College Major?

Anything to do with the traditional world of get a degree, get a job as well as its alternatives
shadow
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College Major?

Post by shadow »

The question of my path after high school has been eating away at me recently... My interests are very wide and fleeting, and I have a tendency not to stick to work for very long, so I am worried about finding a career that will satisfy me. I also go back and forth between whether I care more about satisfaction or pay very often.

The amount of time I have spent thinking (not doing) about this is starting to get ridiculous. So I guess the reason I am writing this is to read something that pushes me enough to actually start pursuing something.

I am most likely going down the college route because I am fortunate enough to have parents that are able and willing to pay for my degree and I have taken enough advanced courses already that I will be able to finish a BA/BS in ~1.5-2.5 years depending on how much time I put into it. I am willing to endure grad school but the rewards must be pretty sizable as school is grueling to me. Aside: I am unsure whether to go balls to the wall and finish as quickly as possible or relax for four years while working to test the waters.

My process so far has been to consider a career I would like and think about my path to get there (including college major) but I have also thought of the possibility of getting a broader degree chosen based on several potential career paths.

Another major concern I have is the looming threat of automation in many jobs so I have kept that in mind in my research.

Some fields I have considered so far, in order of preference ( will probably be completely different tomorrow :lol: ):
Accounting - appears to be a low stress financial job at the cost of some more required education
Finance - I am very interested in finance (thanks ERE) but it seems like it tends to be a very high stress field in general (a =<40hr/wk career path in finance would be great)
Logistics - based on optimization which I enjoy (thanks ERE for making that clear to myself) and involves negotiation which seems like a relatively rare job responsibility but something that I would like, while maintaining a good work-life balance.
Health care - don't know much about the field but it seems to have the best balance between high pay and low stress ex. nurse
Statistics - I am in a stat class this year and I'm loving it but it seems to be pretty clear that "statistician" as a job will be replaced by "data scientist" very soon and I don't have a natural programming affinity or particular interest in data science
Software development - I have some very very limited experience with programming and I have enjoyed it but I am not one of the kids that has been building computers since age 10 which gives me the same worry as with data science
Writer - I consider myself an above average writer but salary is very left skewed so I don't know if I could swing a living from this... technical writing intrigues me but it also seems like there is a high risk of automation in all writing soon.

EDIT: I have also briefly considered being a policy analyst.

EDIT #2: The list is growing already... :? I looked into property management a while ago for something synergistic with general ERE skills (potential free housing and the knowledge about it) but the idea of being on call 24/7 puts me off.
Last edited by shadow on Mon Nov 19, 2018 5:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Scott 2
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Re: College Major?

Post by Scott 2 »

Actuary?

shadow
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Re: College Major?

Post by shadow »

I have thought about actuary, but I don't know if I have enough affinity for math(maybe that can be practiced) to become one...also seems to have a risk of automation but I haven't looked into how it will be affected at the higher levels (may be too late to reach that level anyway).

daylen
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Re: College Major?

Post by daylen »

Field boundaries do not much matter these days. A degree is a contract between the university and the student. The student goes through a willpower + IQ + memorization boot camp, and the university sorts students based on various measures + special interest affiliations. After the degree is awarded, the university agrees to tell other agents/firms/institutions about the student and their performance.

I chose math for a number of reasons. Math is a language for describing idealized objects and their abstractions. Reality really is not all that complex on a wide range of levels. The really small and the really large systems generally obey a small set of mechanical or statistical rules, but the intermediate levels are where the complexity comes in (hence the hype about complex systems theory). If you are curious enough about reality, then studying the underlying idealized objects that are used to model the small and large systems could help you to set boundary conditions when dealing with the intermediate systems.

Take a look at actuarial science if you haven't already.

EDIT: oops, wrote before you shared your thoughts on math.

shadow
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Re: College Major?

Post by shadow »

How does this translate to the type of jobs I would be getting?
Or are you saying that the title is not important but rather the fact that I would be analyzing systems?

daylen
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Re: College Major?

Post by daylen »

Socialization ability + technical/special skill competence + systems theory awareness = automation resistant

After that all you need is marketing and persistence. A degree helps with getting a foot in the door.
Last edited by daylen on Mon Nov 19, 2018 5:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

SavingWithBabies
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Re: College Major?

Post by SavingWithBabies »

Software development is pretty cushy in my experience. To some degree, a lot of majors have intro classes that basically act as filters or gatekeepers. They are challenging enough that some with less interest or motivation can't make it past. Point is you could just go with what you think you would like and see how that turns out in reality.

But as pointed out earlier, degrees and careers aren't always strongly bound. There are plenty of software developers with degrees in other topics. But if you like it, computer science is actually really interesting and not all that related to software development. Some things in the industry are based on inherent convention that isn't readily apparent without a background in CS or a lot of time spent studying it.

Another upside with software is that it seems to be invading everything else so combining it with another interest (that you might discover at college) can be a great thing.

My advice would be to chose something and go forward and stick to it. I didn't take college seriously the first time around and later went back and graduated at about 30 with a B.S. in Computer Sciences. That was a bit over a decade ago and things are going great but I do wonder ERE-wise where I could have been if I'd powered through the first time. I was careful with money and going to school later actually results in a cheaper ride (as parents income isn't factored into financial aid) but we all know early investments are a good thing.

shadow
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Re: College Major?

Post by shadow »

daylen wrote:
Mon Nov 19, 2018 5:40 pm
Socialization ability + technical/special skill competence + systems theory awareness = automation resistant

After that all you need is marketing and persistence. A degree helps get a foot in the door.
Do you think college is a good place to acquire that competence?

@SavingWithBabies

Did you have a lifelong interest in CS? My main concern about it is that I just don't/won't have the aptitude to keep up with the market.

daylen
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Re: College Major?

Post by daylen »

Depends on your personality. It is totally possible to acquire competence on your own(*), but it may or may not be ideal. If the skill involves just computers, then an online class will give you basically the same experience. College can be good for building social capital if that is your thing.

(*) Unless you are dealing with expensive/rare/large systems such as an aircraft or the human body.
Last edited by daylen on Mon Nov 19, 2018 5:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

SavingWithBabies
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Re: College Major?

Post by SavingWithBabies »

@shadow Sort of. My whole thing has been learning enough in all the areas I think I need to so that I can start my own companies. Those areas seem to be full stack web development and mobile applications along with backend data storage (databases, key-value stores, etc). I don't keep up with CS although I do occasional think that later when I'm FI and "have more time", I'll return to some CS topics to learn more. I've thought about going back for a masters. But I like applied things more than theory so I don't know if I'll follow through with that or continue applying things in small projects to learn more. There is just so much interesting and cool open source software that I could spend a lot of time doing that.

So I guess I have a lifelong interest in programming but not necessarily in CS.

I have one childhood friend that graduated college and went to work as a web developer at one company and has stayed there ever since. I jumped around more and was exposed to more practices and different languages and probably got my salary up quicker (but I felt I was playing catch up due to starting my career "late"). I've always felt my friend was taking a risk however I think there are some people that basically don't put too much effort into keeping up but still are doing well. YMMV?

shadow
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Re: College Major?

Post by shadow »

@daylen
Thanks for the advice. I think I am leaning more towards accounting now... looking at your equation, the master's degree required would keep me at college longer while keeping me (semi) productive, making it easier to build social capital, and gives me a specialized skill. I have a gut feeling that systems theory is not something that a college can ingrain in a person so that will be on me. The more I read this forum, the more it feels like I am on the tip of the iceberg. Hopefully I can continue to internalize and implement what I'm learning.

@SWB
Thanks for the advice. Your lifelong interest in programming ( and description of software as cool, no offense :lol: ) is making me think I should lean more into my interests in choosing my major, b/c I doubt my ability to stick with something like CS long enough to learn it in-depth and make it to the cushy job in the first place.

Scott 2
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Re: College Major?

Post by Scott 2 »

I don't think the actuarial profession is at risk of being automated away. Very high security, high pay, If you enjoy stats, it seems like a possible fit.

The field can go in a lot of directions, from hiding in a cubicle at an insurance company, to defining new industries.

The exams are a grind, but grad school is not required. You must have some ability to test, if you are ready to skip a year or more of undergrad.

https://www.beanactuary.org/

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Re: College Major?

Post by jacob »


shadow
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Re: College Major?

Post by shadow »

@Scott & ZAF
Would either of you happen to know how actuarial science compares to accounting?

The obvious difference is that my state requires grad school for CPA whereas actuarial exams would be the only additional hurdles.

SavingWithBabies
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Re: College Major?

Post by SavingWithBabies »

@shadow That makes sense -- I was trying to think how to say basically I wouldn't do CS/programming unless you had an interest in it because it can be a grind. I think it's a good idea to trust your intuition/judgement/etc.

daylen
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Re: College Major?

Post by daylen »

Based on Jacob's link, accounting is probably not a wise choice.

BRUTE
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Re: College Major?

Post by BRUTE »

shadow wrote:
Mon Nov 19, 2018 4:52 pm
Software development - I have some very very limited experience with programming and I have enjoyed it but I am not one of the kids that has been building computers since age 10 which gives me the same worry as with data science
not necessary. there are always those that have been programming since 10 years old, but a CS degree is much easier than any real science or real engineering degree, and 90% of jobs are plumbing/taping shit together, not real hardcore CS theory. maybe the only aptitude required is at least a slight anti-social streak, enabling one to sit in front of a screen for 8h straight.

SavingWithBabies
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Re: College Major?

Post by SavingWithBabies »

+1 on BRUTEs take on it -- I'd go even higher than 90% for the wiring up jobs.

I might be splitting hairs here but what I meant by cool was the application of the tech not the tech itself. For example, check out this project:

https://tile38.com/

I'm not excited by the code it uses or the algorithms or anything like that (although those things are probably really interesting). I'm excited that it's open source licensed and I can take this and build something with it. What exactly? I'm still mulling that over but it exists for *me* not only big corporations. There are a lot of building blocks out there like it that have opened up a lot of possibilities. That is cool to me.

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TheWanderingScholar
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Re: College Major?

Post by TheWanderingScholar »

@SavingWithBabies:
As someone who is crafting himself as a "Spatial Data Scientist", that is really cool for me and I am really interested in building upon this. That is cool.

@shadow:
Someone who has a skill set that involves statistics which you do not like, such as programming like Python and R:
Programming does not really require a "natural affinity" but instead something you practice like a muscle. It trains your logic skillset.
If I may suggest a course: here is a primer on Geopython, which is essentially teaching your the basics python in terms of geography and spatial data.
https://geo-python.github.io/2017/index.html

It is free to use and you should try it out.

Best way to bet automation is to become the one who automates things. ;P

Scott 2
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Re: College Major?

Post by Scott 2 »

I've only worked with a handful of accountants. From what I observed, they worked very hard and tended to be unhappy about work. I think the high earners have tough, high stress jobs.

I've worked with a few dozen actuaries. Companies take care of them. They are in short supply and recruited during school. Interns earn on par with computer science interns. Once employed, it's common for your company to provide exam study time during the work day and pay exam fees. Raises can be directly tied to passing the exams.

Those who rush the exam process put in some long years during their early 20's, but that FSA is a golden ticket. The people I know who have earned it, have very well balanced lives. Whether the profession selects for individuals who will have good quality of life, or provides it, I don't know.

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