Career advice sought for young student about to start college.

[Lorenzo]

Since the OP specifically asked for opinions about college majors for a young woman who is already attending college but doesn't appear to know where she wants to go, I'm not surprised that the posts in response contain ... opinions ... about college majors.

Post #3 says she's currently in a community college.

Edit: Sorry, I was typing when you posted to point that out.

 

[Qs Laptop]

Is there any particular major (aside from medicine / pre-med) you'd suggest for a student who seems to have no preferences at all (aside from *not* wanting to study medicine)?

If student indicated she wanted to major in accounting and pursue a minor in computer science, does it sound doable / reasonable to you? What would her options be if she did pursue this track? Hoping to get some advice from the people here as her (lower income) parents are clueless but want to support her 100% as much they can.

TIA.

There are a lot of suggestions of computer science, and that field does pay very well. But...how is the student's math and trigonometry skills? I ask because any computer science degree is going to require a heavy dose of calculus. If the student does not have the aptitude for math and trigonometry, calculus might as well be an esoteric foreign language. The ranks of college graduates are littered with people that went in for computer science degrees for the high paying salaries and switched majors because they couldn't comprehend calculus, and therefore could not finish the comp sci degree program.

My suggestion would be to take classes the first two years that would be applicable to several degree programs. Most programs have classes that are prerequisites for a broad array of degree programs. If possible, have the student intern at summer jobs in a field that might be of interest. Once the student is in the middle or finishing up the second year of studies a good idea of what is a desired career should emerge.

Stay away from low demand, low paying jobs like philosophy, women's studies, art, literature, etc.

 

[Masquernom]

A bit off topic but;

My megacorp let it be known that they were actively seeking to promote women. I don't recall if it was officially announced, but very common knowledge. We had a new hired, woman engineer in our department. During casual conversation, I mentioned she came to work at a good time since they were promoting women fast. She moved a couple months later to another team. That team's manager happened to make the same comment to the girl at lunch one day with several of their teammates. Another woman in that group overheard his comment and went straight to HR to complain. He got his hand slapped and soon got moved out of supervision. I never understood any of the situation, but that's how it happened.

 

[Lorenzo]

In addition to the need to be good at math, I would say one is either "into computers" or they're not. I can't say the same for accounting, because few of us are exposed to accounting before college. But computers--especially nowadays if you reach college age and aren't already at least somewhat of a computer nerd, then maybe computers are just not your thing. Granted, my own experience dates from the early 1980s, but by the time I entered high school I had been curious about computers for several years, read whatever I could find on the subject, badly wanted to learn how they worked, and had taught myself from books to do simple programming without even having had access to a computer. Although the last part was uncommon in the day, today I would think high schoolers for whom a career in computer science is realistic have probably already done some programming (or coding, as they tend to call it today) and would have a good idea whether they liked it or not.

 

[disneysteve]

In addition to the need to be good at math, I would say one is either "into computers" or they're not.

I think this is true of any field. Either the student is interested or they aren't. You can't force them to be interested. Pushing any particular major on a student who hasn't expressed a significant interest in that field makes no sense to me, especially when the motivation behind it is purely based on future earning potential. That's not how anyone should choose their path in life. The interest should come first.

 

[Lorenzo]

I think this is true of any field. Either the student is interested or they aren't. You can't force them to be interested. Pushing any particular major on a student who hasn't expressed a significant interest in that field makes no sense to me, especially when the motivation behind it is purely based on future earning potential. That's not how anyone should choose their path in life. The interest should come first.

I agree the interest should come first, but it may not be equally likely in every field. I contrasted something like computers, where today's students have a lot of exposure by the time they enter college (e.g., they've probably seen or even written computer code), with something like accounting, where a lot of students may have no previous actual exposure to accounting (e.g., no idea even what bookkeeping is about) but rather just a general idea. But maybe I'm biased by my own experience. It's possible my fellow freshmen who aimed for accounting had been exposed to it through parents or maybe a summer job. If I recall, though, some I spoke with who had entered through my university's college of business weren't yet sure whether they were going to go into accounting, finance or whatever other aspect of "business"; they just had the idea that "business" was the direction they were headed. There were the freshmen aiming for business or humanities, and then there were the freshmen aiming for engineering, science, etc., and never the twain met again after freshman year. The great fork in the academic road. A freshman (or in this case, a transfer student from a community college) doesn't need to know exactly what they will major in, but I do believe they need to face that fork and make at least that much of a decision. And if a student is truly some kind of polymath who adores both engineering and accounting and can't bring themselves to relegate one to a mere minor, there's often a "double major" or dual-degree option, though that may mean an extra year of college.

 

[rodi]

She graduated high school early and is now in community college to get GE out of the way. She is actually clueless about the major when I talked to her except for being certain she is not interested in pursuing a career in medicine.

Guess my question should be what a "lucrative" major would be for a student from a low income family who has the intelligence to succeed but just lacks proper guidance as none of us (extended family and friends) have much knowledge or college experience? Thank you!

Are you in California? If so have her talk to a guidance counselor about the TAG (transfer acceptance guaranteed) program and completing the IGETC requirements.

My older son had a false start to college right as covid hit. He got a job and started taking classes at the community college.... Figuring out what interested him and growing up. He figured out his major while qualifying for guaranteed acceptance to UC Davis. That became his safety school because with TAG he was totally guaranteed. He also applied to some other UCs that didn't do TAG (UCLA, UCSD, and UC Berkeley ). .This fall he will be starting at Cal Berkeley as a transfer Math major. The UCs really push TAG and having the IGETC completed. All of his GE and lower division major requirements are completed and he goes straight into upper division classes in his major.

As for majors... I'm going to go against the common refrain. I think CS is going to change radically with AI and they will need fewer programmers. And based on the last ten years of my career as an EE/embedded software engineer, off shoring will continue to reduce jobs the need for programmers and EEs. If she's interested in engineering she should consider civil or structural... Can't off shore a bridge or building being built here.

 

[FlaGator]

.............

As for majors... I'm going to go against the common refrain. I think CS is going to change radically with AI and they will need fewer programmers. And based on the last ten years of my career as an EE/embedded software engineer, off shoring will continue to reduce jobs the need for programmers and EEs. If she's interested in engineering she should consider civil or structural... Can't off shore a bridge or building being built here.

You raise an important point about the global economy - If work can be done on a computer, it can be done anywhere in the world, by the lowest bidder. I've seen contracts reviewed and CT scans evaluated by offshore "attorneys" and "doctors". An obvious IT exception is sensitive information and systems, and government work.

Jobs that require physical human interaction (ranging from nail salons to brain surgery), building/repairing tangible things, or otherwise require a presence (environmental assessments, food production and processing) are more likely to have a long career.

 

[Texas Proud]

It was in Post #3 of the thread.

I stand corrected... but I still stand by my post that not all lucrative jobs require a college degree... I have a niece whose husband does not even have a HS degree but makes over $400.000 a year as a specialist in the oil and gas industry....

 

[JBTX]

Is there any particular major (aside from medicine / pre-med) you'd suggest for a student who seems to have no preferences at all (aside from *not* wanting to study medicine)?

If student indicated she wanted to major in accounting and pursue a minor in computer science, does it sound doable / reasonable to you? What would her options be if she did pursue this track? Hoping to get some advice from the people here as her (lower income) parents are clueless but want to support her 100% as much they can.

TIA.

kind of sounded like me 40 years ago. Went into accounting because seemed to be a good field and what my dad went into. My first year at community college I toyed with the idea of pre med, but I had to make a decision of that or accounting by year two, so I transferred to state U and got the accounting degree. Then got an MBA because I wasn’t really interested in public accounting.

Friend my age also got an accounting degree for same reasons I did but found he really liked programming and computer science at school. He dual majored and ended up working for a consulting company for many years that specialized in implantations of various systems for a specific industry.

The combination of accounting and computer science could be a good background for accounting business systems - if you are in accounting these days you really have to be able to navigate implementations.

The potential downside of accounting or IT is we are in such a dynamic environment it’s hard to say how those fields will change in the coming decades.

 

[Walt34]

Another field to consider is law enforcement, which besides the obvious has all sorts of supporting roles that are crucial in investigating and prosecuting crimes. I retired from a job that didn't exist when I was hired, that of a computer forensic examiner. That's a specialty on it's own now, granted a niche one, but it's an example of what is out there, and it's going to grow exponentially.

As one guy at work put it "Where there's money, there's fraud". I'd wager that virtually every federal agency and many state agencies have people investigating things when someone hatches a plan to steal stuff or information. My wife's cousin's son works for Health and Human Services investigating fraud.

 

[FlaGator]

Another field to consider is law enforcement, which besides the obvious has all sorts of supporting roles that are crucial in investigating and prosecuting crimes. I retired from a job that didn't exist when I was hired, that of a computer forensic examiner. That's a specialty on it's own now, granted a niche one, but it's an example of what is out there, and it's going to grow exponentially.

As one guy at work put it "Where there's money, there's fraud". I'd wager that virtually every federal agency and many state agencies have people investigating things when someone hatches a plan to steal stuff or information. My wife's cousin's son works for Health and Human Services investigating fraud.

And that's a line of work that will likely never be offshored.

 

[Texas Proud]

And that's a line of work that will likely never be offshored.

No, they will just build robots... have you not looked at the movies...

 

[Alan]

As a female in IT, I always loathed the idea that I might have ever been hired or promoted because of my gender. Most of us would rather not, and would prefer to be hired based on our accomplishments, skills, etc..... just like, um, men?

ETA: There were also many times when I was the only woman in the room. Surrounded by engineers who were not comfortable with my presence (not hostile, just, like...literally was once asked, jokingly, "what is a woman doing in here?") and this was only 10 years ago.

Our son and daughter both studied and got Computer Science degrees and our daughter was always very much in jobs where the vast majority of workers were male. The e-games company she has been with this last 12 years had a class action lawsuit settled against them a few years ago for underpaying their female staff and also for a hostile work environment for women employees. She finally received her settlement check last year, well into 6 figures, so is now almost certainly going to retire in a few years time. Remote working is normal and she works from home in England, traveling for meetings to the USA or some other country about 3 times a year.

 

[landover]

There is one new elephant in the room, and difficult to predict how it will turn out.

Most of us are seeing progress of chatGPT and other language models, and soon (define) most skills can be learned by AI models.

What would be the best way for a perspective students like here, considering drastic changes coming the way of economic changes.

This time, we are the horses: the disruption of labor​

 

[Safire]

Wow, thank you all so very much for taking the time and effort to help me with my questions. Much appreciated! I will have her read these responses herself as there is plenty of practical, sound advice here that she would greatly benefit from reading herself. She did think of the trades, btw, (electrician or auto mechanic as she loves cars), but I guess wanting to get a Bachelor's would be a feather in her cap as she'd be the first in the family to do so!

Thanks again, she'll be around to read this soon!

 

[Texas Proud]

It was in Post #3 of the thread.

OHHH, just read the title of the thread and it says 'about to start college'... maybe that is where I got my idea they had not started...

 

[ncbill]

Another field to consider is law enforcement, which besides the obvious has all sorts of supporting roles that are crucial in investigating and prosecuting crimes. I retired from a job that didn't exist when I was hired, that of a computer forensic examiner. That's a specialty on it's own now, granted a niche one, but it's an example of what is out there, and it's going to grow exponentially.

As one guy at work put it "Where there's money, there's fraud". I'd wager that virtually every federal agency and many state agencies have people investigating things when someone hatches a plan to steal stuff or information. My wife's cousin's son works for Health and Human Services investigating fraud.

Yep, one kid joined the police, also serves in the Reserves...so two COLA pensions by his mid-50s.

Another is active duty & will probably go career, but if not he can still get military retirement via the Reserves.

Heck, at my 25th college reunion I met more people than expected who started ROTC on a lark but were already military retired into other careers...in hindsight I wish I had done so.

 

[wrigley]

Go in the military for a few years. Grow up a little. Travel a little. Get some life experience. And then use your GI bill to go to school.

Mike