Guide to Choosing Your College Major

What is the Difference Between a Major and a Minor?

---

Your major is the sequence of classes you take from one discipline or field—this is your primary focus of undergraduate studies. This may be engineering, social work, journalism, nursing, or any one of thousands of fields. To be allowed to continue in your college education plan, you are usually required to choose a major by the time you complete 60 to 90 credits. If you don’t choose a major by this point, you may not be allowed to continue your classes.

Like your major, a minor is made up of a specific sequence of classes. These can be chosen to complement your major or can be a counterpoint. You might choose psychology as a major and criminal justice as a minor, which go together well if you work in the prison system or with those who abuse illegal substances. However, if you choose psychology and accounting, you might use accounting as a fallback option or work as a bookkeeper on the side while you necessarily finish a master’s degree. A minor should require around 18 to 21 credits. Learn what the difference between a college major and minor is.

How Important is Your Chosen Major?

---

For engineers and teachers, declaring those specific majors is the first step in beginning their careers. But, if you want to work in a different field, such as law, there is no specific major in law for undergraduate students. The same is true of students who want to become medical doctors. If this is the case for you, you can opt for a major in a liberal arts or humanities field. This will give you depth in your undergraduate degree that you can build on when you move on to the higher-level education necessary to enter law or the medical profession. However, this is something else you might want to discuss with your advisor to see if they have any suggestions for your undergraduate degree. Don’t leave assets on the table here. Your advisor is here to help.

Of course, if you plan to become a structural engineer, then it’s vital that you declare this as your major. Not only will it be necessary to gain access to your last two years of engineering courses, but you’ll be given access to an advisor in the department, who will be able to tell you if you are missing prerequisites, help you find an internship, and help you focus your schooling to best support your interests and future plans. If you want to become a social worker, you could major in psychology or sociology. If you want to be a counselor, you’ll have to complete an undergraduate psychology major and move on to complete a master’s in counseling.

So, the importance of your major mostly depends on where you’re headed. Make sure you know what you need before you decide for or against completing a certain major.

Find Your Online Program

Steps to Deciding on a Major

---

Questions to Ask if You’re Really Not Sure

---

Best Majors for Quick Employment

---

When you graduate, one of the main things you want is to be able to find a job and begin working as soon as possible. You can certainly plan your major around that. If, for example, you major in nursing, you should know that medical practices, nursing homes, hospitals, and long-term care facilities are constantly looking for nurses. You want to choose a major with strong and various job possibilities. One way to find out if the majors you’re interested in also have consistently strong hiring patterns is to look at each major using the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) website.

On the BLS website, visit the “job outlook” page, where you’ll find the percentage of growth for most careers, such as registered nurses. In the first paragraph, you’ll find the expected percentage of growth for that career. Most current data describes expected growth through 2028, but new data is collected every year, so this is a perfect source of information. You can also look to growth expectation and jobs available in various regions if you know you want to stay near home or move across the country. If the numbers aren’t what you were hoping for, you can check out similar careers, or consider what job you might have after 10 years and a few certifications.

Best Majors by Salary (Most Earning Potential)

---

Every college student dreams of that high-paying job they’ll land after graduation. However, the size of your pay depends on what you choose to major in. Also, don’t forget, at the beginning of your career your entry-level salary will be markedly lower than your mid-career or your late-career salary. As you spend more and more time in your position, often with the same organization, your pay will increase (promotions and cost-of-living increases).

You want to begin supporting yourself and paying off any student loans you may have. Your prospective income should allow you to do all of this, so you want to have the education you need in the fields that pay the best. Just make sure that, even if you’re looking to improve your future paycheck, the major you choose is one that you’ll enjoy working at for the next several decades.

Best Majors by Job Security

---

You might decide that what you most want is a career that provides strong job security. You may have seen friends or family struggling to find employment, or losing employment, after the Great Recession of 2008 and you want to avoid that as much as possible. Even though the employment rate sat at 3.9% in 2018, there’s no guarantee it would last or withstand a strong shock to the economy. As 2020 rolled around, that was more obvious than ever.

On the flip side, you need to be aware that some fields and jobs aren’t as secure today as they were in the past. Because of advances in technology and even globalization, some fields require fewer workers, are part of a dying industry, or are being overtaken by automation. Add to this the stiffer competitiveness in the US job market, and you can see that you need to choose carefully.

If you’re planning to attend college, you likely already know that a higher education almost guarantees you a better-paying job; you are also less likely to go unemployed for an extended period of time. Positions such as dental hygiene, statistics, and tax examiners come with much lower chances of unemployment. Let’s see what other positions tend to keep you employed the most consistently.

Best Online Majors

---

If you have been wanting to go on to college, but work and family life have made that seem like an impossible goal, don’t discount going to school online. An online degree program won’t create scheduling issues as long as you choose a program that doesn’t require you to login at a certain time of the day. Instead, choose a degree program that is classified as asynchronous, one where you can sit down to listen to lectures at a time that is convenient for your schedule.

Online degree programs and courses are becoming popular enough that more than one-third of college students took at least one course online, if not more, over the last few year. That’s almost 7 million students who took an online class, as compared to more than 20 million undergraduate and graduate students in 2018. Of the students taking an online class, 16.3% enrolled only in online classes during the fall of 2019.

As you consider your options, remember to look for the accreditation status of all online degree programs and universities you are considering. Graduating from an accredited institution makes you look more attractive to employers and it’s the only way you’ll gain access to federal student funding, which is available whether you attend on campus or online.

Majors in High Demand

---

Why should you look at the majors that are the most in-demand? Because, industries that are clamoring for this degree field or that one when they are hiring college graduates know what they need. And, if you can find a high-demand major that also fits in with your interests, then you win twice. First, you will be working in a degree field you love. Second, you’ll be earning a high salary that is justified based on employers’ needs for those skills and your specialized knowledge.

It isn’t easy to make such a big decision, but you need to think about the decades during which you’ll be working. Along with earning a high salary, you want to be satisfied in what you are doing five days or more each week. If you choose a field because your parents, grandparents, or a high school teacher said you should, but you’re miserable, then no salary will make it seem worth it.

Best Majors for Work-Life Balance

---

Work-life balance—this simply means that you have a healthy balance between your home life and your work life. Neither overtakes the other. You have time to spend with family and friends, relaxing and having some fun but you also get your job done and are focused when you’re there.

If you are a spouse or parent, you want to be able to spend time with your spouse and your children. Building and maintaining a relationship with them is important to you. Imagine if you had a career or supervisor who demanded that every minute of your time that you weren’t on the clock could belong to them the same way your on-the-clock time did. No one would like that. It’s bad for the mind and the body, both. If you have a stressful job, you need the time off even more. And, even if your work isn’t that stressful, no one should have to be on call 24/7. Time off helps keep you from suffering burnout, which can make you a less effective employee, spouse, and parent.

Burnout is a real condition that can cause irritability, fatigue, and mood swings. You make mistakes at work. You stop caring about doing your best because you are exhausted. It’s estimated that burnout costs between $125 billion to $190 billion in healthcare expenses in the US alone.

Best Majors for Undecided Students

---

It’s not unusual for high school seniors to start college without knowing what they want to major in. In fact, it’s a good idea to have some ideas without settling on one before you begin school. Chances are, you’re going to change your mind at least once about your major before you graduate.

Universities and colleges usually have policies that say their students are supposed to declare majors when they are juniors. Is it better to choose a major that allows you to move into a wide range of careers? Or is it better to know what you want to do with your professional life, only to realize two semesters in that you didn’t choose the right one?

As far as financial aid is concerned, it’s better to choose a more general major that allows you to move into one of several career fields. For instance, you may choose psychology, then move into social work or even human resources. If you choose a science field and then realize that you don’t enjoy the courses or you struggle to succeed, you may end up stuck or required to attend school for an entire extra year. By this time, you may also have used up a majority of your allotted financial aid.

Best Majors for Future Business Owners

---

A degree isn’t necessary to become an entrepreneur, but it will certainly help you to get your business up and running—and help ensure that it is solvent. If you choose the right degree option, you’ll learn how to write a business plan, get the funding you need from the right resources, hire and manage employees, and ensure that your revenue is growing. In addition, you need to know how to build and use soft skills such as time management, leadership, communication, and even mentorship.