Uncertain About Your Career Choice?
Here’s how to explore career paths that may better suit you.
By Patrick Shiner, First Year Student,Valencia College
Candice Verity loved her studies in social work at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania and was looking forward to a career helping children. So she was shocked by her about-face reaction to some hands-on experience interning at a daycare center. “I loved working with kids,” says Verity, “but I learned a lot about the job itself and I realized I’d never want that for my career.”
Verity’s experience is not unusual. Many college students devote time, energy, and passion preparing for a dream career only to see that dream is not what they thought. Maybe they were struggling in higher-level classes or having trouble getting along with colleagues. Or maybe, like Verity, they gave it a try and realized that they couldn’t see themselves feeling fulfilled and happy on that career path. Those students all invariably ask the same question: “What now?”
What Do You Really Want to Do?
Some students follow a course of study that directly relates to their career dreams. Pre-med students need to get the prerequisite courses of biology and chemistry to eventually learn medicine. But Steven Langerud, director of professional opportunities at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, advises students to think less in terms of the job title they want when they graduate, and more in terms of what they actually want to do because, he says, “There can be little correlation between your major and your career.”
Carolyn Yencharis Corcoran, assistant director of the Center for Career Development at Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania, agrees. “Skills are not necessarily compartmentalized by major,” she explains, citing English majors who have gone into business and nurses who ended up in pharmaceutical sales instead of a hospital.
Both experts insist that shifting paths isn’t uncommon. If you’re considering changing direction, here are a few tips for making a smooth course correction.
Put Your Major in Context
Allyson Lambert pursued four different academic fields at three different Pennsylvania colleges. First, she studied communications and music education at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. Then, she studied marketing and finance at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, and at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe.
But nothing was really clicking. She wasn’t fitting in with her colleagues, and wasn’t excited about her work. “I’d heard when I got to St. Vincent’s that a lot of students were business majors, so I picked up a few courses.” Lambert talked to everyone she could—advisors, professors, and friends.
All those conversations were helpful, she says. But the best strategy for finding her path was trying new things and learning for herself. In the process, she developed important transferrable skills like adaptation, critical thinking, and versatility, all of which would serve in any career. In the end, she discovered a field and a career path she loved. Now a finance major, she’s engaged and motivated by her studies.
While finding your major can send you down a rewarding career path, you might first ask yourself, “What’s my passion?” Consider what you’re really excited about. If you’re procrastinating on your assignments, skipping department events, and not engaging in meaningful discussion with your peers, maybe you’re just in the wrong place. “When you look at your major, it should feel like home,” Lambert says. If it doesn’t, maybe it’s time for a change.
Reach Out and Talk
Floundering with your career choices? Make friends with your school’s career and placement office, your academic advisor, and even the office of alumni affairs.
“Alumni directories often go unused,” says Danielle Forget Shield, co-author of You Can’t Eat Your Degree. “Some alumni are anxious to speak with you, as long as you approach it from a perspective of looking for experience, not just looking for a job.”
Shield and Langerud both emphasize the value of reaching out to faculty, especially advisors and career counselors. If you’re unsure enough about your path to reach out to someone, says Shield, you can start having conversations about why.
“Once you are talking about why you didn’t like that class or that major, we can look at the trends you’re creating with your answers.” Those trends, says Shield, will form the core of where you go from there.
Career coaches emphasize the usefulness of personality tests, such as the Strong Interest Inventory or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. These can, according to Carolyn Corcoran of Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania, provide a way for students to begin a conversation about what they are interested in doing, as opposed to what job title they want to have.
Take Action
Sometimes, jumping in headfirst is your best option, so get out there and swim with the sharks. “It’s action that a student really needs to take in order to do some relevant exploration,” says Corcoran. So try job shadowing, internships, and volunteer work. “Exposure is key,” says Karlene Graham, a senior at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. She maintains that it’s important to see how things really work outside the classroom. Graham had always thought she wanted to work in a clinical setting, but after volunteering, she discovered how uncomfortable that work made her. Thanks to that action, she evaluated a change and found her calling in an educational role related to nutrition.
Think Outside the Box
Some students are quickly able to narrow their focus and concentrate on developing a particular skill set that will lead to a rewarding career. But Lambert, the music-turned-finance major from Saint Vincent College, advises students to keep an open mind and explore. Just because you’re a football player doesn’t mean you can’t teach poetry. Open up your horizons and you might be surprised by the possibilities. “Don’t think of yourself as a math person or an arts person, and try new things,” says Lambert. “Get out of your comfort zone.”
Smooth Sailing
Candice Verity, the psychology major who learned that social work wasn’t the career for her, is now pursuing the profession of sonography, working in the field of ultrasound technology. She knows that there are skills she gained as a psychology major that will come in handy in her new path.
“I know that there are ways to talk to patients, and ways to make them feel comfortable, and that will be useful to me,” she says.
Like Verity, you can make your own course correction and make the college and career choices that are right for you.
PATRICK SHINER IS A GRADUATE OF SAINT VINCENT COLLEGE IN LATROBE, PENNSYLVANIA, WHERE HE EARNED A DEGREE IN MARKETING AND WAS ACTIVE IN THEATER AND MUSIC. HE IS CURRENTLY A STUDENT AT VALENCIA COLLEGE IN ORLANDO, FLORIDA.
Find Out MoreClick for more about career outlooks from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Click for more ideas from Purdue University if you're unsure about your career.
