Posts Tagged ‘college success’

How did your research phase go? Did you find some good information? Were you able to eliminate at least one option? Better yet, did you choose a major that you are excited about pursuing?

If so, great! We can work on your education plan, which will be the next post. If not, read on for some pointers to help you look more closely at your options.

Often conducting research on college majors gives us the clarity we need and we can come to a solid decision.

Other times, we can be left feeling even more confused about what we want to do.

If so, what a drag – what was the point of all that effort?

Trust me when I tell you that this is perfectly normal! Putting this in perspective a little, we are talking about making a commitment to become an expert in one area that you will eventually pursue as a career.

And aren’t careers supposed to be BIG, scary endeavors where we do the same thing year after year until we are finally able to retire?

That might be what you feel like right now, so wonder making a choice is tough.

I’m here to tell you that careers are supposed to be something fun that we look forward to getting up for! They are dynamic and often change in ways that can’t possibly be predicted right now. You will get bored, change jobs, work hard, get promoted, get tired, work less, work smart, meet people, work alone…the list goes on and on.

What you decide on today is not likely to be your career twenty years after college. You might stay in the same field, but your job will change, probably sooner than you think!

So, what can you do right now to help solve this problem of choosing a major?

You can pay attention to what speaks to you and gives you a feeling of satisfaction. You can think about your ultimate intention, such as helping people or making sure all kids can read, and think about all the different ways you can meet that intention. Wanting to help people doesn’t mean you have to be a doctor. You can be an office manager who runs a fair environment, preparing employees with usable skills, and helping them allow their careers to grow.

You can be a counselor. A teacher. A dancer. A business owner who sells only environmentally conscious products. A designer of beautiful spaces for people to enjoy. If you can think it, you can be it!

Let’s get back to your list.

If you’re looking at your options and you’re still not sure what to choose as a major, try some of these tactics:

1. Get three blank pieces of paper. On the first one, list the majors in order from the one you are most interested in studying to the one you are least interested in studying. On the second piece, list the majors in order according to how much money you can make working in that field, most to least. On the third one, list the majors in order of the most to least predicted job growth. Compare the order of each list. Are any of them the same order? Do you see any patterns that concern you? If the major you are most interested in has the lowest salary range and the fewest jobs, is that something that you can live with? At the end of the day, are you willing to possibly study one thing and work in another field until you find something you really want to do? Consider how you would feel if you were unable to find work doing what you love. How important is the salary to you?
2. Carefully look at the research you’ve collected and see if anything closely related to the careers/majors sticks out that maybe you didn’t originally research, but that sound interesting now. Take the time to research them too and see if you come up with any new possibilities.
3. Write your major choices down and give the list to three people you trust. Ask them to rank your choices according to the one they can most see you pursuing, the second, and third.
4. Put your list away for a week and try not to think about it. At the end of the week, write down your thoughts on each major and see if you have any further clarity. If not, put your information in an envelope and in another week or two, give it to a friend and ask them to mail it to you. Once you receive it in the mail, look at it with the new eyes of time and keep open to any clarifying language.
5. If desperation strikes, write your majors on slips of paper and pin them to a dartboard. Which one do you hit? Which one do you find yourself subconsciously aiming at?

Don’t give up on the search for the right major for you. Will your choice be 100% perfect? Probably not! There are plenty of majors out there that require students to take one, two, even four or five courses that don’t excited us. That doesn’t mean that the rest aren’t worth taking or that the field isn’t worth getting into! There are plenty of sociology students who have to take Research and Statistics and hate it. But they don’t let it get in the way of their dream!

Feel free to send me an email if I can be of further assistance clarifying a major: sara@joyfulbydesign.com.

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How is the research phase going? Check out this handy comparison chart to help you look at the details of majors you are considering.

Enjoy! 8 – Comparison Chart for Major Reserach

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All right! It’s time to dive into the possible majors you’ve chosen! Looking closely at each of your choices will give you the clarity you need to eliminate options and find the major that is just right for you!

There are two easy ways to get started researching a major.
1. Conduct a broad search on the field using tools such as Google, The Bureau of Labor and Statistics, Monster, Career Builder, and even Florida Choices. Your local library will also have great resources to help you to research careers. Learn what you can about the field, what sort of jobs people who earn a degree in the major get, what kind of salary they make, etc.
2. Go straight to a specific college or university and read about the details of their specific program. While not all websites are created equal, some basic information you will likely find is any prerequisites required before entering the major, the courses you will take, the degree you can earn, and sometimes they include details on the types of jobs the graduates from their programs take when they leave the university.

Whichever search method you choose, here is a list of questions to help you get started:
1. Where can I go to school to pursue a degree in this field?
2. What are the requirements to get into the major?
3. Are there any special criteria I have to meet to get into my major program? Is it limited access or open to all students?
4. How long will it take me to get my degree? Do I want to spend that much time in school?
5. What are the courses I will take to earn a degree in this field? Can I honestly see myself sitting through those courses over the next two years? Four years? Longer?
6. If I were to choose this major, what sort of degree will I need to get a job?
7. What is the career placement of people who complete degrees in this field? Where do they typically get jobs?
8. How much money can I expect to make in the years to come?
9. How many jobs are on the market for that particular field today?
10. What does the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (www.bls.gov) have to say about growth in the field I am considering?

This is a simple list to get you started; once you start researching, you’ll be amazed at the information available online to support you in making your decision.

Write down the answers to the questions about the major or career field. Pay attention to how you feel while conducting your research. Are you getting excited about any one of them? Are you completely bored reading about another?

What about the job possibilities? It’s a good idea to search Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, or another job search site to see what’s available for positions in your field. When you read the postings, are you getting excited about the possibilities?

Other ideas for narrowing down your options include putting the info you find into a comparison chart, creating a picture to review each major’s benefits side by side.

If you haven’t already, now is likely a good time to get in touch with someone in the field you are interested in pursuing. Ask them about the job they do, or to detail a day in the life and see what kinds of information you can collect.

In the end, use the information you collect to make an educated decision about your major. Your major will ideally be an area that you are excited about, something you can sink your teeth into learning about, and an area that will get you excited about work when the time comes.

For further details on narrowing down your options, please email me at sara@joyfulbydesign.com.

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By this time you should have a list of possible majors that we can start working with. If you recall, when this process started, we talked about posting a list where you could add ideas for majors to it easily. I gave you a link to an interest assessment designed to help you match interests to possible careers and majors. I also encouraged you to talk to the people in your life about your future and to use a journal to generate ideas for college majors.

If you haven’t already, take a few minutes and review any written information that you might not have transferred to your list yet. Look over your list of possible majors and read it once to see if it feels complete.

I recommend that for this next step you have at least two different writing utensils. A highlighter and a pencil work well. Our goal today is to narrow down your options and come up with a list of majors that you will research further.

Step 1: Cross out the majors or careers that you absolutely know you will not pursue. If Belly Dancing made it to your list and you are pretty sure you won’t be studying that as a college major, go ahead and cross it off. Other things to cross off are any hobbies that you enjoy but are pretty sure you wouldn’t want to either take lots of classes in or work at 40 hours a week.

Step 2: Highlight the majors or careers that you are interested in learning more about. How many are there? If there are more than five, look at your list again and ask yourself the following questions about each one:
• What do I see myself doing for work in this field?
• What about this is appealing to me?
• Will this major or career help me to reach some of the big goals I want to accomplish in my life?
• Am I leaning towards this because I think it feels right for me or am I trying to make someone else happy? Proud? Is someone else’s (parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, significant other) satisfaction with my career more important than my own?

If there are five or less, these are the careers that we will move onto research. If you feel as though there are too many majors to research, you have some options. You could:

• Try narrowing down your list again
• Ask someone you trust to research a couple of the majors for you
• Write down the majors on slips of paper and pick two that you will research this week, two more the next week, etc.
Remember that while there certainly may be a sense of urgency, it’s not always imperative that all this happens in one day. Trust that these decisions take time.

Finally, once you have a list of majors that you will research, rewrite it on a new piece of paper and put it somewhere safe. In a few days we’ll talk about getting started with researching your options.

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Using Journal Writing to Help Choose a Major

Each semester I talk with students about how they make decisions or solve problems. I love these talks that allow students to reveal a private piece of themselves and opens the doors to neat discussions.

Without fail, I have students who use writing to sort things out. Some call it journaling, others keeping a diary, and some just grab blank paper and start scribbling away to process whatever is in their head. The medium doesn’t matter – the process does.

I have read dozens of articles and books that complain that our students don’t write anymore, that the good writers are few and far between. While this may be true, what I don’t think has changed is that students are still using time-tested techniques to process what goes on in with their lives.

And writing is a powerful tool for helping us to make decisions and solve problems.

When it comes to choosing a major, we’ve looked at taking the Interest Profiler assessment, asking people we know, and leaving our master list out where we can see it and add to it over the course of a week.

One more powerful exercise is the use of prompted journal writing. This is often most effective when you take ten to fifteen minutes (setting an alarm is a good idea), and sit down in a quiet place with paper and pen, and write a free response to a question I give you.

Ready?

Question 1: What would you do with your life if you knew you could not fail? Time, money, education, and resources were not an issue. You can go anywhere, do anything, and be whomever you want. Where will you go? What would you do with your time? Let yourself dream and see what you come up with!

Question 2: What comes naturally to you? What are the things that you do well without even trying? Are you a good listener? Do you enjoy planting and watching things grow? Do you love to read stories out loud to your kids? Could you design web pages in your sleep?

After you’ve taken some time to write responses to these questions put them aside and let them sit for at least a day. Then read them, letting yourself feel what excites you about these ideas, and search them for clues as to areas of interest you may have or ideas for a college major.

If you would move to Hawaii and sell flip-flops on the beach, maybe you should consider a major focused on business and entrepreneurship. If you would explore lava rocks and learn more about volcanoes perhaps Geology.

Definitely add any ideas for majors to your master list of possibilities. Let yourself continue to brainstorm and add ideas to your list.

At this point, your list of major possibilities should have at least three possible majors on it. If you don’t, give yourself a timeline of when you will stop writing down ideas. What feels good to you? A day? A week? When will it be time to stop brainstorming and move onto the next phase?

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Believe it or not, the people we interact with everyday, parents, friends, teachers, counselors, etc. are a fantastic resource for helping to choose a major.

They know you, they like you, they want you to do well in life, and most importantly, there’s a good chance they’ve seen you do things that make you truly happy.

So how do you get them to help you?

One simple question:

What do you see me doing with my life?

There are many variations. You could ask, “what do you see me doing for my career?” or maybe “what kind of job do you think would be good for me?”

You can send an email or ask them in person. Let ten know that you need their help, but that you don’t want this to take too much of their time. Five to ten minutes at the most.

Whatever the responses, write them down on your master list of major possibilities. Remember, we are still in the brainstorming phase of this process, still collecting suggestions.

So, let’s get started! Take a quick minute to email up to ten people asking them what they see for your future. You just might be surprised at the results!

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All right, by now you’ve got your master list of college major possibilities stored in a safe place where you can easily add to it. Let’s look at one of the brainstorming tools we can use to get the ideas going.

One of my favorite resources is an Interest Profiler assessment which can be found on www.flchoices.org or through the website www.FACTS.org. Both of these sties are offered through the Florida Department of Education. They are full of information that is beneficial to students in Florida as well as students around the country.

To access the Interest Profiler, which is a free online assessment, follow these steps:

1. Go to www.flchoices.org. Click on “Jump In”.

a. If this doesn’t work, follow this path: www.facts.org > Site Map > Career Planning – FL Choices > FL Choices > Jump In

2. Click “Choices Planner” to get started.

3. Under “Work” click the hyperlink for the “Interest Profiler.”

4. Click “Start Answering Questions” and complete assessment.

Once you’ve finished the assessment your results will appear. You will be given your top two areas of interest, which will be any combination of two of the following:
• Realistic
• Investigative
• Artistic
• Social
• Enterprising
• Conventional
You can click on each area and see which careers match that one area, or you can click the link to “see careers that match both your areas of interest.” This will generate a filtered list that meets the criteria of relating to both of your top two areas of interest.

Wait a minute, I’m choosing a major, so, why am I looking at lists of careers? Your major and your career choice are closely related. If you want to be a teacher, you will choose a major in education. A future electrical engineer will select an engineering major.

One of the coolest things about Florida Choices is that once you start browsing the careers, you can view information on the college major appropriate for that career and start looking up programs at colleges and universities where you can learn the skills needed for a job in that field.

Spend time browsing the website and add careers that interest you to your list of possible majors. If you see a career and you’re not sure what you would major in to work in that field, click the link to read more about the career and see what you find.

Allow yourself to dream! If you love to dance and think you might want to major in performing arts, write it down. You can decide later if that’s a road you want to take. Right now, it’s all about looking at your options. Decisions don’t have to be made right this minute; let’s just keep taking steps toward those decisions so we can feel good about our progress!

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It’s likely we can all agree that choosing a college major is important. Your major is your guiding light for the time you’re in school. It keeps you on track and is an invaluable planning tool.

For a few students it seems so easy. The answer to “what’s your major?” seems to roll off their tongue with the ease of telling a great story for the hundredth time.

For most students, at least the students I’ve encountered, the response to that question is often a blank stare, shrug of the shoulders, or an answer that doesn’t make sense, such as “I’ll get my AS degree in computers and than earn my masters in nursing.” Which of course is not a sequential path – believe me, I’ve heard it all.

So, how do we get started down the path of choosing a major and avoiding the possible “or else’s” (more time, money, and effort in college, less motivation to continue going, and making it hard on yourself to stay focused)?

The first step is to reflect on your interests. This can be done a number of ways. Over the next few days, we’ll start to look at a variety of activities that can prompt ideas for choosing a college major.

While engaged in this first step, it’s critical to maintain a master list of possibilities that come up for you. One way to keep the list is in a personal journal or notebook that is often with you. Another option is to add it to your day planner. A third paper-based option is to hang a master list of interests on your refrigerator and add to it any major/career ideas that come up for the next two weeks.

For those of us who are more technically inclined, you could download your favorite list-keeping app to the device you access most often. You could simply start a list on a Word document. Or you could use the to-do list feature from your favorite calendar tool to create your master list.

The key to this phase is to remember that it’s the time to generate ideas, to brainstorm.

Remember brainstorming? We learned in elementary school that when we brainstorm we throw out ideas or suggestions, write them down, and then review them later. There is no discussion of the idea, no judgment, and no determining whether or not to take it seriously. Not now anyway.

So that’s it for now. For today, just start a master list where you will write down ideas for majors that interest you. Put it somewhere that allows you to easily add to it for the next couple of weeks.

Stay tuned for the next step!

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If you’ve recently graduated high school or enrolled in college courses, you’ve probably noticed that people in your life are asking you the same question: what’s your major?

It’s not surprising for students to get frustrated by this question. It carries a lot of weight. Knowing your major means that you must have some idea of a career. Knowing your career means that you must know what you want to be when you grow up. Knowing what you want to be when you grow up might imply that you are ready to be a grown up.

Gulp; scary.

It sounds so serious, “your college major.” To many students it’s extremely difficult because there are so many areas or fields you’re interested in, choosing just one doesn’t sound fun at all.

So, a student might starting to take classes that interest them or that are required for all students. This is okay for two semesters, or three semesters, but soon they are earning enough to credits to either move into a major or transfer from a community college to a university. But they haven’t actually chosen a major. This is a place to avoid.

Why?

Because the longer you go without choosing a major, the more time and money you spend.

Spending more time is obvious. If you have taken classes for three years and then decide on a major that will take you two more years, you’re looking at five years totally for your degree. Maybe that’s not such a huge loss and hey, maybe you even took some really cool courses in that extra year that were totally worth it!

However, more money is another story altogether. For those students on financial aid, there are laws and restrictions on how many credits different types of aid will cover. You could end up in a situation where the aid is no longer available and you still have one year of school left.

For those paying out of pocket, an extra year of school can be an added expense that wasn’t planned for, either by you or your parents.

Choosing your major early can help you to avoid the pain and anguish of having to pay for courses out of your own pocket when you might not be able to afford it.

It will also keep you on track to complete a degree in four years. Then you can move onto your career and start earning money instead of living on crackers and noodles while you’re in college.

There are other benefits too. Knowing what your major is can help you to stay motivated to complete your course work, help to find an internship, and perhaps even lead to a job opportunity.

You can start meeting people in your field and making connections to build your professional network.

Students can join their industry organization, often at a deep discount, and start using those resources to learn about their field beyond the limits of the classroom.

There is no doubt that the sooner you determine your major, the better off you’ll be. The trick is finding something that you can commit to and that gets you excited about going to class.

Are you ready? This is a fun time of your life! Let’s dive in and make some magic happen! You deserve to be the kind of student who is excited about learning, engaged in their major, and poised for success!

I hope that you will join me as I offer suggestions, resources, and activities to help you narrow down a college major. Feel free to post or email thoughts or questions!

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Welcome to the newly updated site for Joyful by Design: College Coaching! I created this website to support my coaching practice and the work I do as a College Success Professor at Tallahassee Community College. I love everything about learning: the smell of new pencils, perfectly clean paper waiting for notes or big ideas, planning an education to support a future, using a day planner, and watching students get excited about the world at their fingertips. Being a student has come naturally to me my entire life. I finished both my undergraduate and graduate programs with a 4.0; to put it in simple terms, I know what it takes to successfully complete a college program, earn the degree you want, and find a job in your field. I work with students both individually and in groups to teach the skills that worked for me and have worked for hundreds of other students to move them to the next level of their education. Take a look around, sign up for the mailing list, and check out our events to see if there’s anything that can benefit you. Feel free to shoot me an email or post to my Facebook page if you have any questions.

Committed to your Student Success,

Sara

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