When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a professional athlete. When someone would ask me what I wanted to be when I "grew up", I would say that I was going to be a professional tennis player. I played a bunch of different sports as a kid, tennis was my favorite, but i never took it seriously enough to make a career out of it. About the time I started my freshman year of high school, I came to the realization that I would not be going pro in sports. Even with that in mind I still played a bunch of sports in high school and I never really gave much thought to what kind career I wanted to pursue in college. Before I knew it, I was a senior in high school. Time had flown by. It was time to make some important college decisions. I had a lot of offers to play tennis for some good smaller schools, but I had always wanted to go to Virginia Tech. I was getting pretty burnt out on tennis by my senior year so I decided i didn't want to play in college. I decided to apply to Virginia Tech. While I was filling out my application, I came to a question in which I did not know the answer. The question was "what do you want to major in?" I could not decide on which one to pick. I had thought about lots of different jobs in high school, but I could never make up my mind on what I wanted to do.
Since I couldn't decide on a specific major, I chose University Studies. University Studies is the major people choose when they haven't decided what kind of career they want to pursue. It is also what some students are placed in if they are not accepted for a more competitive major. Virginia Tech allows students to stay in University Studies for about 2 years or until they have earned 60 credit hours. Students must apply for another major before they have reached the 60 credit hours limit. Students can apply as early as their second semester.
After I had finished my application, I realized that I needed to start thinking more about what I wanted to do for a career and more importantly, what I wanted to major in. I started looking up websites that helped you decide on what kind of job was best for you. I took a bunch of tests and most of them recommended that I should pursue a career in art or construction. I really like art so that sounded really good to me. I took all of the art classes that my high school offered. I intended on taking Art 4 and AP Art during my senior year, but my school got rid of those classes when we got new art teachers. On the other hand, I hadn't had much exposure to construction, but I do like to build things. So that sounded like a good idea too. I decided that I would focus on finding out more about careers that fell into these two categories.
I wanted to find out more about careers in art and construction so I started out by researching them on the internet. I started out by looking up careers in art. There were many different possibilities. The careers that interested me were illustration, animation, fine art, graphic design, art education, industrial design, and architecture. After I had made a list of possible careers, I started to research them individually. All of them seemed really interesting, but I was able to rule a lot of them out when I saw how much money they made. I decided that only architecture, industrial design, and graphic design would make good careers. I looked up a bunch of careers in construction as well, but none of those seemed very interesting. I decided that I would focus on the three careers that I had founds in the arts category.
Now that I had found three good possible jobs, I decided to try and find out more about them in hopes of deciding on one of them. I found out quickly that doing research on the internet would only get me so far. I realized that the best way to find out more was to actually go and experience the job first hand. I needed to meet with people who already had these jobs and let them show me what their job is like.
It’s not always easy to find someone who is willing to take a lot of time away from their job just to show you what they do. Many people are glad to help out students who are interested in their careers, but they only have so much time they can spend away from their work. I wasn’t sure how to go about finding the right people in these careers to help me out. I had a talk with my uncle one day and he asked me if I had decided on what I wanted to major in yet. I told him that I hadn’t made up my mind, but I was interested in architecture, industrial design, and graphic design. He doesn’t have any kids so he is always more than willing to help me out. When I told him that I was interested in these careers, he immediately offered to take me to visit some friends of his that had worked in these jobs for a long time. I readily accepted this great opportunity.
My uncle first took me down to Winston-Salem, North Carolina to meet on of his friends that was an architect. It was a great experience. It turned out that he had also gone to Virginia Tech which was an even bigger help for me. After this visit, I felt like becoming an architect was a good possibility.
Since I couldn't decide on a specific major, I chose University Studies. University Studies is the major people choose when they haven't decided what kind of career they want to pursue. It is also what some students are placed in if they are not accepted for a more competitive major. Virginia Tech allows students to stay in University Studies for about 2 years or until they have earned 60 credit hours. Students must apply for another major before they have reached the 60 credit hours limit. Students can apply as early as their second semester.
After I had finished my application, I realized that I needed to start thinking more about what I wanted to do for a career and more importantly, what I wanted to major in. I started looking up websites that helped you decide on what kind of job was best for you. I took a bunch of tests and most of them recommended that I should pursue a career in art or construction. I really like art so that sounded really good to me. I took all of the art classes that my high school offered. I intended on taking Art 4 and AP Art during my senior year, but my school got rid of those classes when we got new art teachers. On the other hand, I hadn't had much exposure to construction, but I do like to build things. So that sounded like a good idea too. I decided that I would focus on finding out more about careers that fell into these two categories.
I wanted to find out more about careers in art and construction so I started out by researching them on the internet. I started out by looking up careers in art. There were many different possibilities. The careers that interested me were illustration, animation, fine art, graphic design, art education, industrial design, and architecture. After I had made a list of possible careers, I started to research them individually. All of them seemed really interesting, but I was able to rule a lot of them out when I saw how much money they made. I decided that only architecture, industrial design, and graphic design would make good careers. I looked up a bunch of careers in construction as well, but none of those seemed very interesting. I decided that I would focus on the three careers that I had founds in the arts category.
Now that I had found three good possible jobs, I decided to try and find out more about them in hopes of deciding on one of them. I found out quickly that doing research on the internet would only get me so far. I realized that the best way to find out more was to actually go and experience the job first hand. I needed to meet with people who already had these jobs and let them show me what their job is like.
It’s not always easy to find someone who is willing to take a lot of time away from their job just to show you what they do. Many people are glad to help out students who are interested in their careers, but they only have so much time they can spend away from their work. I wasn’t sure how to go about finding the right people in these careers to help me out. I had a talk with my uncle one day and he asked me if I had decided on what I wanted to major in yet. I told him that I hadn’t made up my mind, but I was interested in architecture, industrial design, and graphic design. He doesn’t have any kids so he is always more than willing to help me out. When I told him that I was interested in these careers, he immediately offered to take me to visit some friends of his that had worked in these jobs for a long time. I readily accepted this great opportunity.
My uncle first took me down to Winston-Salem, North Carolina to meet on of his friends that was an architect. It was a great experience. It turned out that he had also gone to Virginia Tech which was an even bigger help for me. After this visit, I felt like becoming an architect was a good possibility.
Even though I felt good about my visit with the architect, I accepted another offer from my uncle to visit a graphic designer in Charlottesville, Virginia. The graphic designer owned his own company and I was very impressed with everything they did there. While I was very impressed with graphic design, I was still more intrigued by architecture. As of right now, I plan on applying for the architecture major this spring with hopes of becoming an architect in the future.
I can definitely relate to this post! I am unsure of what I want to major in, although I think I want to do something in Business. That's awesome that you took the initiative to research the different careers and actually go visit the job sites and get a first hand look at what they are really like!
ReplyDeleteI can relate to this post too! I am in University Studies but I have decided what I want to major and also minor in. I think it is great how you did your research about what interests you and visiting the jobs was a great idea!
ReplyDeleteThis post was really relatable. Although I know what I want to do and have known for awhile. I still know the stress that goes into what I want to do for the rest of my life. Good Luck with everything.
ReplyDelete