Choosing a College Major: An Essential Guide

Society expects an 18-year-old to make one of the most important decisions in their life with little to no help. I’m talking about choosing your college major. I remember having conversations with my high school counselor, family, and college advisor, but most of the advice was unhelpful.

Ironically, the worst advice was likely from my college advisor who threw me to the wolves in computer science by recommending a course that was WAY above my level. With this absence of advice, I ended up switching majors SIX times before graduation.

It became a running joke with my friends whether I had a new major each time we met up. If I had a set of guiding principles for thinking about this huge decision, that would have likely fast-forwarded my career and reduced this stressful process.

The following is my best attempt at defining the most important principles to consider while choosing your college major.

Principle #1: Interest

I believe the most important thing for your career journey is finding and choosing the subject(s) that you are obsessed with. Kevin Kelly, the co-founder of Wired magazine, discusses the concept that the “reward for good work is more work” in his book, “Excellent Advice for Living.”

If you are passionate about a subject, you will embrace it outside of your 9-to-5 job. The additional hours you spend on learning and upskilling in this discipline will help you outpace your colleagues.

One caveat to this principle is that at the age of 18, you are unlikely to know everything that interests you. You need to cast a wide net early in your education and career journey, and be open to any opportunities that come your way.

You can accelerate this discovery process by learning about a diverse range of subjects and following experts in fields of interest (e.g., blogs, social media, podcasts, etc.).

Personally, I did not discover my passion for finance and investing until after I graduated college.

Principle #2: Optionality

When thinking critically about big life decisions, I often take inspiration from one of my favorite authors, Nassim Taleb. In one of his books, “Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder“, Taleb suggests that there is no word in the human language that describes the opposite of something being fragile.

The closest antonym to fragile is robust, but this describes things that are resilient to disorder rather than things that gain from disorder. With that discovery, Talen coined the term, “antifragile.”

Optionality is a concept that has the potential to gain when faced with the disorder because it means there are multiple options you can choose from.

You want a college major that presents you with multiple career paths (and skills) because the future is unpredictable, and one path may close at an inopportune time.

Some college majors or skills that embrace optionality are the following:

• Graduating with multiple majors/degrees/skills in various subjects.

• Choosing subjects or skills that have multiple career paths/options, such as

  • Math proficiency –> teaching, tutor, data analyst, technical consultant, business intelligence, actuary, financial analyst

  • Engineering –> project manager, technical consultant, management consultant, engineer, project engineer, operations analyst

  • Business — > management consultant, operations analyst, financial analyst, auditing, tax filing, sales

  • Programming –> web design, backend development, product manager, analyst, software engineer, data engineer

  • Scientific method –> analyst, experimentation, hypothesis testing, statistics, product analytics

  • Writing –> copywriting, marketing, blogging, communication, author, teacher

    
    

Here are some examples of situations and how I would recommend improving them:

Principle #3: Lindy Effect

While Taleb did not discover the Lindy Effect, he has popularized it within his publications. The Lindy Effect is a theorized phenomenon by which the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things, like a technology or an idea, is proportional to their current age.

When choosing your college majors, you want to study concepts that have been around for a LONG time. The longer the subject has been relevant, the more likely that it will be relevant well into the future.

This will help ensure there is demand for knowledge in the subject(s) that you study. Subjects such as mathematics, chemistry, physics, engineering, and accounting have been around for hundreds, if not, thousands of years.

I would advise caution on choosing any majors that are described as terms that only became recently popular (e.g., data science, data engineering, environmental studies, sustainability, social media, and machine learning).

There is one exception to this rule that I would still advocate for: computer science. While computer science had only emerged as an independent discipline in the 1960s, the world is clearly becoming increasingly reliant on computers and digital technology.

While salaries might be reeled in, I do not believe there is any catalyst (e.g., AI) that could dampen demand for those who are knowledgeable in building/maintaining software.

Note: I do not believe the Lindy rule applies as strongly to graduate school since you are expected to specialize in a more specific topic.

Principle #4: Location Location Location

While the remote work trend has dampened the importance of geography when it comes to your career, it still plays a key role. If you want to pursue certain career paths or find jobs in specific industries, there are locations with inherent advantages.

Employers will often focus their recruiting on nearby colleges, and colleges will often partner with nearby employers. This means that if you attend a college near Washington D.C., you will have an advantage in finding a job (or internship) there over candidates outside of the DC metro area.

Location also plays a significant role in the supply and demand for various career paths. While some careers are mostly location-agnostic (e.g., teacher, nurse, social worker, policeman) in terms of supply/demand, there are areas with concentrated specialties.

If you are pursuing a career in finance, then NYC will give you more opportunities than any other U.S. city. The same dynamic applies to technology and San Francisco and public policy/defense/government affairs and Washington, D.C.

Working in locations that have more opportunities in your field likely means you acquire specialized knowledge faster and have more optionality in employer selection.

Principle #5: Consider Additional Education Requirements

Most careers require you to have some sort of continued education or additional tests after completing a Bachelor’s Degree.

Some examples include a Master’s degree in Social Work, the CPA exam for Accountants, medical school for doctors, building a public portfolio in tech, and law school for lawyers.

There is a wide range of required additional schooling and studying for various career paths. These extended requirements will:

• Increase the cost to enter a specific career path.

• Delay your ability to earn your desired income stream.

• Postpone your chance to understand whether you truly enjoy this career.

  
  

Having a concrete understanding of these requirements is imperative when figuring out your major and prospective career paths.

Principle #6: Consider the Difficulty of Self-Learning

For most people, there will never be a more opportune time to focus on learning and upskilling than when you’re in college. College presents you with an ecosystem where you have:

• Easy access to experts in each discipline

• A network of other students who you can collaborate with

• Cheap access to libraries, tools, lab equipment, and technologies

• Opportunities to be wrong and not be penalized (i.e., getting a question wrong < getting fired from a job)

• More energy than you will have in your later years

• More time than you will have in your later years (i.e., working longer hours, taking care of kids, etc.)*

With this advantageous environment, I would focus on learning subjects and skills that are hard to acquire on your own. Trying to learn chemistry, physics, or mathematics is MUCH harder on your own than with the assistance of the college environment.

Improving your writing, communication skills, or learning about history is likely more feasible on your own.

Take advantage of this opportunity and focus on the topics that would be much harder to learn later in life.

*This does not apply to everyone.

Principle #7: Forecasts Are Mostly Bullshit

If you asked me about the importance of automation/AI in choosing a major several years ago, I would have recommended reading forecasts for jobs that are likely to be automated.

For those who paid any attention to these forecasts a few years ago, they were not only incorrect but the OPPOSITE of what forecasts say now.

Many forecasts prior to the popularization of ChatGPT stated that creative professions would be the last to be automated and that white-collar jobs were safer than blue-collar jobs.

Nowadays, I would argue that creating content (i.e., creative professions) is easier than it has ever been with generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT-like models). I would recommend not relying too heavily on forecasts when it comes to choosing your college major(s) or career.

If you want to utilize forecasts as an aid, focus on skill-level predictions rather than job title predictions (e.g., data analytics skills will increase > data scientist demand will increase).

Principle #8: Bachelors Degrees Are Not For Everyone

With the rise of tuition costs increasing, the traditional 4-year Bachelor’s Degree path should no longer be the default option. Almost every day I see a new article or hear a new story about the lack of contractors or electricians.

Each individual is unique and should consider a variety of options depending on their interests, skill sets, and prospective career paths.

• Trade schools –> Apprenticeship
• 2 years at community college –> Transfer to a 4-year college
• Completing as many college credits or AP courses in high school as feasible to reduce the cost of college tuition
• Associates degree –> Reputable tech boot camp –> Building a public portfolio of projects.
• Associates degree –> Specialty medical field degree/certification
• 4-year college –> work experience –> graduate school
• High school graduate –> Self-taught programmer –> Build a public portfolio of projects

Conclusion

Choosing your college major(s) is one of the most important decisions in your life. It will set you on course for a finite set of career opportunities and paths. Have more agency in your life by being proactive and exploring what options are out there.

Most importantly, do not let others make the decision for you. Some final recommendations for those currently going through this decision process:

• Listen to this interview with Kevin Kelly on becoming your true, authentic self.

• Follow David Perell for writing advice, reasons why everyone should create content/write, and a curation of interesting things he has read.

• Listen to Business Breakdowns and Founders to learn more about business building, finance, and biographies of important individuals.

• Complete an ikigai diagram to help understand a Venn diagram of your interests and where job opportunities exist.

• Reach out to your network (e.g., family, friends’ parents, colleagues, etc.) to hear about their experiences in college and their careers.

• Exploration for the sake of exploration is 100% worth it early in your education and career journey because it is impossible to know all of your interests without trying new things.

• Broaden the diversity of topics that you read or listen to. There are free/cheap books, blogs, podcasts, videos, etc. on any topic out there.

• Look up companies you find interesting and navigate to their job postings. Take a look at the job titles, job responsibilities, and the type of individual they are looking for.

• Look up people on LinkedIn who work in roles or at companies you find interesting, and skim their work experience and educational history if it is public.

~ The Data Generalist

Data Science Career Advisor

Image sources: Stability AI