College help, please?

Hi, Emily! I’m a professor at a college, so maybe I can give you a few things to think about–and I promise to keep this pretty simple!

First, college degrees are 100% proof that you are specially educated to work in a particular field like business, science, or whatever else. A degree makes you a “professional”. Professional jobs do indeed pay more, but they also have other benefits like better health insurance (and even profit sharing from your business). So, a degree is a very useful and very beneficial thing to have–though one can work at some jobs and still make pretty good money without one. It’s just harder and may take longer to make really good money.

Second, The first “real” degee is called a bachelors degree, and usually takes arounf 4 years to get. IF you want to be an expert, then you can go back to a higher college called “graduate school” and earn a masters degree (usually takes around 2-3 years). Finally, if you want to be a total expert and be able to do college-level research and stuff, then you go to graduate school and earn a doctorate degree (or, PhD). People who earn PhD degrees get the title “doctor” added to their names…no matter in what subject you earned your PhD.

Finally, Emily, think about this. Over half of ALL college freshmen change their majors (what they’re getting their degree in). They find something new at the university that isn’t taught in high schools, and just fall in love with it! My point is, don’t rule anything out and don’t put too much pressure on yourself right now. You have plenty of time!

Most importatly for you right now, Emily, find out what courses you most enjoy, and talk to your high school guidance counselors…it’s their JOB to help you decide things like this. And if, once you’re in college, you change your major–fine! Not a problem.

I hoped this helped! If I can help you more, you can email me through Yahoo! and I’ll try to answer any other questions you may have.

Good luck (and sorry this is SO long!)

Hi Emily, I’m also Emily! College, for me, was the best period in my life (I am now 30). But I have to tell you, very few people actually know what they want to be, even when they’re in college! College is a time to develop your analytical and intellectual skills, and your major probably won’t have much bearing on your eventual career; of all of my college friends, only 2 are working in the field of their majors. My major was Russian Studies, which of course everyone thought would be useless, but the major was very broad in scope, I took classes in Russian language, poetry, literature, economics, history, political science etc., so I gave myself a lot of exposure to different subjects which helped me in my eventual career as a librarian. Use college as an opportunity to “learn how to learn” because those skills will be far more useful to you than anything else! Good luck!

A lot of people don’t figure out what they want to major in until their second year of college, at least, and people change majors all the time, which is fine.

Every school has basic classes that everyone has to take, and then each department generally has classes you have to take, and then each major has specific classes you have to take.

And you don’t have to go away. Most people I know go to community college, which is fine if it is your thing. It’s a lot cheaper and you still get a good education. If you DO pick a college and go away to it, and end up hating it, don’t be afraid to transfer either. It’s better than staying somewhere you don’t like.

College is to further your education or make it possible to get a job that you may want. Having a College degree makes everything in the world so much easier. A person who has a college degree averages 30k more a year.

Dont ever think you cant afford college there is soo much money out there, you may have to look and work for it, but its out there.

Good Luck in HS.

Try and take a variety of classes in HS, and figure out what you like. There are two types of college degrees – those which you will use for your career (science, engineering, medicine) and those that you will use, but more as a personal development (liberal arts) Of course, liberal arts frequently teaches or goes to law school. You’ve got quite a bit of time to figure it out so don’t worry. If you happen to take an interest in math or science, you would be amazed at the opportunities available for young ladies in these fields.

College provides you a broad scope of knowledge and the analytical skills necessary for critical thinking. It provides you a chance to focus in depth on a subject (or subjects) that interest you, while helping to provide the work-force a well-rounded individual. By that, I mean someone who can hopefully find Italy on a map, knows what “Delta” means, can chat about what the Romans did for us, know who Maslow, and Frederick Taylor are , and that all sentences should have at the minimum, a subject and a verb…