College is such an exciting time; it is a time of many big life and career decisions. I’ve been asked frequently how and why I chose my economics major, so I wanted to make a video and blog post addressing this topic and share some advice on how to pick a major. If you’re lost on what to study, or need some help deciding between different major options- keep reading! (Or click the video in this post, if you’re more of a visual learner.)
We all have individual factors when picking a major and career field, so it’s a bit difficult to give general advice that will work for every single person. I’m going to talk about how I chose my major, my thoughts towards my major as I was in college, after college, and then I’ll talk about advice or learnings you can extract from my experience at each point.
how I narrowed down major choices:
There were a couple of majors that seemed interesting to me, like English, Global Studies, Economics, and Communications. I wanted to take my parents preferences into consideration, so I ended up narrowing it down to Economics and Communications. To get a better understanding of the type of content and teaching style of these majors, I enrolled in a few introductory requirement classes for both.
Ultimately, I liked the format of economics classes better, I found the content and grading to be more objective, I’m not sure why that mattered so much to me at the point, but that was kind of how I decided. Also, I’d always been really interested in business, and UCLA offered economics and business economics, so I knew that becoming an economics major would put me in the right direction to be learning more about business and economic markets or at least position me for those kinds of jobs in the future.
I would say it’s a great idea to narrow your choices down to some majors that you are interested in that are also in fields that you could see yourself working in. then, enroll for a couple of classes in each of those majors and test the waters
When I started to complete the courses for economics, I started to find myself in a love-hate relationship with my economics major. Although the content was challenging, and quite interesting, the academics didn’t quite line up at all with the kind of internships I was pursuing, and the hobbies that I was doing in Los Angeles. (And if you want to delve into my student process through a fun and poetic read, check out my debut poetry collection: LA baby)
My advice here is that this is an adjustable process.
Hear me out: Even as you’ve made up your mind to major in something, you can still learn and adjust as you’re studying. if you feel like there are other subjects you also want to study, this is a great time to consider picking up a minor or double major. if you really hate your major, think about it and know that it’s totally fine to switch majors. sometimes your decision might feel like it doesn’t make sense. there will be roadblocks along the way.
keep evaluating your situation and making the best out of it. Just make the best out of it! Always 🙂
As my major began to take over my time, I started to break off my other paths and started walking towards my economics path more wholeheartedly.
Junior year summer, I was interning in Shanghai doing logistics at DB Schnenker, which also gave me great perspective on other applications for my major.
Something important thing that I learned towards my later college years is that your major is really important to the work you’ll be doing out of college. I know people say your major doesn’t matter, but I personally believe that everything you do matters. (Seriously, why waste your time) Pick a major that you like and will help you down the line, because you’ll be spending four years in college studying the butt out of that topic!
Some jobs are super strict about the majors they’re looking for, and some might not care, but if your major aligns with the kind of career you want to do in the future, i think it’s more likely you’ll get there with a major that fits into the field
Some key advice points to think about:
do a major that you like/could see yourself working in long term:
do a major that will pay you decent money or fulfill your purpose
For more information for a visual portrayal of a good way to decide on your college major, check out my video on this topic. If you like my content, don’t forget to smash that subscribe button!
Love,
-A
