What Should My Major Be?

Good morning.

So it is officially 10:00 o'clock.

And it looks like 28 of you have joined this webinar this morning. So welcome. Glad to have you, Jackson, Ethan, John, Emily, Amanda, Chloe, some of you hear Nicholas, Samuel, Adam.

Jessica Luke Lena Courtney.

And I think we have more coming. I'm going to just wait.

Another 60 seconds or so to make sure that we can collect everybody who is going to be a part of this and it looks like a lot of you have already answered the poll, which is fantastic.

Um, are you an admitted student for fall 2020, or are you in high school and considering CSU?

And it looks like the good majority of you are admitted for fall 2020, so we're looking forward to having you. And for those of you who are still looking around and you're in high school, I'm really glad you're checking us out and being proactive, that's fantastic.

So I'll just go ahead and introduce myself. My name is Paige Jacobson Ann. I am an academic success coordinator. In other words, that is academic advisor and I work with an office on campus called the collaborative for student achievement. Specifically with the unit for undeclared advising. So I have over a decade of experience working with students coming into CSU, not being sure of what their major is, which is fantastic.

We are directed for the first 18 years of our life, more or less right with the next step. And then you're 18 going to College an all of the sudden, you're supposed to be taking the reins and driving the boat and deciding what you want to major in. And it takes time. It's a transition, so I'm really glad you're here, considering.

Alright, I want to take one more poll before we get started.

That is, uhm.

So you'll see it here, but I'm curious as to issue is declared as a major already.

And who?

Ice appeared in major.

So coming coming.

I'll let you answer that.

Steven are numbers look like.

OK, so most of you are undeclared.

Definitely a good majority, but definitely there are some of you who are declared a major as well. I love that we have a combination because I think.

It's really valuable to consider your options and know what the possibilities are. Again, because you've been in school for 18 years and you've been exposed to a certain.

Grouping of things depending on what you're exposed to at school. When your family members are involved with with your friends, family members are involved with. So I think expanding your horizons is always a good idea.

Let me start by saying that actually 1/3 of all incoming students come to Colorado State undeclared.

2/3 obviously coming declared that's a little bit of easy math for you.

But half of the students who come in with the declared major will change at some point and graduate with something different than they came in last. So it is very common to be unsure even when students.

Seem shorter sentence and they feel sure things might change.

So.

I am going to, um, have my questions post up here and I might come in and out of answering questions. So please post your questions. I might not get to him right away, but I will be sure to get to them before we close at 10:30.

Um?

And it looks like.

We've got some thoughts. If you are a family member. Thank you whoever posted that that you are a parent here, gathering some information for your son, it looks like that's fantastic. If you are a family member supporting a student, a guest in other ways. Thank you for being with us today too.

I'm.

I am going to start by just illuminating the facts, but.

Your major should be a combination of who you are and your options.

Mind blown, right? That's a huge concept.

This service is very simple, but honestly I think that in all of the years I've dealt with this, sometimes students forget to really consider who they are, what they are made of.

When determining.

Watt major they should choose out of University. Yes there are reasons to choose just a major right. A man that can be related to different values you have, but it's important to make sure it's a good fit for you too.

So what I would want you all to be really camping on.

At first is who you are right? Uhm? And some of that is really known to you an and we're always discovering aspects of ourselves as we go along too. So there are some parts that might.

Come as you go right, but when you're considering a major that's going to lead to a variety of potential careers, you really want to consider what your interests are, what your values are.

And what your skills are as well?

I would like to point out that I think interests can be very fluid, because we're interested oftentimes than what we're exposed to and what we have the opportunity to learn about and what we have the opportunity to get good at and.

You have many years ahead of you and some very potent mirrors coming up here where you have the opportunity to expand your horizons with some of those things with interests. So I would encourage you to consider what you're interested in now, but, um, be very willing to expand upon that. Sometimes you're interested in something, not necessarily for the obvious reasons as well.

I have students that are.

Very in love with the team sports, you know that they've been playing throughout their life throughout their high school career.

And for some of them, they feel like that must mean that they should go on an work in the sports industry in some ways. Well, that might be true, and that might be a very satisfying path for them. But at the same time they might love.

The team sport that they've been involved with because of the leadership opportunities they had because of the environment of team and working together to accomplish a goal and those aspects can be found in a lot of different careers and a lot of different majors. So pulling out those specific pieces that do interest you in that you love can be a really critical piece to helping you discern what it is you might want to go into. If it's more of a solo.

Laying on yourself career or work with the team Korea for instance.

Values are really important to uhm. I have students that are really interested in the outdoors. Uhm, they think that they would love to, you know, work in a forest for the rest of their lives, and then as we continue to have conversation and we think about what does that look like? What are some other goals for your life? And sometimes I have them realize that they might want to raise a family and they might want.

More of a suburban area or a city to do that end. So if they're going to work in the Natural Resources Arena, maybe finding an area in Colorado can work well where they can commute to their job, but still raised their family in the area that they want to do that in. Or I have students really interested in finance for intra incense finances.

An arena where you can find lots of jobs, um, and certainly in Colorado. There are lots of opportunities, but a lot of the really big firms are on the coasts, right? So I have some students that start to question whether that's the direction they want to go, and if they want to really work for a big firm but Wanna live in Colorado. Those are values to consider, right?

And then skills are really important to some of you may have had somebody tell you you should become an engineer because you're great at math. Or maybe you had somebody tell you you should major in English because you're a fantastic writer. Again, I would encourage you to pull out. What are the smaller skills within those abilities that might be applied to different things at CSU. If you are good at math and you like math, sure you could try out engineering.

But maybe data Sciences would be a fantastic fit. Or computer Sciences or math itself so.

Those can be things to dig into, right? If you're a great writer.

Maybe you're also.

Really passionate about the environment, maybe you might like to choose a major like human dimensions of Natural Resources and use your writing in an advocacy role to educate about the environment.

So those are just some examples.

Obviously there's also considering what CSU has to offer, right? And this may be news to some of you. When I was 18 it would have been news to me that not every school in Colorado and of course across the nation is going to offer this same menu of majors. Part of that is because the school Board of Education wants to distribute.

The the careers and the the skills that students are coming out of school left. So for instance, UNC has a great nursing program. CSU does not come.

CU Boulder has a fantastic architecture program. See CSU has great engineering programs, but we don't have architecture specifically.

CSU has a fantastic construction management program. You're not going to find that same type of program. Other schools in Colorado. We also have really unique programs in our College of Agriculture like environmental, environmental horticulture, which can include something called Turf Management for management of turfs. Add some of our large sports stadiums and things like that.

Again, I'm giving you these examples to encourage you to really dig in an understand what you're coming to and what the options are.

One thing I would suggest to all of you if you haven't done it already and maybe you have if you all are being proactive about your exploration process, is that there is a quiz that CSU offers called my majors and I'm going to share my screen right now. Just so you can see what that can look like.

That is an opportunity to.

Did you let me find it here?

To answer some questions related to experiences that you've had, classes that you've loved other various things about you and this. My majors quiz is type specifically to CSU majors, and will give you results of five to 10 different majors that might be a good fit for you, depending on how you answer those questions.

I don't ever consider that one.

Assessment one quiz is going to be the ticket to the right answer, but it's a way to gather additional information, so if you haven't done my majors quiz before, I would encourage you to check it out and that's just yes. You got mymajors.com and it can get you there.

Alright, I'm going to stop sharing that screen and come back to our web and are here.

Um?

I the next thing I would love to have you all do, if you haven't done so, already's really do some thorough exploration through our general catalog.

As an incoming student or as a student exploring different colleges and universities, maybe as a high school junior or as a parent family member guest wanting to support to support a student, it can be really difficult to know where to go to navigate to find information that you need.

I think our general catalog is a fantastic place to start, so I'm going to share the screen again and I'm going to show you what our general catalog looks like and why. I would encourage you to check it out.

So you can just go to catalogcolostate.edu.

And I'll give you some time to write that down.

The reason this is helpful is because if we Scroll down the left hand side.

You've got to a link that says colleges and programs.

If you click on that.

It is going to expand into are different.

Academic colleges that are part of the overall University. This is again something that I didn't understand what I was coming into school, but uhm.

Academic colleges are kind of like states in the union, right? Uh, manage academic college at CSU offers different majors. If you were to click on a specific major or I'm sorry, unspecific college, it's going to give you the listing of all of the different majors that are housed in that academic college is also going to give you a listing of all the different miners that are housed in the academic college. And if you're not familiar, kind of what this University rhetoric.

A major is the bulk of what you would study. It's kind of the specialized specialization you're going to come out of college with, but you can pick up a minor which requires usually about 7 courses, so it's not super extensive, but it can give you additional insight into a particular field. Sometimes students pick up a minor just purely for curiosity sake, and sometimes students pick up a minor because they wanted to supplement their major most majors.

Don't require a minor. An many students graduate from CSU without a minor. Some majors will actually require students to have a minor because they want kind of that secondary area of knowledge to be developed.

But I'm going to click into one of these majors just to give you a sense of Watt looking through this catalog looks like.

So I'm going to choose environmental horticulture, and the reason I am choosing that is because there's a good chance that many of you are.

Questioning what this major is, and it's not something you've heard about before.

When you come across that, I want to encourage you to dig into it to explore it and not to assume that it's not a good fit for you. Just because you don't know what it is, right? So I'm going to pull that open.

We're going to get a description of what this is. Overall, we're gonna get learning outcomes so you know what some of them eat. More fiber that you're going to get out of this major.

What are some of the potential occupations? Sometimes this is really clear and sometimes you read through this and you just.

Go huh? What on Earth is that? You could always Google UM, one of these terms, right? If you're wondering what sports turf management is, copy this paste into Google and see what it's all about.

A lot of our majors will have various concentrations. That means your major would still be environmental horticulture, but one person might be focused on landscape, business, concentration, and another person might leave focused on turf management concentration. This landscape business concentration graduate might be interested in.

Opening their own business for landscaping purposes around um shopping malls and things like that, or subdivisions or individual homes, the turf management concentration, like I mentioned before, might be interested in managing turf at the Broncos stadium or at Coors Field, or something like that.

When you click in to that link again, you're going to get more of a specific description and then you can get this major completion map, which I think is really helpful because you can actually see every course that's going to be required for that major. You can Scroll down and get a sense of how much science is required for this. How much math is required for this?

And looking through these courses can actually help you understand what the major is all about. You can even.

Click on the title or the course number for the course and get a little bit of a sense of what that course would be about.

So this process that I'm encouraging you to walk into is not one that you just complete in 5 minutes. But if you are going to go through a lot of these majors.

Give yourself time to do it. May be spending 30 minutes a day for the next couple of weeks, or take a 2 hour chunk and really dig in, but I would encourage you to go through every college and every major to an extent just to see if you want to cross it off the list or if you want to dig in now. Some of you might be admitted to CSU. Is undeclared business interests.

Some of our majors are more difficult to get into than CSU is itself. Business is one of those, so they're looking your test scores, your GPA, what the combination of that is. Some students are going to roll right into business, and some students might just need to enter CSU. Underplayed business interests take a couple courses, achieve a certain GPA and then get into the major.

Those of you who are considering business, I would really encourage you to challenge yourself to consider what it might be that draws you to business.

When a student declares business is a major, they also need to decide what concentration they might be interested in. So our major is business administration. Concentrations are accounting, finance, management, marketing, real estate. Write a lot of students will say majoring in accounting and to an extent that.

Feels true when they're trying it on, but the major is business with an accounting concentration, so again you can click into the concentration, get more information about it, and then you can look at the major completion map to see just what classes you would be taking.

On that same note I would encourage you all to realize that if you're interested in business for instance and they know that's just a certain select group of you that doesn't mean that just the College of business is able to serve that interest we have lots of different majors and all of these different colleges that have a leaning tord business the College of natural resources for instance.

Houses the major called um natural resource tourism that is very much business oriented for students who want to work at the ski resorts or who want to work in.

Summer tourism, or any number of things even who want to work abroad? Um, leading tours in Costa Rica or something like that, or even manage Ng.

Getting towards together.

So going back to some of these other colleges, healthy and human Sciences.

You'll find construction management very business related, right? You'll find hospitality management also very business related, so that's You and your interest in the business world realized that you can find business in a lot of different realms, and I would encourage you to be open minded in that.

So once again, it's the colleges and programs at link on the left hand side. Here are all our different academic colleges.

And you can just click through each one to see all of the different academic majors and minors that are offered there.

I'm going to stop sharing that screen.

Come back to our PowerPoint uhm?

An I'm seeing some questions over here, so I do want to answer some of those.

Where can students find the major quiz you shared?

So that is CSU my majors uhm?

I'm actually going to share another website and it's a fantastic website that's actually been developed by the office of admissions and I would encourage you to write that down because it can get you to that major quiz really easily so.

It's six way the title of it is 6 ways to search for your college major.

And one of the first things.

That they ask you to do is take the majors quiz. So if you want to go to the admissions website an in the search, just type 6 ways to search for your college major.

You'll be able to get to this page.

And you can take the majors quiz.

Or you can just write down CSU dot my majors com CSU dot my majors com and that will get you there.

OK, let's see what's next.

Um, so hopefully that gives you the survey link a couple people were asking for that.

Post the address of the course catalog, absolutely.

Just www.catalog.colostateclostate.edu

OK. No other questions per state for now.

Alright, so um.

Just to summarize.

You can take that my majors quiz again. Don't give it all its weight in gold right, but use it as a tool. Use it as an information gathering. Peace.

Anna students out there. I would really encourage you to consider it your job this summer to be gathering information and what I mean by that is uhm.

Talk to your family members. Talk to.

Siblings, adult siblings and parents of friends. Ask them what they do for their job. Ask them if they went to a four year college for that job and what their major was. You are going to find that there are all kinds of different stories that might inspire Yuan. Will also likely set your mind at ease. When I say set your mind at ease, I assume that there are a number of you out there who feel a little nervous.

About choosing a major or feel a little nervous about not having a major chosen yet um, or feel maybe feel like the major you choose is going to determine the path for the rest of your life.

Truly, most people in today's age will change careers 6 to 8 times, and I don't just mean advancing in the same field. I mean, hopping fields doing very different things. One thing, a college degree really does for you is to help you develop transferable skills. Sometimes there called soft skills, sometimes they're called core skills. These are things like teamwork, like critical thinking, analytic ability.

Writing skills, communication. These are all things that are employers are looking for and often times employers are really willing to teach you the details of the trade or the details of their field.

They want to see that you're coming in with those skill sets that are going to serve you an them well, um, during the time you're holding that job.

So realize that a major yes is significant and important, but it's really not the whole picture. In addition, you all want to be considering outside experiences, internships, even summer jobs, involvement opportunities that can help expose you to different people, different types of things as well. When I started this webinar once again, I referenced the fact that you've been in school for 18 years and a lot of you have done a lot of things outside of that which is great.

And I think when you've done something outside of school, you also realize how much you can learn from it. So continue to realize that there's so much more to learn and have your eyes open in your mind, open to gathering information.

The more information you have gathered about you about what's out there and what's at CSU.

The more capable you're going to be really making it a good, informed decision about best fit for you.

So that is all around the idea of taking my majors quiz. It's a part of the puzzle.

Definitely check out those options in the catalog. I think that could really help you write things down. Get input from family and friends who know you well about what they think your strengths are, what they think you might be good at 2.

This is a point that's really important. No, that it is OK to test out a potential major. And what I mean by that is you don't have to worry that.

Starting out in the construction management major means you need to stay in it for four years. If you're feeling unsure. In fact, I think declaring a major and testing it out can be a really fantastic way to see if you like it, and then if you take that first construction management class and you realize it's not for you, well, then you have the opportunity to move on and continue to explore additional things right?

Specifically, encourage any of you hard considering a dime. A design major like apparel design, interior design, landscape architecture, art to get started with those right away. To really get a sense of it. That's a good fit for you. Continue on if you love it and change out if you don't. But taking those classes, it's one of the best ways to really dig in an Explorer.

A man when you come to orientation for those who you are admitted for fall 2020, we are going to encourage to do that. Take classes that are available that can help you explore a certain field. If you're curious about.

Did you take General Psychology your first semester? Things like that.

And then please please Please remember you can always change. You are never stuck with the major you come in with and I have had students feel stuck because they.

They don't want to fail in a commitment. Um, if you're tempted to think that way, I would encourage you to come in with a major declared. Considering it part of your exploration process versus feeling like you have to be married to it for the next four years, and certainly for the rest of your life.

Alright, I'm going to check the questions again since we're coming to the end of the web and R.

So, uhm, Jessica has a good question. She says, what if you don't figure out what you want to do in the four years of college? Can it take longer and it can? Is that frowned apon? So that is entirely really up to you. We encourage students to get through, and four years because we want to make the most of your time in your investment. And that's our goal to help move you on in that. But you are welcome to stay. Nobody is going to kick you out if you are feeling like your junior year, you change your major and it's going to take you longer than you originally thought.

You're welcome to stay and do that. I also know that a lot of people will graduate in four years and then figure out.

Where they're going through a variety of different career experiences, right? There's a lot more ambiguity to this process. Then sometimes we would all prefer there to be a lot of students will go on to master's degrees or professional programs to that are going to be more specific to their interests.

What websites and our resources would you consider for looking for a long jevity of a major career? So there's a, uh?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics that you can find for Cala Rado that you might want to check out to see Watt. The job opportunities are in Colorado, what's growing? What's not. There is also a website called Donuts.

Uhm, trip to share that screen as well. It's occupations.net and that is a fun way to explore a little bit. It can also be a bit of an overwhelming way because it's got so much information on it, but.

With Donut, you can do an occupation search, find occupations browsing certain preference preferences, right if you want to be bright outlook, what fields are growing? You can do that if you want to find out what kind of jobs are out there for construction management, you can look that up. Specifically, you can get a variety of different types of jobs, and you can click on line and you can get all kinds of information. Sometimes it might feel like too much information.

But what are the tasks you would do? What are the skills you would need? What kind of knowledge do you want to be able to go in there with? What are your specific work activities?

And it goes down. What is the education that's usually recommended for that type of a job?

76% of people in construction management have a bachelors degree. 12% have some college or no degree an it's not common to have a Masters degree going into this field, so that's just an example.

And it'll down Tord the bottom, give you related jobs and also median wages considered the to net is not Colorado based, so median wages um truly means somewhere in the middle when we gather all the different price ranges that you might earn for that type of a job.

It's a good question.

Coming to stop sharing that screen.

Is there a deadline for taking placement tests? Um, we recommend you doing it before you come to orientation, just to.

Be more directed. Were able to direct you better with the classes that you take. Can that you choose when you're coming up. Is there somewhere I should like to see which ones to take so orientation sends out a variety of emails? If you check the email that you have referenced with.

The Office of admissions.

You should find some good emails about that. OK, uhm, I am actually in the chat. Going to put my email address.

And my name is Paige and my email address is p.thatjacobson@colostate.edu and I'm putting that in there so that if you all do have some additional questions or would like a referral to to some another advisor in another major, that might be able to help you. I can definitely refer you on an answer this question, so don't hesitate to shoot me an email.

Alright, well looks like most of the questions are answered, which is fantastic. I was somebody's asked for the oh netlink.

So let me just try to go back to the.

Um?

The general link without my search represented and I will post that in there too.

Not wanting to post hang on, let me try that another way.

So next on line.org.

But it should be, and if you just go to Google and search on that, it usually comes up as well.

Alright, Well you are. Thank you so much for participating in this webinar. Uhm, I hope to see some of your faces at orientation this summer and certainly in the fall semester. And for those of you who are still just exploring, maybe in high school, maybe in another college and are considering CSU. We're so glad that you're checking it out and continue to participate in these things and gather information.

Wish you all the best.

Bye.