to relax. The link Uncle Joe took for granted when he was young, that between choosing a practical major, high wages and freedom to do what he wanted, has broken down, no matter how scientific the major. Besides, who really knows what the key industries of the future are going to be? The industries of the future have yet to be invented; they don't exist now. What matters most right now is that you have the skills to make them or else to take advantage of them when they appear. So ultimately, it's not what you major in as much as the skills you learn through your passion for that major. How well can you do these things: think without grabbing a book for an answer, read patiently, listen carefully, develop an eye for detail, find information in unconventional ways, summarize material clearly and briefly, speak confidently, argue responsively , criticize helpfully, interpret what numbers mean, read through the words, adapt your writing skills, analyze the moral complexity of a situation, take multiple perspectives on a problem, master a new computer program, negotiate with others, and keep in touch with your advisers? These are the skills you should major in. And learn to speak a foreign language. No, not a "practical" language (you can't predict that), but any language. By learning how to learn a language, you are learning how to pick up that "practical" language when you need it later. The future belongs to people who can weave together other
people, things, and information whether in politics or business. Major
in people (the social sciences), things (the natural sciences) or informational
media (mathematics, languages, arts and literature) but also learn how
to weave these together. It's the educational context that matters,
not the major. Learn how to work with others effectively, analyze information
quickly, and link ideas to concrete projects creatively. You will need
these skills in an age of growing economic disparity. If you can't secure
the freedoms your parents had in the old ways, you will have to find
new ways to preserve those freedoms. How you apply your skills at work
after college contains one small part of all our futures here. And did
I mention, you make the future, you can't major in it. |