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The Logical Approach The most logical and efficient way of developing an educational plan is to choose a career, find out what you have to learn (and major in) to get there. Some people avoid this logical approach because it's not easy to determine what career would be best for them. Some of this avoidance is just old fashioned procrastination and some is because students don't really know how to go about career exploration
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The Mystical Approach Just take general education courses and wait for the white light to illuminate your perfect career choice. - The problem with this one is that often the white light never comes and then in desperation the student selects a major that doesn't require much major prep., while telling him or herself that it doesn't really matter what you major in as long as you have a degree.
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The Cloning Approach By default, choosing a major that a teacher, friend or relative chose. This method can work OK if you like wearing other people's underwear.
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The Favorite Course Approach Choose a major based on the course that you most enjoyed. This is one rationale for taking general education courses during your first few semesters, that is, to explore various fields of knowledge. This method can work, but sometimes the career (what you do with the major) is not very similar to what you are actually learning in the course. Also, sometimes it is the teacher that motivates you in a particular course. This can work if you choose being an inspiring teacher as a career.
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The Marketable Approach Choose a career and major based only on what will be the most marketable (make the most money). While marketability is one important factor in career/major choice it is not the full story. Also important to consider are your interests and aptitudes.
Speaker Notes:
The approach to career/major choice that you use will probably be some mixture of the above approaches. While the Logical Approach is advocated here, any method that you use should include considerable thought, effort, and doing something active, rather than passively waiting and avoiding a decision. Many students get on the "General Education Train" and ride it to the "end of the line", thus putting off a career/major choice until they have enough units at the community college to be considered a junior. This adds time, uncertainty, and loss of control to your major/career choice process.
Different students prefer different starting points and have different questions depending on those preferences.