Career Services says upperclassmen should not panic over dislike for their major

By Frank Visco
Collegian Editor
April 25, 2007

With reds, pinks and greens reemerging in the landscape, the vibrancy of spring has once again begun to infuse the world with new life. In this respect, many people tend to think of this or that season—Easter season, wedding season or baseball season. But here at La Salle, and at college campuses all over the nation, juniors and seniors are edging closer and closer to another type of new life—life after college.

For many upperclassmen, this rebirth process can be a tough one. Finding a job or going through the application process to pursue higher education can be taxing enough, but a recent trend has complicated matters even further: a growing number of students believe they are on the wrong track, that they are trapped in their major and headed for a career in a job they do not want.

According to Genevieve Carlton, La Salle’s associate director of Career Services, many students today believe they’re on the wrong track in college. Sitting in her office on the third floor of the Administration Building, Carlton begins to explain the current belief of many counselors—that today’s college-aged generation (the millenials) is going to be the first to feel the effects of 9/11, because they were at a formative age when the attacks happened.

“Back in the late ’90s, there was a time of bliss in the career services world. There were so many employers throwing high paying jobs at anyone who could tie their shoes. It was an optimistic time, but 9/11 changed a lot of that,” she says. “There’s more uncertainty in the world now, and that’s rubbed off on this generation in a lot of ways. Partly this is a manifestation of that.”

Carlton also notes that millenials have had a lot more options available to them than students have had in generations past. In fact, she cites a “paralyzing amount of options” as the main factor that leads current students to anxiety and disenfranchisement.

In line with this, Carlton gives an analogy concerning a child whose parent allows him to pick one candy bar while waiting in line at the grocery store. Thirty or forty years ago, when students didn’t have many options career-wise, they were like a child trying to choose between three types of candy bars—a hard choice for some maybe, but a simple one. However, for current students, it’s not that easy. With so many options, current students are now like a child trying to pick among dozens of candy bars.

“It truly can be paralyzing how many options students have,” Carlton said. “Most of these students haven’t even lived a quarter of their life yet, and there’s this pressure to decide what you’re going to do with the rest of your life. It’s a silly notion.”

She explains that 10 to 15 percent of the juniors and seniors that come into her office tell her they can’t switch their major because it’s too late, but that they don’t want to go into the expected professions. However, according to Carlton, what these students fail to realize is that this is an error in thinking on several fronts.

“So many of these kids think they’ve ruined their life taking a major they don’t give a crap about,” she says. “There’s anxiety over getting a job, this idea that they’re condemned to a career they don’t want because they need to pay off loans. However, this is an unfounded anxiety.”

Carlton cites the National Association for College Employers, saying that only 25 to 30 percent of students end up in a career associated with their college major.

“Colleges don’t do a good job of letting students know that fact, but it’s the truth,” she says. “A major is just a way of organizing your course work, and unless you’re in a very specific major, like accounting or nursing, it means very little. The beauty of a liberal arts degree is that it teaches you how to think, write and explain your opinions. If you can do that, you’re ahead of the curve.”

Even in clearly defined majors Carlton urges students not to feel threatened if they decide to change courses. She offers the statistic that most people have seven to 10 jobs after college, and that these same people change careers two to four times.

Furthermore, Carlton says that one in five students are now going to graduate school after college, and that it can be assumed that many of those students are changing their path. She says that even if someone hates their major, they should look at the experience positively, because “now they know one more thing they don’t want to do.”

For students who are currently experiencing a lack of interest in their major, but are unsure what path is right for them, Carlton suggests seeking the aid of the Career Services Center. There, they can take an “Occupation Finder,” a test that makes use of the Accepted Career Theory, which holds that the ideal way to decide an occupation is to weigh a person’s abilities, values and interests.

“If students are unsure of what their future holds, we give them this test and talk about the results,” she says. “The tests give each student a three-letter summary code, ranked in order, which highlights different types of jobs.”

The three-letter summary code is based off of a six-area system that included realistic (R), investigative (I), artistic (A), social (S), enterprising (E) and conventional (C) occupations. Thus, if someone gets an RIE, they should look into investigative enterprising jobs, that are predominantly realistic (a list of jobs are listed under this category). The theory also suggests that such individuals also look into jobs under the lists that contain any combination of the letters “R,” “I” and “E.”

“The number of upperclassmen (juniors and seniors) asking to take these assessments is up 20 percent this year, so obviously there’s more confusion than ever surrounding life after college,” she says. “But this test can really help suggest ideas that students haven’t even thought of.”

Still, in the end, Carlton acknowledges that the tests aren’t the final answer. In the end, it comes down to the student and what will make them happy, and she sees no reason why a student wouldn’t pursue something that would do that, regardless of their situation.

“Ultimately none of this stuff matters, because there’s no true crystal ball,” she says. “What’s most important is what you’re interested in; what will help you wake up every morning. That’s what I hope we can help students figure out here, and then we can sit down with them and try to make it work. As long as students are willing to work for what they want, I think we can help them formulate a game plan to make it happen.”

viscof1@lasalle.edu