Steps to Helping your Student Find a Major

Follow the steps below to assist your student in determining their major:

1. Begin with an examination or self-assessment of their interests. What types of things excite your student? What types of jobs or careers appeal to them? Also, many, if not all, college career centers have a variety of self-tests your student can take to help them answer some of these questions. Pay attention to your student and what they are telling you – to help them make sense of these areas. It will be overwhelming.
2. Examine their abilities. What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? What kind of skills do they have? They can begin this self-examination by looking at the courses they took in high school. What were their best subjects? Is there a pattern there? What kinds of extracurricular activities did they participate in while in high school? What kinds of things did they learn from part-time or summer jobs?
3. Determine what they value in work. Examples of values include: helping society, working under pressure, group affiliation, stability, security, status, pacing, working alone or with groups, having a positive impact on others, and many others. Again, a visit to their college's career center should help.
4. Next, begin career exploration. Most schools offer "what can I do with a major in…?" fact sheets or Websites. They can also learn more about various occupations, including future trends, by searching the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook.
5. Time for a reality check. Your student needs to honestly evaluate their options. Do they really value physicians and have an interest in being a doctor, but have little skills in science? Does their occupation require an advanced degree, but their future commitments preclude graduate study? There are often ways to get around some of the obstacles during the reality check, but it is still important to face these obstacles and be realistic about whether they can get around them. Assist your student in determining obstacles, without being unsupportive, so that they can make a sound decision – knowing what may lie ahead.
6. Help narrow your student’s choices and focusing on choosing a major. Based on all your support and guidance, their research and self-assessment of the first five stops listed above, they should now have a better idea of the careers/majors they are not interested in pursuing as well as a handful of potential careers/majors that do interest them.