Grades, career goals, parental pressure and uncertainty about the future can all add up to cause colossal stress over a student’s choice of major. It can even overwhelm your residents enough to make them second-guess their decision. Here are some steps to take if you or a resident starts doubting whether their academic path is the right one. Use this to coach students through their fears as they plan next year’s courses, attend career fairs and meet with their academic advisors.
Take a moment and just breathe. A single bad test score, a dismal paper grade or one crappy project review is not an end all, be all to your academic quest. Actually, it happens to practically everyone once in their college career. In
The No-Bull Guide to Acing College Life, author Andrew G. Kadar suggests, “using the disappointment of a bad exam as motivation to start studying to turn things around.” However, if this is happening with increasing frequency, you may want to reassess your strengths and weaknesses. Is there a related major or class that interests you just as much if not more? It may not be a bad idea to look into it if your overall grades aren’t As and Bs.
Some students enter college knowing exactly what they want to do with their rest of their lives. However, for the vast majority of students, it’s more about finding out what they like and what they know they don’t like. Don’t let the grades, internships or job prospects of your classmates get you down. “Comparison is rife with danger, but it’s understandable why we do it,” said social psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson in a New York Times article. “We’re human beings and we naturally seek information. One way to get it is to look to those around us.” Just remember that everyone has their own ideas of the perfect internship or great contacts, so just make sure you stay in tune with what’s right for you and utilize the resources
you have.
Lay off of Facebook®
This step goes hand in hand with step 2. When your social media accounts are bombarded with others’ success, it makes it incredibly easy to get discouraged and forget the great things you have going on. “It's very easy to compare yourself to others when you just see what they show in their Facebook page which may or may not match reality,” explained Dr. Ken Ensroth, a psychiatrist in Portland, OR. If you feel this happening to you, give your online life a break and focus on what you can do to make yourself feel better. This may mean spending extra time in office hours or increasing study time.
Research and investigate life in this industry
Before you get your heart set on a major, do your homework. You don’t want to be the person who
majors in sociology without actually knowing what kind of jobs it can attribute to post-college. Whatcanidowiththismajor.com, and Glassdoor.com are great sites that can help you realize the major-related possibilities of what comes after your final semester.
Also investigate the starting pay for jobs associated with your major so you can get a feel for what kind of salary you could expect if you enter a major-related field.
Talk to those who work in the field
This is one of the biggest and most important steps you can take to feel better about your major and career prospects. As the Division of Student Affairs at Virginia Tech expresses, “career fairs are a great place to realize that the world is not organized by major.”
They also encourage students to attend any fai
r “where the employers and jobs are a match for your qualifications, regardless of your major.” Besides receiving feedback to your questions, career fairs are also a great place to practice presentation and communication skills. However, do your homework on the participating companies before hand, prepare your samples, questions and resume in advance, and dress for success.