How did you get to where you are?

Re: How did you get to where you are?

Your electives and extracurricular activities help you decide what you want to major / minor in when you get to college. Even if they don't, you can go undeclared for a semester or two and still be fine.

As for me, I took only programming electives and courses throughout High School. I never had an elective that didn't primarily involve computers. Now here's my problem. I hate programming now. I despise it. I also hate mathematics. So Computer Science is absolutely not for me. A little late for me to realize this since I'm in my 4th semester of CS so far.

Just know that each major in college has different means of getting there and different focuses. You can almost go any way you want to a degree in anything you want.

As for a job, I have no idea. The job market in this country is terrible. As a programmer, I'd have no chance of getting a job anywhere because all programming is done in India and in C++. I live in America and know Java. Shucks. Any computer-related major I take will have similar results, which is leading me down a tough path of deciding what major I'm going to stick with from my 5th semester onward.

~Squeek

PS - Welcome to the forums.

Re: How did you get to where you are?

Well, Banditcom and Synth are about the only post-graduates... I'll be graduating next week... and there are easily 30+ currect college students that are FFR regulars.

For me, personally, it was fairly simple. I had no idea where I wanted to go to college. I had a 3.5 unweighted GPA, 4.4 weighted, was top 15% class rank, 1410 SATs (old SATs, not new ones). Many people I knew took 2 years of C++. I didn't go that route in HS. I took accounting my Junior year and took a course at the local Penn State campus my Senior year (1 semester of accounting, 1 of finance).

So I already had somewhat of a foundation in business (in addition to 2 years of chem, 2 years of physics, 1 year of calc). I figured, "I like money... why not go to business school? I don't know what the hell else I want to do."

From there, I applied to some top business schools. I applied Early Decision to Wharton (UPenn) and was rejected. I also applied to U of Virginia and New York University (both top10 ranked business schools). UVA rejected me, Stern (NYUs business school) offered me 8k a year to go there. I also applied to safety schools... George Washington, U of Delware Honors, and Villanova (accepted to all of them).

It was an EASY decision of where to go. Stern was by far the best school on that list, it was located in NYC, and they were offering me 8 large a year (GW offered 12, etc, but still).

And now, after 4 years at Stern... I'm getting out with a Finance major, a Physics minor, and a Computer Applications minor (most people don't get a major and 2 minors... I'm unique.) To tell ya the truth, I don't really enjoy Finance work that much. But I also don't really enjoy Physics or Programming. I'm at a point where I am again at a loss of what I want to do. I know what I'm going to do again, even if I don't want to do it. I'll get myself a job doing something Finance related, and probably not enjoy it at all. And while doing it, I'll hopefully come up with something that I'd rather do.

I'm sidetracking though. The best advice I can give you is to have fun and to never regret your choices, no matter how bad they were. Looking back, I'm not sure NYU was the best place for me to go. I'm also not sure it wasn't the best place. I've never had a campus, and I miss that. But I now know how to live in a city. THE city. That is an unbelievable skill by itself. Employeers also like people who come from NYC... they are cultured.

If you're getting ready to go off the college, I'm assuming you're a senior. If you're a senior and you don't know where you're going to college next year... that is bad. It is may already. I knew by March where I was going. I hope you've heard back from places you've applied and are just having trouble deciding, as opposed to not having applied at all and plan on taking a year off. I HIGHLY advise against that. I know people who did that 4 years ago and I know people who are doing that this year... it is EXTREMELY difficult to get back into a "school" mode after being away from it for a year.

Also, when you do get to college... take advantage of it. You'll have hundreds of courses to choose from, many extremely random and odd. Try them! You'll have hundreds of clubs, sports, and activities to participate in... try them too! College is THE time for experimenting. Its the time to discover yourself, to live, to just **** around even. Because once you're out of college, you're in REAL LIFE. And you can never go back to before you were there. It is a scary thought.

You'll figure out what you want to do eventually... another nice thing about college is that you don't have to decide right away what you are going to do. You have 2 years to figure it out before you have to declare a major. And even then, you can switch majors and head down the 5-year plan. I can think of worse things than being at college for an extra year (your parents might not though).

So, basically... no matter what you choose... enjoy it. You only get to experience it once.

Re: How did you get to where you are?

Nope, not quite yet. I'll be a senior next year, but I want to mostly know what I'm doing (going to do) before it's too late. I know what you mean about getting back into the "class" mode. I've heard lots of stories of otherwise high-potential people never going back to school and settling for minimum-wage jobs.

I don't want that to be me, which is why I'm posting here. I want to get an idea for how it all happened for other people and what their best advice for stepping into the future is. I want to see if it really is possible to choose a major and get a job while enjoying the work.

I might end up applying the "eeny-meeny-miney-moe" theory if this is too difficult to decide. Haha...

Re: How did you get to where you are?

It shouldn't be very hard to decide at least where to apply... and from there, not that hard to choose where to go. It is harder after that.

Question... where do you live (so as to know local schools)?

Are you looking to stay local? If not, where would you want to go to school?
What are you interested in, or just something general? Many schools are not all that great in general, but excellent in one specific thing. Other schools are just better at some stuff than others compared to comparable schools.

Do you have any monetary constraints on where to go to school? Not everyone can afford a school like NYU, so it is an important factor in where to apply/go. Moreso in going... you can still apply and hope for a scholarship/aid.

From those questions I could help you figure out at least where to apply, if you are even unsure about that.

Re: How did you get to where you are?

There is some good advice here that I wholly agree with.

In addition, be sure to think about what areas you might want to go into, and go through the majors available at the schools you apply to to make sure they've got the best variety of options for you. I like it a lot here at my school, but I am undeclared and unfortunately some of the areas I am interested in exploring are not really available to me. :/

You always have the option of transferring after going to one school a bit if you change your mind, but if you're anything like me, you won't want to do that even if you think it might be for the better. You grow to like your school and become attached to it. (Or maybe I'm just too resistant to change...)

It can be difficult, but like Tass said, enjoy it all. You'll learn more about yourself along the way, and eventually you'll get an idea of what you want.

For a bit of perspective from someone older, I'll mention my dad. He was an English major at William & Mary College in Virginia. He worked for a good while at jobs he was relatively happy with, but his real passion was his music. Recently, after all that time, he quit his regular job to work for himself, managing his own business. And now, he is actually going back to college to persue a Master's degree in arts communication or somethingerother; to fully realize his dream and effectively work a job that he truly enjoys.

The point I am trying to make is that it's never too late. It seems like now is the big time, and what you pick now will set the rest of your life in stone, but it's not really like that. You've still got plenty of time ahead of you, and it's never really too late to do something different.

Re: How did you get to where you are?

If you're not sure of what you want to do in life/college, consider looking at liberal arts colleges, where majors usually aren't declared until the end of your sophomore year. It gives you a lot of time to decide what you want to do and play around with different classes before committing yourself into one program or another prematurely. It's what I'm doing anyway. (I go to Carleton college in Minnesota).

Re: How did you get to where you are?

If my family has learned anything from my college experience, it's this: take the time to visit schools. When I was a senior, my parents didn't want to and/or couldn't take time off to take me on tours, so I visited some state schools on field trips and during band or choir competitions, and saw a few other campuses during summer camps, but I really didn't have any opportunities to look at schools that were more than a few hours away, so I really only had brochures to use as references when I started ruling colleges out. In the end I made a choice I ended up regretting. At first, I chose my university for the theatre department, which was good, but my first college ended up being pretty much like an overpriced high school rather than college.

If you don't know what you want to do, I'd recommend a state school. Not necessarily in your state, but public institutions offer a WIDE range of majors and courses.

Transferring IS an option, but it's sometimes difficult. It's sometimes hard to get credit to transfer from one university to another (universities want your money -- they can't get it if you're not paying for hours at THEIR school). Don't go into college thinking, "If I don't like it, I'll transfer!" Transferring works out differently for everyone. I love my new school -- I've had some frustrations, but none that I wouldn't hit at my old school. I'm happy with where I am. Before I actually started at my new school, Guido's mom had me all worried. She transferred to this same school and HATED it.

I'm convinced this transferring nonsense could have been avoided if I'd just gone on some campus tours.

Good luck.

Re: How did you get to where you are?

I go into Grade 12 next year which will be my final year of schooling. We finish school when we're 17 here. I'm actually doing a course in multimedia now through school which is a Certificate 3 in Multimedia. I hope to follow on with this. Our courses here usually last about 2 - 3 years to get a degree then you can get a good job. so hopfully by the time i'm 21 i'll be working in some sort of highish paying job.

Re: How did you get to where you are?

Here is something you may not know, or at least might not believe:

The you two years from now is going to be a completely different person from the you right now. Two years after that you will again be a completely different person. The transition from grade school to college correlates with an immense stage of mental maturation that most people go through.

Why is this important? Because what fields you like now, or are interested in now, you might despise two years down the road. That's fine. That's perfectly normal. I applied to college as a physics major, and by the end of freshman year I HATED the subject. But I refused to allow myself to check out other options - I refused to accept that I had changed. As a result, I wasted my sophmore year taking physics courses in which I performed substandardly, and which will amount to nothing more than bad grades on my transcript when all is said and done.

However, my sophmore year I also took an econ class as a means to get an easy grade. Not only did I ace the class, I absolutely loved it. I sort of knew at that point that I wanted to be an econ major, but I still refused to allow myself to change out of physics. So my studies in physics continued, and my grades dropped lower and lower. I hated the subject and simply didn't care about school anymore - I realized that my physics degree, with the horrible grades I would have with it, would never amount to much of anything for me. The final straw came in Spring of 2005, when I averaged a 2.3 for the quarter. By the end of that I had given up on school entirely.

At the end of summer I realized that I couldn't let this happen anymore. I had too much going for me to continue to throw it all away. I finally determined to accept the changes I had gone through, and to accept that I had other options in my life. I switched to an econ major, and have been incredibly happy ever since (with my grades clearly reflecting this). Better yet, I have decided that I am going to be going to law school after I graduate in Spring of 2007.

Of course, I was lucky in that I still had options open for me. When I applied to college, I seriously considered several very heavily science based schools, like CalTech. I'm very glad I didn't go to any of them, as I would have been left with few choices if I had gone through the same transition to hating physics. I also took a lot of electives in my first couple of years at the UW, which allowed me to find something that I liked.

The moral of this story?

Regardless of what you think now, you have no idea what you want to do in school. Spend your first year trying out as many different subjects that might possibly interest you as you can, and don't be afraid to change majors somewhere along the line if you feel it is the right thing to do.

As a final note, also remember that your undergraduate education isn't quite as important as you might think it is - what really matters in this day and age is a graduate school education. Get a graduate's degree, and you are pretty much set to live a very comfortable life. What this means is that you probably shouldn't choose an undergraduate school based on prestige - choose a school you like based on location, environment, political spectrum, and so on, so that you have a good time while at school. The school should still be a good school, of course, but most good state universities should be fine. Just remember to do well where ever you end up going, so that you can actually get into graduate school when the time comes - the only reason I haven't ****ed over my chances of getting into law school at this point is because I am amazingly good at the LSAT.

Re: How did you get to where you are?

A word of warning: the people who say you have time to figure out what you want and take electives and test the waters and all that are NOT engineering majors. My degree plan leaves NO room for even a single elective. So, if you're interested in engineering (something I highly recommend if you like science and math), be sure of it when you come. Granted, I had NO idea that my classes would be like they are and I'm really fortunate that I love them, but I was pretty convinced when I came here.

Now, as for my story, I was pretty much destined to go to SMU. My mom went there, my brother went there, my sister went there (they're ten and eight years older than I, respectively), both married people whom they met at SMU, and I had done summer programs here to amass twenty-one credits before my senior year of high school. I loved the beautiful campus, the location, the distance from home, and the only big city I've ever liked surrounding me. They also have a respected engineering program even though it's a liberal arts university.

But, I didn't let that stop me from checking other places out. It is, after all, the second most expensive school in the state. I went to another good, relatively local school and a school in San Antonio that's one of the best schools for chemistry in the nation (in which I was greatly interested), but neither of them had an engineering program (that is, not one that doesn't deserve mockery). So, I didn't even apply to them.

I ended up applying (and getting into) Notre Dame and SMU. I knew I didn't want to go anywhere else. Notre Dame had chemical engineering, a great reputation, good people, and a completely fresh start for me (something I've always wanted to try out). I went and visited and quickly determined that I wanted to go there. However, a little more touring and I became disillusioned. The dorms were tiny and undesirable places, I hated the snow, it was many states away from home, and it was more expensive even than SMU and they wouldn't even give me scholarships.

So, SMU it was, and I've never regretted that decision.

But, you don't seem to have the luxury of knowing what you want to do. As said earlier, you don't have to decide for sure until the end of your sophomore year if you want to get into a liberal-arts-ish major. All I'm saying is engineering will usually take a full four years of classes, with a pretty rigid structure.

It'd be a little more flexible if you don't double major+minor like I did, but math and spanish only required eighteen hours on top of a normal ME degree for me.

@Squeek: Haha, you learned java. You got shafted.

Oh, and, like Kefit, I went in with a passion for chemistry, namely from my junior year of high school. I enrolled in Organic chemistry and found out that there was no way in hell that I was going to pursue that degree (it was originally another minor of mine).

--Guido