Luckily most of my decisions about major and job thus far have been both effective in reducing income risk while also feeling like good decisions here and now.
I was accepted to UIUC into the Pre Engineering track. I wanted to be a computer science major because I had enjoyed all of the programming classes I took in high school. After a disastrous and stressful first year, I embraced the idea of being an economics major. This decision definitely did decrease my right out of college future earning potential, but it was one that had to be made. Luckily I am happy with the choice, and I believe that it is low enough risk to not be very worried about the future.
Now, as an Economics major, I have been involving myself in data science research and extracurricular activities. These are both a good decision looking forward because it is easier to sell myself to recruiters, but they also are good decisions now because I enjoy both the work and activities. I involve myself in a few other extracurricular activities to round myself out on a resume that I do not enjoy as much, just as a hope that they will appear good to recruiters in the future.
Over my freshman year Summer, I was unable to get an internship so I worked weddings at a gold course. This was not so much a decision made by me, as I desired an internship, but I think choosing to work over the summer in a field unrelated to Economics can't show badly on me as a future worker. In my sophomore year, I dedicated myself to finding a job more and was successful in receiving an offer for a software development internship. At the moment I absolutely hated the slog of applications and being ghosted by interviewers after a couple rounds. The internship being on my resume though really helps me in career fair and interview situations as I have prior applicable experience to draw from to answer questions. The decision to get an internship was basically entirely for future reasons.
Now that I am a Junior I am in basically the same position as my Sophomore year. Having enjoyed my internship greatly last Summer I am more motivated to get another, as I think it will be a good way to spend my time over the upcoming Summer. The decision is still mostly rooted in a desire to make my future easier.
My decisions for after college are very much up in the air still. I am trying to get internships at Chicago-based companies because then I could live at home for a year or two to pay off student debt and accumulate some money to get a place of my own. This decision is as much rooted in future earning potential as simply ease of life after college. Living at home would be ideal for a short while, as I am assuming the transition from college to work will be difficult and having what is essentially free rent as I try to find a job is great to ease the mind.
This plan pretty closely follows what my economics major cousin did when he graduated ~10 years ago. I have talked with a lot of my peers and this seems to be what their older siblings have done as well.
Overall I would say that a majority of my decisions in college (as well as the decision to go to college in the first place) have been made with an eye to the future. In my case, I have been lucky enough that most of these future-minded decisions have also been activities I enjoy.
I was accepted to UIUC into the Pre Engineering track. I wanted to be a computer science major because I had enjoyed all of the programming classes I took in high school. After a disastrous and stressful first year, I embraced the idea of being an economics major. This decision definitely did decrease my right out of college future earning potential, but it was one that had to be made. Luckily I am happy with the choice, and I believe that it is low enough risk to not be very worried about the future.
Now, as an Economics major, I have been involving myself in data science research and extracurricular activities. These are both a good decision looking forward because it is easier to sell myself to recruiters, but they also are good decisions now because I enjoy both the work and activities. I involve myself in a few other extracurricular activities to round myself out on a resume that I do not enjoy as much, just as a hope that they will appear good to recruiters in the future.
Over my freshman year Summer, I was unable to get an internship so I worked weddings at a gold course. This was not so much a decision made by me, as I desired an internship, but I think choosing to work over the summer in a field unrelated to Economics can't show badly on me as a future worker. In my sophomore year, I dedicated myself to finding a job more and was successful in receiving an offer for a software development internship. At the moment I absolutely hated the slog of applications and being ghosted by interviewers after a couple rounds. The internship being on my resume though really helps me in career fair and interview situations as I have prior applicable experience to draw from to answer questions. The decision to get an internship was basically entirely for future reasons.
Now that I am a Junior I am in basically the same position as my Sophomore year. Having enjoyed my internship greatly last Summer I am more motivated to get another, as I think it will be a good way to spend my time over the upcoming Summer. The decision is still mostly rooted in a desire to make my future easier.
My decisions for after college are very much up in the air still. I am trying to get internships at Chicago-based companies because then I could live at home for a year or two to pay off student debt and accumulate some money to get a place of my own. This decision is as much rooted in future earning potential as simply ease of life after college. Living at home would be ideal for a short while, as I am assuming the transition from college to work will be difficult and having what is essentially free rent as I try to find a job is great to ease the mind.
This plan pretty closely follows what my economics major cousin did when he graduated ~10 years ago. I have talked with a lot of my peers and this seems to be what their older siblings have done as well.
Overall I would say that a majority of my decisions in college (as well as the decision to go to college in the first place) have been made with an eye to the future. In my case, I have been lucky enough that most of these future-minded decisions have also been activities I enjoy.
Let me make some different sort of observations here. First, I hadn't hear of pre-Engineering before. But I'm somewhat aware of a Math-Computer Science major, because my younger son did that for a while. If you are aware of that, why choose one versus the other?
ReplyDeleteI do think that many students are surprised by college, particularly during the first year. The reality doesn't match their prior expectations. So some adjustment has to be made. Many students go through that. The issue, given the prompt, is whether the adjustment is purely reactive (I have to get out of this, whatever this is) or if it is proactive in some way, making a study of what should be next based both on your inclinations and job future. Frankly, I expect the reactive motives to dominate, given the urgency of the situation. But perhaps simply staying at the U of I and getting your degree is sufficient for being proactive. Regarding that, I'm not sure.
Considering your internships, it sounds like you will have a few of those before you graduate. You didn't talk about the possibility of working for the same company for a second summer. I wonder why not. Did you have any inclination that you might work full time for the company where you did an internship after you graduate? If not, then internship really is just a different label for a summer job. If you did entertain such a possibility, then you might also consider what you learned during the internship that made you want to do a different one with a different company the next summer.
You repeatedly said in this piece that you largely enjoy what you did as a consequence of your choices, though not pre-engineering. This makes me wonder whether you might have enjoyed yet other activities, that you didn't get involved with. In other words, you may be the type of person who can engage in an activity that is not slotted in a particular way or is outside your current realm of experience. Just to suggest a possibility, not to advance it as a suggestion, what about becoming a teacher, in high school or college? Might that give you some satisfaction as well?
Alternatively, might you pursue your programming interest as a hobby rather than as a career (perhaps by working on some open source project) and then look for jobs where your economics major would serve as more of a credential? Again, I'm not suggesting this as the path for you, only as a possibility to consider.
Sometimes I believe you need to try things that are off the path of your current trajectory, just to gain some perspective. Even if those sojourns as seen as failures in retrospect, they might then help get you to better appreciate the choices that you do mak.
Pre-Engineering was new the year that I arrived in the University. Students in it are in DGS but they have some help getting into Engineering classes that may be full otherwise. To transfer into and Engineering degree you must first transfer into Pre-Engineering then obtain the needed GPA and apply to transfer to whatever major you originally wanted.
ReplyDeleteI think most first year students behave reactively for the most part. I know that all of my decisions in terms of choosing a major were reactive. The only real proactive decisions I have made are getting internships.
I'm changing companies this summer because I want to experience a different type of job. Last summer I did a Software Engineering role and this summer I am doing a Data Scientist role (I actually just got an offer that I am very happy with in that field). I had a good time with my previous company and there were no hard feelings, but I told them that I would rather get experience elsewhere and they agreed that would be a good thing for my resume and that I should keep them in mind out of college.
I definitely think there are activities here that I would have enjoyed but I am not involved in. There are certainly other majors as well I entertained getting that I think I could have enjoyed as much or even more than Economics. I enjoy learning and applying that learning, so I was (and still am) open to a wide variety of paths. In terms of teaching I think that I would really enjoy helping others to learn, but I do not think I would be great at reaching students that are not so interested in the material. This, I think, would put me out of the running for a high school teacher. I do think teaching in college would be extremely interesting and I would greatly enjoy doing research as well. However, I think getting industry experience before going down this path would give me a better perspective while teaching.
In terms of programming as a hobby I certainly will keep that up for the foreseeable future. My goal is to find a job that can meld programming and economics though. Some kind of economic modeling job would fit that ticket very well, and this summer I should get some experience with that to see if it is something I actually enjoy in preactice.
In regards to your final paragraph, I am in complete agreement. One of the students I worked with last summer did not enjoy her time at the company because she worked mostly alone. She also found she didn't even like the type of work that she was planning on doing later in life. As a result she changed her major over the summer. She learned what kind of work environment she needed, and watching this progress over our time there helped me to resonate with the learning from failures idea.