Why Your College Major Doesn’t Determine Your Career

Some students choose their majors on a whim, while others put a huge amount of research into the decision.

But most college freshmen think their majors will have a direct influence on the course of their careers.

For some students, they will.

For many others, their majors will be a series of forgotten lectures and mysterious formulas that pop into their head from time to time.

Today, I’m the founder and CEO of a career coaching and mentorship platform for students. Which, as it happens, is not something I majored in. I actually studied computer science and management.

I certainly didn’t follow the “normal” career path for my major, and chances are, neither will you.

So rather than worrying about the right major, focus on developing a skill set that matches the career you want.

There are a few reasons for this:

Your interests, and probably your major, will change over time.

Within the first three years of college, about one-third of students change their majors at least once.

When I first got to college, I decided I would double major in computer science and mathematics. I quickly realized that was an aggressive combination, so I ended up dropping the math major.

Even then, I had a lot of different interests.

I was curious about other fields, like film, finance, and business management. I had several friends who were majoring in management, so I decided to do the same thing.

It took me an extra year, but I graduated with a double major in computer science and management. When it was time to apply to jobs, many of my friends were searching for finance jobs. Even though I had limited experienced in finance, I was good with numbers. So I took a leap and looked for finance jobs.

That curiosity led to a full-time investment banking job with Morgan Stanley.

Just looking at my major, you would never guess that’s where I’d end up after school. But my story really isn’t that unusual.

Most majors don’t give you job training. They only give you a structure for how to think.

The purpose of a major is to teach you how to think in certain ways — not to give you specific skills to perform a certain job.

The concept of choosing a major works very well if you’re pursuing a career in research. College and university majors are designed to ground you in what’s been done before. You have to know what exists now if you want to build on top of it.

But for most people, majors hold little value in regards to the skills they need for a future career.

For instance, I learned everything on the job when I started at Morgan Stanley — everything from building a discounted cash flow analysis to making a three statement financial model flow perfectly. I didn’t pull from my computer science classes.

In all likelihood, you won’t use the majority of the subject matter in your major. That’s because the learning is mostly academic.

So, if you major in the humanities or social sciences, you’ll learn how to communicate and write. If you major in a STEM subject, you’ll learn how to problem solve.

These lessons are ultimately more important for determining which career you’re interested in, instead of which you have the exact skills for.

In a perfect world, majors would vary skills.

Some schools end up force-feeding students their majors of choice.

When I left MIT, I felt like I had been fed more than enough computer science concepts. Yet, so little of it was immediately applicable in the world of software development. It was plenty of theory.

It can be helpful for engineering majors to take writing and communication classes. And for humanities majors to take classes focused on analytical or quantitative problem solving.

While either student could go work for a consulting firm, both would have a better chance of landing a job if they knew how to communicate and solve problems.

That’s why some schools, like Brown University, allow students to pick their own classes and create their own majors.

In a perfect world with perfect information, that’s actually the best possible option for a college student. It helps students avoid pigeonholing themselves by getting exposure to a variety of subjects.

Of course, without proper guidance, there are pitfalls to that approach.

I know of students who’ve created majors specifically because they were interested in one esoteric subject. I’ve actually seen someone from Brown create a major in 17th Century French Aristocratic History.

Ultimately, your habits matter more than your major.

The skills you develop during school, and throughout your career, will matter more than the major on your diploma.

Think about what habits you’re forming. Do you spend a lot of time reading and writing because of your major? A lot of time speaking? Are you focused on solving math problems or building software?

Whatever you spend a lot of time doing, those are the skills you can point to when looking for jobs.

Don’t fall prey to the idea that your major is a life or death decision. While I do advise students to major in STEM if they have that ability, those subjects aren’t necessarily for everyone.

So no matter what you major in, focus on developing a skill set that keeps you prepared for careers of the future.

Matt Wilkerson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Paragon One, a career advisory network that has helped hundreds of students and recent graduates land competitive jobs and internships.

For business and career advice, follow him on Twitter and Quora.