Help?

Thanks for going back to Red / sidenote.

I'm a senior in High School, about to Graduate. I want to go to college but I don't know what for, and I really didn't apply to that many schools [1] this whole year. I don't know what I want to do with myself in the future, and I am curious as to how anyone else came to the conclusion "I want to be a firefighter!" when you grow up, because I never was able to decide. I really hate that question though, I don't know what I want to be, why ask..?

I need help figuring things out.

I sincerely apologize, I guess we can call this an educational issue too. If our country is short on money it seems like college will eventually become a luxury item, like an ipad, or a fancy HD TV, Being young and completely ignorant I'm not sure if or how the economic situation will get any better, along side with that if college will get any cheaper. Where would several thousands of dollars go anyways? o_o.

I mean, is there any way that the economy can go up..? I've only been learning about what brings it down. Unfortunately I don't think one person boycotting Wal-mart is enough.

I recommend being an actuary. You are basically predicting lives.

One of the biggest questions that helps you decide what you want to be is do you prefer memorization or patterns? If you have a horrible memory, you can avoid chemisty, biology, history, etc. and go into the math, physics, engineering; the vice versa is true, of course. I found myself loving patterns and organization so I really thought I'd go into mathematics. While I may still do well at math, on my course to majoring math I found my true passion was in computer science and I haven't turned back since.

The first year of college is basically a joke anyways in the sense that no matter what your major is, you're stuck with the same generic classes. I couldn't even declare my "major" to be CS, let alone in the field of engineering, until my second year.

You don't have any idea what you want to be right now still dontcha? I mean when I was graduating high school (which was only a few years ago) i was stuck between being possibly a chp officer, a chef, and my major which i didnt even think about till late in the yr was psychologist. i mean hell i took time off just to fuck around and when i finally went to school i found my classes to be a joke like Veldron said. heck that whole year was a joke. But thing is one thing i would recommend (or even regardless) when you start out see the college counselor if it has one and talk to them for a bit. They should be able to guide you to a career that youre looking at if not they will at least tell you to take the basic classes that you need anyway because ppl do change their majors if anything once. Sadly i havent and im still stuck at my community college for various reasons but i do get the question on what i wanna be and i tell them i dont fucking know. In fact i still dont but i do have a fallback that i can do easily in case i dont even graduate college. I mean i hope you do ask yourself "what do i like to do?" cause asking yourself that can help ppl understand possible career paths that you can take. IE: I like to play games, maybe i should be a game designer.

Hope i even made sense in all this.

Honestly i found that some liberal arts courses helped me decide what i wanted to major in, just start my taking a little bit of everything. I had taken some computer science in high school but it wasn't until i took another class in it that i decided i wanted to be a programmer.

You don't have any idea, not even what field you would like to work in sometime?
I have been in the same situation myself, heck, I still am. I'm graduating this spring and have nothing really planned out, I have no idea what I'd like to work with, I have no idea what I'd like to study. I thought that I would be a total NEET. But what you can do is what I'm gonna try and do; get a job. No need to go to university or college right away, you can always wait a year or two.

If you're really serious about getting into a school and figure out what you want. Just sit down and think about it. Not what you want to be, but what doesn't seem all that bad? Could you live being a teacher, being a shopkeeper?(Rhyme not intended) I think that very few people have their plans all figured out when they graduate from high-school, you have to figure this out as time goes by, live a little, get a little perspective on things.

Personally I have one plan, I'm going abroad. It doesn't matter if I get a job or manages to be applied for a school, doesn't really matter what I'll study or what my job'll be as long as I do this for at least a year. That's my only goal. I figured that during this time I'll have some time to think things through and get a little perspective on things. Especially since after finally finishing 12 years of school, I'm not to excited about going back the first thing I do.

Well it seems that this turned into some kinda rant but I hope I managed to contribute a little something.

I took a break after High School and just traveled. Found some odd jobs here and there. Studied and quit at several university/college institutions.

Still not a 100% sure, but I'm starting to like the construction biz. Maybe I'll move on to architect sometime, since my real aspirations are artistic. My dream is to join the ranks of the great creators/mangaka, but I know that's a long shot.

Best concentrate on getting a roof over your head and food on your plate, but best keep all options open.

Sometimes, when you're stuck on getting an idea whether it's finding something to do or an inspiration; you should think back to your roots. Find out what you are, where you came from and other sorts of things that you're most familiar with. Try looking at what the people around you are doing, what you enjoyed as a child or something that you feel you know inside out. Eventually, you'll find something that you enjoy and that'll be your answer. Making money during the job isn't the problem, it's what you enjoy doing that counts it best. Trust me, there are many statistics that say people who make the most money are usually the most depressed people in the world compared to the ones in poverty.

Btw, about the college thing, my best advice is not finding a college that gives the focuses on a few jobs, just a cheap/ok-ish college for your first year. In your first year, many college students are still choosing a career and during that time, you should be able to find the job you like and then transfer to a better college.

If you really want to go right off into college i would recommend going to a community college. It's cheep and you can take any classes you want, so you can get a good feel for that you want to do with out spending too much money

If it helps you Dos, I also don't know where my life is headed and I already finished high school and some college. Even now I ponder where am i going to head. In what direction life will take me and such. I sometimes fail to see my own self in the far future. For now I'm doing whatever I can to live and move forward even if I have no destination or goal.

Take a year off, get a summer job, save money and consider going to a state college. You can take all your required/basic classes in the first two years and transfer to a better university if you so choose.

It saves you a lot of money in loans and you still get the degree from the university/college.

Also, apply for a lot of scholarships.
http://www.fastweb.com/ is a great place to find scholarships that apply to you

I for one believe that this does belong in the serious discussion category. As a college student, as I'm certain most of us are, I notice that a majority of my friends and myself included have changed majors at least once. Whenever I hear "I am going to be _______ in the future," I just think "bull ****" I have many friends that say they're going to be engineers then switch to business, many chemistry majors that suddenly went history major, and some of the brightest and successful students even drop out of college to pursue a future in culinary.

This whole notion of "knowing where you'll be in the future" needs to go. Lately, all the messages put into students is to quickly decide your major and graduate ASAP. However, this will only lead to many unhappy decisions that are made irrationally quick. My friend that is going from chem major to history major is one of the unlucky fellows that got screwed by this type of thinking. He finally realized that he can't keep up with his peers (he was a 3.8 honors student in high school) and is now stuck with a history major because that's all his school will allow him to switch to (because he has too many units and the school wants to shove him a diploma ASAP)

My suggestion to you is simply start small. Go to a community college. It's cheap and the education has the same value as the top tier schools. During this period in the community college, explore. Go through classes and find out what classes interest you the most. For the subjects that interest you, talk to the professors and see what professions you may like or are available which would suit your lifestyle.

After you figure out your preferred job, it is a simple matter of transferring to a higher tier school and declaring your major. If you're in the United States, that would be the city universities or the even higher state universities.

Given how shoddy the economy is around the world right now, I would even suggest taking the classes slowly. Perhaps try to find a part time job while taking classes. I don't recommend getting your degree that quickly at the moment. The worth of a bachelors degree is about the same as an associates degree nowadays.

You might even consider learning a trade, as sort of a fall back, while you think about what to study for. you probably won't make as much money as a lawyer or doctor, but it's still a good living, and you might decide to give up school to stick with the trade. if your 16-23 and in the US(also place like guam, puerto rico, etc.), check out Job Corps. they train you, house you, and feed you.

I'm currently a criminal justice major. This major is very broad upon the areas you can go onto in the future. With it you can choose to be a cop, detective, parole officer (deal with convicts on parole to make sure they remain on track to rehabilitation) , corrections officer (deal more with the kids that are going onto the wrong path to steer them right), security, can branch off easily into legal studies, etc.

For me, after I get the bachelor's degree in CJ, I'm planning on continuing on and branching off into psychology. I too recommend psychology. There are a lot of interesting areas you can get into there and learning it is rather fun since you can apply most of the things you learn onto yourself or people you know.

However, I don't recommend it for bachelors degree major. Minor would be fine, but a Psych Bachelors is very much useless in terms of finding a job. The best job you could hope for with that is perhaps a counselor.