You want to think about what you want to do after you graduate college. I know that is four years in the future, which seems like forever. But college goes by quick and you will be out in the job market before you know it.
College is expensive, you or your parents, are paying for it. If you are borrowing the money to pay tuition, you have to pay it back after you graduate. You gotta have a job to pay off your student loans. Which means you need to pick your college major to make you employable. For instance a bachelor of science in electrical engineering, and you will have a decent job no problem. A bachelor of arts in gender studies, and you will be waiting tables for a long long time.
The best majors, looking toward making yourself employable, are the STEM majors, Science (physics, chemistry, biology) Technology (computer programming, premed), Engineering (electrical, mechanical, chemical, civil) and Mathematics (calculus, statistics, matrix algebra) Engineering, in addition to being decently paid, is interesting and satisfying. Engineering is a lot of new design work, and being the engineer who designs that new automobile, new handheld electronic best seller, new building, new aircraft, is very satisfying work. Beats the bejesus out of selling used cars.
STEM fields often require math up thru integral calculus and differential equations. In fact you may need that math under your belt in order to even understand the homework in your major. You want to find out what the mathematics requirement are in your chosen field, and sign up for those math courses ASAP, freshman year. Electrical engineering is probably the most math intensive. A simple two component circuit (a resistor and a capacitor) require a first order differential equation to analyze. Things like biology and computer programming are less demanding in the math dept.
If you just cannot warm up to a STEM field, consider the liberal arts. Traditionally there are seven liberal arts, English, History, Foreign Language, Music, Art, Philosophy, Theology. English ought to teach you how to write. Industry offers a lot of jobs to people who can write, specifications, instruction manuals, advertisements, articles about the product, endless written materials. History will also teach you how to write, and offers a broader field, all of human history, every age, every culture, which makes picking a thesis easier. English is limited to the works of a relatively small number of English authors. Picking a thesis in English literature that hasn't been written about a thousand times already is hard. Foreign languages are always useful to any company doing business overseas, which is most of them these days.
If you are a musician or an artist, Music or Art majors are rewarding. If you are not a musician or an artist, they won't do you any good at all. There are next to no jobs for music or art majors who are not themselves practicing musicians or artists.
Philosophy and Theology used to be big, back in medieval times, but they won't get you a job today.
One other major, which isn't STEM or an Art; that is education. If you want to teach in the public schools, you have to take the ed major. The ed major will get you a job, no problem. If you can stand the total boredom of the major, and you like teaching, go for it. The ed departments pretend that education is something that can be taught and will make you a better teacher. In actual fact, the ed major is endless chit chat about trivia. It's easy enough to pass the major, but most students find it REALLY boring. The best teachers I ever encountered didn't even have college degrees, let alone an ed major. They were good Air Force enlisted men pulled right off the flight line to teach in the base Field Training Detachment. They knew their subjects (jet engines, aircraft instruments, radar, nav electronics, hydraulics, what ever) backwards and forwards. And that's all you really need to be a good teacher. If you want to teach in the private schools, then you can major in something useful, the private schools are less hung up about the ed major than the public schools.
Then there are the majors that aren't sciences but want to be sciences, (sociology,political science, anthropology, economics, ecology, psychology) To be a real science you have to conduct experiments to validate your theories. Conducting experiments in sociology or any of them is not possible or totally unethical. The courses usually boil down to political indoctrination. And there are no jobs to be had with these majors.
Then we come underwater basket weaving majors. These won't get you a job (other than waiting tables)
Black Studies, Gender Studies, Men's studies, Any kind of Studies, art appreciation, aroma therapy, and others. Stay away. Total waste of four years and a lot of money.
Final word. Don't trust advice from guidance counselors, ESPECIALLY as to the requirements for your major. You have to get in ALL the required courses in order to win a degree. Find the college catalog, the current catalog, not one from last year. All the major requirements are in the catalog. Look them up, write them down (a spreadsheet is good) and sign up for them as early as possible. Don't trust a guidance counselor to steer you into the right courses, they don't know, and don't really care, not the way you care.
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