Major In Success

It's been 10 weeks so far, 8 major entries, and lots of information. This week, take time to reflect on your major and career life choices or what you've learned so far. 

Here's some thoughts I've been wanting to share or re-share:

- Your major does not always have to equal your career. 

- You major in college is an educational focus, academic discipline, that can be combined with a minor concentrated area. Your main focus should be maximizing your time (whether it be 4, 5, 6, etc. years in college) getting the most out of your experience. That may  include work experience, internships, student organization affiliation, networking, volunteer experience, and service learning. 

- Sometimes you have to take a risk to know if something is right or wrong. Try out an introductory course to figure out if a certain career path may work for you. 

- People change careers numerous times! Please don't get bogged down worrying about where you will work for the rest of your life. Try to simplify it-- short term goals. 

- Choose a career path that you both love and are motivated to do, as well as have skills for it.

- If you have a super cool job/career in mind but aren't sure how to get there, maybe look up company job descriptions and work backwards; see what they suggest as a major. 

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I've been reading a book called Major In Success  by Patrick Combs. I wanted to share with readers some of the great insight and motivating words from this excellent book. 

"Ultimately, college gives you the opportunity to increase the quality of your life, both now and in the future. Warning! Unfortunately, a lot of students do little, if anything, to actively increase the quality of their lives while they're in school. Many students seem to think college is some kind of rehearsal and that they won't start improving their lives until after graduation. They don't seem to realize that life isn't a rehearsal-- neither is college. 

From day one in college, your future resume starts to take shape whether you want to put anything impressive on it or not. Your career path begins, whether you're directing it or not. Even your future lifestyle starts taking shape whether you're consciously trying to shape it or not. This means it's dangerous to be in college, just to achieve in academics. You may get good grades but still not get a good job. On the other hand, it is also detrimental to focus only on getting a job while you're in school because you'll miss out on the richness of your studies. 

The most dangerous way to approach college is with the idea that all you need to do is pay your dues and get your degree. If you approach college with this mindset, you shoot yourself in both feet. After graduating, you'll discover that you were paying dues to get into a club of people who missed the point. The point is that you're not in college to work for your professors, or your parents, or anyone else. You're there to work for yourself and your future." 

  Until our next Tuesday Talk... :)