“How do I help my child choose a major?” And, “My son has no idea what he wants to do.” Or, “My daughter started off saying she wanted to be a broadcast journalist, then she said she wanted to go into law, and now I don’t know what she wants to do!”
I’ve heard all of these so often that this week’s episode is dedicated to how to help your college bound teen choose a major.
You can LISTEN, WATCH, or READ the transcript below!
PS. Get 3 months of access to the #DebtFreeDegree community, where you get a step by step system that’ll show you how to get your kid into college and DEBT FREE for only $36!
“Hello everyone, hello. Hello. Hello. I am so glad you are joining me to talk about, We are here to talk about how to choose a major. This is a major (pun intended) uh-hum concern of many parents of college bound teens.
How to help your baby Who is going off to college (Can you believe it) choose a major?
Well, I am going to make this value-packed for you, and I’m going to talk about eight things to consider
when Helping your college bound teen choose a major. So my name is Treasure Shields Redmond and I am known as the Debt-free degree expert. I help busy parents of college bound teens secure top tier education without massive debt, And I do that at gettheacceptanceletter.online.
So how to choose a major; well these eight things to consider are Compiled from an article I read recently
By a resume expert on a website called Sety (used to be called Upwork), And I’m gonna just go into depth briefly about each of those. Give you a kind of short, sweet, and to the point way to think about helping your college bound teen choose a major.
All right. So number one. You need to help them identify their interests, values, passions, and abilities. So
look at the clubs and extracurriculars and classes that they have elected to take. So look at the clubs, they’ve joined the extracurriculars, they’ve participated in, and the classes they have Elected to take. So starting from the back: Elected electives. Did they keep choosing band, choir, art? Yearbook? Photography? What is it that you’ve seen them choose over and over again? Maybe that can give you some clue as to what they should major in. Okay, Extracurriculars. Every year did they choose a sport that was mainly outside? Does it seem like a career that gives them mobility and being outside kind of jives with their spirit? And Then the clubs; did they choose Spanish language club, Japanese culture club? Did they always choose social justice based clubs like Gay Straight Alliance? Or the cultural diversity Club. Do they seem to be someone who’s interested in culture, movements, who is Maybe an activist or an organizer type. That might give you some clue as to what their potential major could be.
Number two consider the future. Right right now, I’m sure that there is someone who Chose a major for a career that doesn’t exist anymore. That’s the historical moment we live in. There are Technologies that have died. There are whole companies that have died. I’m thinking about Sears recently filing for bankruptcy. I’m thinking about Toys R Us recently going totally out of business. So it’s because a lot of it is because they they stay married to old ways of doing things and now They don’t exist. So Look at the future outlook for the career. You can always check this on the internet you can look on the government’s Career website and look at the future outlook. You know They’ll tell you specifically in 10 to 20 years where they think people in this career field will be how they will be faring.
All right number three: choose the right school.
“Everybody in my school went to University of Michigan. Every Body in my school went to Howard, but do they have a theater major? Do they have a great accounting department? Do they have a fantastic archaeology major, right? Every school isn’t wonderful at everything and if your child is very married to a field and you feel really Confident that they’re going to stay with that field and the school that you all have fallen in love with Doesn’t have a great reputation for that field or doesn’t offer it at all, You need to consider that. So that’s a part of College matchmaking. Finding a college that is going to support your college bound teen’s gifts and goals.
Alright number four: Give yourself time. Give your college bound teen time. Look, my son who was a freshman in college went in is undecided and in the orientation part for the kids who are marked undecided the counselor told us that probably about 60% more people should have marked undecided because they’re gonna change their major exactly five times before they graduate. So I know that parents have a lot of anxiety. The way they think this thing is going to go is, “my child is going to go in, they’re never gonna figure out what they’re Gonna do, they’re gonna waste a lot of money, and come out owing without a degree.”
That is generally not Why people leave college. The number one people reason people leave college is because they don’t have money. They run out of money. They can’t afford it. That’s the number one reason that People leave college and that’s why I’m the debt-free degree expert and I help people find ways to pay for college. But yeah, it’s it’s usually not because “oh I’m so I have no idea what to study.” That’s that’s low on the list.
Alright number five: get help. Your high school counselor probably has Career inventory tests. They probably do career inventories with the seniors. If not, you can go online and find lots of great career inventories that don’t take a lot of time. They offer a printout afterwards that’s clear and easy to understand
Where you can talk to your teen? look, With teens, who are Easy to shut down and I speak from experience because I’m raising one and I taught high school for a decade. So teens are easy to shut down.
No, in general They don’t have the same urgency about this that we do. Yes, that is frustrating. You’re thinking, “I’m talking about your life child.” And they’re like, “whatever.” (In their phone). Now
Here’s the truth: they can become frozen by the amount of choices, you know. There’s some teens who are very mature and targeted and Self-starters and I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about the majority of our young people. They become frozen. they do think deeply about their life. They do wonder how do you fill out a check? How do you get an apartment? How do you get a job? All of it seems mystifying and overwhelming to them. So a lot of them retreat into a stance of,” I could really care less.” But really they care a lot and they need us to advocate and kind of Be a guide for them through this period of time. So
Get help. Find career inventories.
Find ways If you can to let them shadow people in different careers. If they keep saying they want to be a physician, if they’re a senior in high school, They should have shadowed a physician by now.
All right number six: We’re almost there to number eight. Number six- spot any disadvantages before choosing a major. Spot any disadvantages before choosing a major. Look, The disadvantages. Um
You know could come in several forms. number one: Let’s say that your child has an intense love of animals. Well, they need to come into a veterinarian’s practice and realize that one of the services that veterinarians provides is Putting animals down. Putting animals to sleep. So that kind of goes with number eight that I’ll be getting to, but they need to spot a disadvantage. If their heart and their feelings are not going to be able to deal with One part of the job then they need to consider that. As I said earlier, you need to consider the outlook; Whether or not that job is going to even exist in ten years, and you need to considerWhere it is moving as far as the income potential. Now You know most of the time we tell people don’t choose a major based on income. But let’s be real, we have to eat. So if you are in a profession that Used to require a bachelor’s and now only requires a technical certification, Sometimes that means that the market, That sometimes that means that they’re changing the income potential for it, right? So sometimes that means that the the Compensation that they’re offering for it is going down because now out they’re acquiring less of a barrier to get it, Which means that a lot of people are entering that field.
So Number seven: change your mind. As I said earlier, people change their majors five or more times before
They leave college. It is okay for your teen to change their mind. You want them to change their mind. You want them to start thinking more deeply about themselves and saying, “You know what mom? I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, But we had a chance to give a speech in speech class, and I don’t want to be a trial lawyer anymore. I didn’t like presenting in that way.”
Now You may talk to them further and say well, you know, Every lawyer doesn’t go to trial. Some lawyers focus on research, work with teams, Prepare the person who’s going to trial to go to trial. Some lawyers are just counsel, you know. They’re the arbiter, the counselor, the person who comes in and lets people know how best to you know, put together their trust, Their contracts. You might be an entertainment lawyer. An entertainment lawyer doesn’t generally go to court. They just make sure that everybody’s money is right in the entertainment industry. So you need to, they need to change their mind so that you can have, you know, substantive conversations about the major they’re choosing.
And then finally number eight: do a reality check. Do a reality check. Look, if you have poor math and science scores, Going into a STEM major May not be the best choice for you. (Science, technology, engineering, and math.) So if you want to be a biologist, a scientist, an engineer, a Physician, and you literally can’t stand math and science, then you need to do a reality check. I know that we’ve all been, you know inundated with CSI for the last 20 years. So, you know, I talk to a lot of young people who want to be in forensics and you know, checking out dead bodies and in a cool lab Helping, you know ice-t figure out who the molester was and the murderer all of that. And yes It sounds exciting. I can hear the theme music in my ear, too. But you know science and math wasn’t my gift so I didn’t go into that field. So you have to have a reality check between how your child sees themselves operating during the day and how their
academics jive with that.
So I Hope that this has been helpful. A lots of parents write me every day to talk about ways to help their kiddo Get into college and do it debt-free. If you still haven’t finished the FAFSA, which was due on October 1, It’s not too late. You need to complete the FAFSA. You can go to www.gettheacceptanceletter.online to find out Seven key things you need in order to fill it out. I’m giving away a free cheat sheet atwww.gettheacceptanceletter.online. My name is Treasure Shields, Redmond. I’m your debt-free degree expert and Happy helping your college bound teen choose a major. I’ll see you next time.”