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Osmel
Student
Homestead, Florida
1
Question
Updated
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“As someone who wants to go to college but is unsure about which major to choose, what can I start doing now—academically and outside of school—to build a strong college application and also make sure I’m choosing a path that will lead to a stable and fulfilling career?”
“I’m planning to go to college, but I’m still unsure about what major to choose because I have interests in different areas and I’m not sure which one would lead to the best long-term career for me. Right now, I enjoy subjects like math and reading, but I don’t have much real-world experience to know what those careers are actually like. What are some specific steps I can start taking now—both in school and outside of school—to explore my options, build a strong college application, and make a more confident decision about my future?”
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Claire Zander
Food Scientist
4
Answers
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Updated
Claire’s Answer
I sort of fell into my major in college after realizing my interests aligned with this major I had never heard of before- food science.
If you want to start exploring now, I’d suggest looking through the major options at all the colleges you might consider going to. Make a short list of interesting options and look up labor statistics (but understand those are directional and your experience will vary). Past that, you may want to see if these colleges have dars sites where you can run a “what if” report to see what classes you’d need to take to complete a given degree. If you want to go farther, you can look up the classes in the catalog and see what books, etc. are on the syllabus. You could also email the sub school (for example, I graduated from the Ag and Life Science school within UW Madison) and see what internships, industry partnerships and or scholarship programs they have for any majors you’re interested in and they should be able to let you know what kind of resources they provide for student success- even if it’s just a web page.
As far as a fulfilling career, consider some other aspects of what you like to do. Do you like routine or are you fine doing something totally different every day? How comfortable are you working with others? In what capacity? What *kind* of team dynamic would you like to work in? Are you a desk person or a work with your hands person? Inside job or outside job? Or what sort of combination? Are you more comfortable around blue collar or white collar coworkers? It’s good to know your subject strengths, but work requires additional skills and experiences than you will get through education alone.
Lastly, no one knows what will be future proof, but a job that requires a human hands-on or sensory component is probably a good bet. There are lots of very cool skills humans have that machines are very far behind replicating or even quantifying. Sensory science- what food tastes, feels, and even sounds like- are an important component of my daily work. We have lots of machines that measure small parts of these critical food features, but none is perfect for even the small portion they can do. If you can find niches like this in fields you are interested in, they can add a layer of job security in a quickly changing landscape.
If you want to start exploring now, I’d suggest looking through the major options at all the colleges you might consider going to. Make a short list of interesting options and look up labor statistics (but understand those are directional and your experience will vary). Past that, you may want to see if these colleges have dars sites where you can run a “what if” report to see what classes you’d need to take to complete a given degree. If you want to go farther, you can look up the classes in the catalog and see what books, etc. are on the syllabus. You could also email the sub school (for example, I graduated from the Ag and Life Science school within UW Madison) and see what internships, industry partnerships and or scholarship programs they have for any majors you’re interested in and they should be able to let you know what kind of resources they provide for student success- even if it’s just a web page.
As far as a fulfilling career, consider some other aspects of what you like to do. Do you like routine or are you fine doing something totally different every day? How comfortable are you working with others? In what capacity? What *kind* of team dynamic would you like to work in? Are you a desk person or a work with your hands person? Inside job or outside job? Or what sort of combination? Are you more comfortable around blue collar or white collar coworkers? It’s good to know your subject strengths, but work requires additional skills and experiences than you will get through education alone.
Lastly, no one knows what will be future proof, but a job that requires a human hands-on or sensory component is probably a good bet. There are lots of very cool skills humans have that machines are very far behind replicating or even quantifying. Sensory science- what food tastes, feels, and even sounds like- are an important component of my daily work. We have lots of machines that measure small parts of these critical food features, but none is perfect for even the small portion they can do. If you can find niches like this in fields you are interested in, they can add a layer of job security in a quickly changing landscape.