Well, I am currently a senior in high school. Since I am going to college, I am applying for scholarships; specifically for a local university called Lamar. There's the main university and then several branches of Lamar in other cities nearby.

The main scholarship I am applying for and will most likely receive will apply to whichever Lamar campus I decide to go to. Each campus offers many different career choices. But the problem is, I'm still unsure what I want to major in.

I have to apply for this scholarship within a month's time. So this means I have exactly one month to decide what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. It's stressful to decide what I will major in when I have no idea what I want to do.

So this is what I'm asking. I was wondering what everyone here has decided to do as a career or what you are currently doing as a steady and "permanent" career, per say. I just want some ideas in the air to help me decide, if at all. Thanks.

I don't think you should be asking people on the Internetz what you should be doing the rest of your life.

Many people don't find their major the first year of college, and most people switch even if they do.

Theres always mcdonalds

But really, the only actual career I've ever considered was perhaps being an author, and seeing as I'm still in highschool it's not the time to be making huge decisions

I want to go to the best college I can, get my degree in like, economics or something, and then do nothing. Ex. Art or whatever?

...BAHAHAHAHAHA.

This is one of the greatest flaws in our education system. The whole way through you're told what to do and then you suddenly get a few choices. Those choices are usually just about manageable and then suddenly you're expected after about a sixth of your life to decide what you're going to do for a for half of it.

The only advice I can give you is to either not worry or to try to pick something you have a passion for. Odds would say that you're going to spend a few years after any degree chopping and changing jobs until you find something bearable. If you absolutely love something however, gun for it and work towards it. Otherwise, just major in something you think you'll enjoy and worry about jobs after you've graduated.

But I dropped out of uni and work in a kitchen. I spend most of my day functioning on auto-pilot whilst I postulate and then get patronised by people who assume that since I serve food I'm inherently some form of a gormless moron.

They assume correctly.

OOOOH I'M NASTY.

For some reason, that was spoken in my head in a very camp voice.

I'm a senior this year too, and I'm planning on going to Lake Superior State University to major in computer engineering, but I might change my mind sometime. I figure that computers is a pretty broad field so I can change my mind relatively easily and not have to retake any classes.

Thanks guys for actually posting and such. :S

Benjy, I always told myself that I would never work at a fast food restaurant, lol.

Rob, many people tell me to do what I love. But honestly, I don't really know what I have a true passion for. My hobbies don't really seem like they can actually turn into an occupation. I like music or course and I sing as well as play the drums. I tried picking up guitar but my fingers keep locking in pain due to them being double-jointed. I like art such as drawing and I've always wanting to learn Digi-painting.

Mostly all my friends have decided what they are going to do. A few are joining the army or marines, one is going to film school, another is going to an art school and is planning on applying for Dreamworks, and another is going to major in computer science.

I was just recently thinking maybe going into the field of some sort of computer graphics or computers in general. But there's so many sub-fields for computer graphics that I have no clue what anything in those sub-fields are. I always thought it would be interesting to work with a company that creates video games but I honestly don't really see myself doing that.

Don't do anything involving graphics or games unless you have a blatant talent for it. Do you know how over saturated the job market is going to be for this stuff in the next few years (probably already is pretty saturated as it is)? Every dumbass who can play guitar hero seems to want a job in "video games".


Edit: Not that I have any evidence other than observation of course.

Was supposed to. If the voice was that of a male fashion designer, you're on the right path.

I'm currently studying informatics. I'm in my first year, which is an orientation year really. I don't know what I want to specialise in yet, maybe business informatics. But I have about 2 more years to find out what I really want to do, so that's okay.

Penn State. Schreyer Honors College. Graduate in 4 years with a bachelors and masters in civil engineering. Write one thesis for both my honors requirements and masters degree. Pay 1/4 of the total tuition. Get scholarships for most of the rest.

I got this shit down.

I'm in the top 2% of the world - at the very least - for any given field. The only time I ever felt I underperformed in an exam I paid the £40 to retake it and scored 100%. Admittedly this was the only time I ever tried in any exam. It wasn't my only 100% by any stretch of the imagination. I was eligible for £5,000 a year in grants and scholarships until my mum's partner moved in as I was applying. He cost me £15,000 and lost his job the week after I went to uni. He;s the reason I dropped out since I couldn't afford to be there. Don't ever assume.

My perspective plan right now is to currently go to the University of Kentucky and apply for their engineering school. I'm not totally decided as to what field of engineering to go into but right now I'm leaning towards mechanical engineering. Uk has a solid engineering program and upon graduating Uk offers you a job working in your field for them which you can accept or decline. It's a pretty good deal.

I've chosen engineering because it's something that has always fascinated me to no end. My dad took me to Uk's engineering day when I was much younger, 8 or 9 and I was just so amazed by all the different things people had built. That's what got me started and on top of that I like physics/physical science and I do well with calculus and most maths so it's something I think I would do well in.

Rob is right though, generally upon graduating and obtaining a degree in whatever field it is you may chose, most people tend to switch around what they do afterwords. My advice is really no different though, find subjects that you like and that you feel like you understand well. Then do some research on how those topics or skills can be applied in the job world and see if you can find anything that pops out at you. There's such a vast array of professions that I'm sure you could find something.

-Raganork

Hrrm. Apologies for being a bit of a bastard occasionally when I'm horrifically drunk.

Broli is this topic created on the chat we had on XBL?

:
d

My dad teaches at Penn State, so at the very least I'm getting 75% tuition. Penn State accepts absolute idiots, and I'm not one of those, so I should have no problem getting in. Schreyers I'm a little bit nervous about, but if I can do the four year program without the honors college then it doesn't matter to me.



You've never banned someone while drunk though...

Or been banned by a drunk person

Well after we had that chat I did start to think about what I would do in life. So yea, it had a little bit to do with that.

But anyways, I've been deciding and going over many different ideas. I think I've made my decision that I may go into the computer science field. My local college Lamar has an institute for technology called LiT and I can receive a 2 year degree in computer science and get my Bachelor's degree. I could also transfer to the main campus after those 2 years and go into the computer graphic design program over there as well if I'm still interested in that. So finally I'm on some sort of path.

Everbody and their mums have got computer science degrees, man.

Oh well. It's actually something I'm interested in so it doesn't quite matter to me.

As you can tell from my other thread, I'm planning to get a degree (or more) in computer science. That title covers a lot of more specific careers, but I won't have to make any specific decisions for a while. If you're anything like me, then you'll just wake up one day knowing what you want to major in/do. That seems to be the way I make most of the more important decisions - by not thinking about them until I suddenly make a choice and then sticking by that choice Either way, you can always change your plans at least up to a certain point, so your choice now won't be too binding.

Seeing as we're in the computer age, met, it seems like a rather safe bet. Companies will always need talented programmers to do the, well, bitchwork of the job. If you ever take a job though, do not go with anything saying 'Debugger' in the job discription. Suicide would be assured.

Graphic Design and Video Game Design are pretty popular (at least here), but not many of the other jobs involving computers seem to invoke as much interest, so there's a higher demand for them.
I did computer science for a year, and we started out learning how to open Microsoft Word and other office programs. >.<

That sounds more like a computer applications class than computer science I'm not sure where you were for that year, but some institutions take computer science pretty seriously.

Well ever since i was 5 i've always wanted to be a video game designer. Anything that deals with games and computers intrest me alot, never get bored. Only thing i ever thought about doing besides being a Marine

It did end up getting harder, though in a weird direction.
Was just surprised it started out with such simple things.
And I was at the local university.

I just graduated with a geology degree and working in an oil company but I am thinking of doing a masters next year, but it seems a little to much work for my liking.

Let's see

1) Worked in a night club making cocktails.
2) Worked in three restaurants up to five star level as a sous chef.
3) Worked in the BBC as camera and tech crew.
4) Worked in labs immunoblotting.
5) Currently work as a science and biology teacher at a top grammar school
6) Currently work part-time as a non-com personnel trainer in the Royal Navy.
7) Currently work in partnership with NASA (UK branch) through the school.

Did I plan any of this? No
Did the advice they gave when I was at school help? No
Do I know what I want? No
Am I proud of what I've done? Yes
How did I do it? By applying for everything and looking at the replies
Does it really matter if you are clueless about what you want to do in future? Not in the slightest.

Give out you CV, apply for everything and anything. You learn what you want to do through experience of the different kinds of work out there.

Apply for things that seem odd or different - things you normally wouldn't consider - you may get a nice surprise

See if there's any broad majors offered... I bet you can find a pretty general purpose "computers" major if you shop around. I am actually applying to Boston University as one of my top choices for their "General Studies" program. It's basically a "i-dont-know-yet" major, which is great in my opinion... many schools over some sort of "Undecided" option. Call 'em up and ask, it'll be worth the trouble!

I just did an exam to enter university, and if i pass it i'll study psychology, i staid the last year thinking about what i was going to study, and i passed by : Medicin, biology, computer engineering and others. Its good to plan what you will work on but as fisher said, chances that you didn't plan might appear and be awesome job opportunities.

So far I'm headed on my way to Calvin College, a liberal arts college in Grand Rapids, Michigan, because they have a strong classics department. I've always been interested in languages, I'm already fairly proficient in Latin, I enjoy history, and I have a desire to learn cuneiform (no clue why, it's just interesting shit to me). Basically the only path this leads is to becoming a teacher, which I'm honestly alright with. I've already taught Latin and History classes for middle schoolers and freshman in high school and I really enjoyed that.

I have a fairly general direction of where I'm going but who knows, it could change.

Majoring in High School Music Education.

I'm going to study Aeronautical engineering, most likely at University of Washington.
After that, I'd like to work for Boeing.

Hell, i'm a Freshman in HS, I have enough time to think it through.

Are you looking to get Classical Greek under your belt too?

Ohgod I love you. I've self taught a load of Latin and Greek just as an area of interest and because it helps so much with any European language, but especially English. I can never understand why all the people I know who actually got the chance to learn Latin at school hated it.