A big aspect of college is the variety of majors one can choose from. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette has 54 different majors. This is not even including the different concentrations within each major, which brings the total to over 100 different options.
Some majors prepare you for specific jobs: a nursing degree prepares someone to become a nurse, an architecture degree prepares someone to become an architect and an engineering major plans to become an engineer. But, what happens when your major doesn’t correlate to a specific job?
Whether you have a specific or more general major, I’m sure you’ve heard the lines before from family, friends or even people you’ve just met. People who ask, “But what are you going to do with that?” Or questions like, “How is that going to get you a job?”
Coming from someone who is double majoring in mathematics and English, if I had a dollar for every time I was asked a question adjacent to this, I would be so set financially that I wouldn’t even have to go to college. I’d like to use my experience in these more “general” majors to advise on how to market your skills and navigate your career when your degree may not point you down any one path.
There are three main things I’ll put out here. Number one: Don’t treat general and specific majors the same. If your major isn’t specific, one big way I helped fill my résumé is to focus on what skills that major gives you. For example, my English major has given me skills in professional writing, editing and proofreading. My mathematics major has taught me how to model statistical data on platforms such as Excel, and how to make models in coding languages such as SAS and R.
Taking the skills learned in particular classes, such as your electives, can help direct where you want your major to take you. This brings me to my second point: Take advantage of class projects. In any case where you are able to have some freedom in a class project, pick a topic that can feed into what skills you want to show off in job applications.
For example, in one of my English classes, I chose to write my final paper all about the language used in the legal field, breaking down its complexities and how to interpret legal jargon.
For my final project in a statistical modeling class, I created an analysis of human versus AI measurements of spinal curves in X-rays. This was aimed at examining if human error caused surgeons to prematurely recommend surgery.
I have, multiple times, picked an easy project topic to finish off my semester. However, when you have the capacity, being able to assemble a portfolio of projects and papers can help build experience and knowledge in topics before you get the chance to build job experience.
My third piece of advice is to apply to jobs in fields even if they seem far-fetched for your major. From my projects I listed, you can see I tried to dip my toe into both the legal field and into medical research.
This past summer, I was actually able to land an internship at a tech company as a business analyst.
I never imagined my mathematics or English majors could lead me into tech or business, but my manager told me that one thing that made my resume stick out was my odd combination of majors. That and my skills I listed in copyediting, many of which I got from working at The Vermilion.
But enough about me, my point here is that there is nothing wrong with your major, no matter how general of a subject it may be. Even if those around you, out of concern or disdain, question how you will use your degree, don’t let it get to you.
It is easier said than done, but any combination of skills, projects and the correctly-worded resume can take you into a variety of industries.
Doing what you love, or trying to figure out what you love, is one of the goals of college.