Quit Asking "What are you going to major in?"

Taylor graduated from the University of Arizona in four years with a degree in accounting. She started a job right out of college with one of the top 20 accounting firms and was getting paid a lot of money. Wow! Doesn't this sound like what we all want for our kiddo?

Read on.

Taylor hated her job, quit after four months and ended up feeling like a failure.

What went wrong?

Here is the challenge, when planning for college, most families are missing a critical step. We are not having conversations about WHY our child wants to go to college.

• What is their goal?

• What do they expect as the end result?

We jump right into the tactical stuff:

• Preparing a list of colleges

• SAT/ACT testing

• Sending off college applications

• Writing essays

• Decorating dorm rooms

We are asking them the wrong question.

Friends, Aunt Judy, the clerk at the Target, everyone asks "What are you going to major in?"

The purpose of a college education is to prepare our children for a career. Yet in most cases we fail to ask what that looks like for them. We jump directly to "What are you going to major in? (A hint, the last place you should go to determine a major is the list of majors!)

We should be asking "What career path are you working towards?"

I know what you might be thinking, Kristin, can we really expect our 17, 18, 21..... year old to know what they want to do for the rest of their life?

No! No one knows what they want to do for the REST of their life, but we all have to start somewhere. That somewhere is a career path, NOT a career. What's the difference?

A Career is specific - I'm going to be a Corporate Banker specializing in small business loans for franchise companies

A Career Path is more general -- I want to study finance because I enjoy numbers and dealing with money. I definitely like working with people so that has to be part of what I do every day.

Once your student can establish a career path, then college can do what it does. Expose our kids to all the different areas of study so they can figure out a career path. Now they can get excited enough to spend 40 years creating a career!

Now let me share the rest of Taylor's story.

Taylor and I talked right after she quit her high paying accounting job. She was feeling pretty down about life. She shared with me why she chose accounting as a major.

· Her mom was in business and she did well in her job (her mom is not an accountant, not even close)

· Accounting is a stable career, and there is always be a need for accountants

Hmmmm. Taylor had logical and practical answers. But she had no reasons that spoke to her heart or her talents, interests and strengths.

I asked her the golden question (ok I have a few of these, but this is a shiny one).

Taylor, if you could do anything for the rest of your life and it would make you happy, what would it be?

As her face lit up and a broad smile crossed her face, she said, "I love anything having to do with the human body and how it works".

Ahhh, a far cry from accounting. We hit gold!

Here is the success in Taylor's story and what we all want for our kids the first time around.

Now that we had a good place to start, Taylor could have decided on many paths having to do with the human body. Through discussion and some exploration, she was able to narrow her career path to Physical Therapy. She will narrow it even further while getting her doctorate. (Yes, she is on her way to being Doctor Taylor!) Will she work with children, with patients after knee surgery or maybe own her own clinic? We don't know yet. But she is over the moon happy working towards her career. She has a paid internship she loves and has started creating her best life!

Taylor's last six years would have looked very different had we asked her the golden question before she started college.

Studies show 2/3's of students feel overwhelmed by the process of picking a major. But 100% of them know what they find interesting and are naturally good at doing.

When you decide on a career path first, determining a college major is pretty easy! So let's start by asking,

"What career path are you working towards?"

Oh, and by the way. Maybe your student doesn't even need a college degree for the career path that will make them happy. Sounds like a discussion for another blog post!

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