by Kate

What’s your major? The dreaded question.  For many this evokes an immediate anxiety response.  What is my major?  I can’t be undecided forever.  I’m supposed to tell you what I want to be for the rest of my life?! How can I possibly know that?  At 18 I hadn’t experienced enough to rule out (or in) hardly any careers (a couple, though: waitress and dishwasher were out).  Frankly, 20+ years later, I still would not want to tell you that I’m ready to stick to any one job for the rest of my life.

Fortunately, these days we have options for making job and career changes.  Pursuing a degree is one way to go at it, but still we have to settle on a major, and that can be a tough call. As you narrow your own field of study, it may help to look at the many available areas of study through the following lenses:

Go with the grain (your grain). Go with what you tend toward, who you are.   If you like figuring out what makes people tick, you might do better at sociology or psychology.  Just because you can pass the test and get the credits in an area of study, doesn’t mean you’re going to do well in the long run.  You have to want to do that job.   It is a great idea to gather information about projected salaries and job demand.  However, you may be setting yourself up for unhappiness if you choose a career course based solely on where the job market has a need.

Match your personality. The world is too full of people who are miserable in their jobs.  There is something heroic about going to a job day in and out, even if it’s not your higher calling, like so many do to provide for their families.  Proud and good people do this every day and they have my respect.  But others suffer through a lifetime of jobs that they dread going to and become embittered, even when they have the ability to change it.  That‘s just wrong, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

“Follow your bliss.” Joseph Campbell, scholar, mythologist, and advisor extraordinaire to the human race, coined the phrase.  He didn’t mean you should just pop a happy pill and run away with the circus.  Nay.  He meant that we should find what we are passionate about, and find a way to weave it into our daily lives.  Don’t just leap off a cliff of faith, but make a point of incorporating your bliss into your work goals.   You’ll likely feel more fulfilled, and with a more enduring stamina that will see you through much.

What is your calling? Try to respond to what calls you.  Such a diverse job market means that we have more freedom than ever to incorporate our calling, our bliss, our chance to create a masterpiece, into a income-producing enterprise.  We all imagine we have something greater to offer the world than just getting through the grind, whether it’s teaching children the alphabet or creating compelling music, designing and putting together an interactive video or feeling like the whole world has just been put into understandable order by the perfectly devised algorithm.  Any of these things can be your personal bliss.

If you keep your bliss in your sights, you are bound to make decisions that you will find agreeable in the long run.  Choosing your major can be difficult, but through self-examination, you’ll be ready to make a choice that suits your individual needs and preferences, and sustains you.