I always knew what I was gonna do with my life. Then I switched my major sophomore year. I'm a junior and I'm probably going to switch it again. So much for getting out in four years. Heck, so much for getting out in five...
Anonymous
11:41:00 AM
9/15/2009
4 comments:
I'm in the same boat. I've pushed back my graduation date by changing schools and taking a semester off to work a co-op job, and I'm gearing up to take another semester off to co-op some more. I don't know exactly when I'll graduate at this point, but I intend to get the most out of my college experience.
Good luck to you. Regardless of when you end up getting your diploma, it'll probably be worth sticking through to the end. And you're probably learning more about yourself and your interests by exploring your options, which is a good thing.
As a suggestion (though you've probably thought of this already), if you're going to be in school for a while, you'll benefit from gaining useful experience (ie. research, summer internships, etc). Especially if that external experience helps to shape your preferences and decisions regarding your academic path. It's great for personal development, and it can make the task of explaining your long undergraduate quest easier to do.
At this point, if I could, I'd probably change my major. But I'm a junior too, and there's no way I could get out in four years if I did. I promised my parents I'd be out in four years, and considering how much they're paying for me to be here, it would be unfair to them to do otherwise.
Yeah, I'm going to try and figure out something that is fair to them because they are definitely not happy with the five year plan right now.
If you want to change your major to something in engineering or something with similar short-term financial benefit, sell it to them as an investment. If you're good enough, you could earn a upper-5 or low-6 figure salary during your first few years out of school; if you live frugally, you'd have those loans paid off relatively quickly.
If you want to change from, for example, English to International Studies (ie. two equally worthless majors), good luck trying to sell that. Although, you may have luck on your side since you managed to sell them a 4-year plan involving the initial crappy major. Either way, be prepared to be in debt for a while, since you'll probably barely be earning enough money to pay for your rent and food.
You could also open door number 3: Look at the types of jobs you want to do and see how your current major could be applied to them. I know many people with degrees that are completely unrelated to their career field; sometimes it's more a matter of how your pursue your interests, rather than where you went to school or what degree you have.
Whichever your situation is, good luck. Graduating with a major you hate sucks, but being in debt sucks, too.
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