
Ask HN: What to do for college? - klbarry
First, sorry for the length of this post. Hopefully it and the answers will help others entrepreneurs as they make their own choices.<p>Last year, I did a semester of basic courses for college, then took a break to do business. I'm now working part time while in college full time, doing the basic pre-requisite courses. I am still a freshman.<p>While I'm not a hacker and have no technical computer skills, I've been running various businesses since I was fourteen. I fully intend to work for myself for the majority of my life, and only take jobs that teach me something valuable (which my current job is doing in spades)<p>Which leaves the question: As I go through college, what should I focus on?<p>My college has an entrepreneurship major, but I think most of it would be too basic for me at this point - simple business basics. Marketing and management courses don't really change the way you think - they're just ideas you can get from books and experience. I also feel it might not expand my mind, as I already read enough about that stuff every day on HN and my google reader, as well as countless business books.<p>My absolute favorite professor was one most students despised. He taught music and believed a competent person primarily has the ability to take things from one field of knowledge and apply them to others in creative ways. His music class connected all over the place and was brilliant and had brilliant discussions.<p>My plan right now is this:<p>Make an ad hoc major. Focus on courses in:
- Communication: Verbal and written. This is probably the most important. I posted about learning how to write better before, and I also want to master public speaking. I'm particularly interested in how excellent story tellers such as Roald Dahl work - they're spellbinding. As a bonus, I would like to learn the art of conversation more, and how to mingle with any group and put them at ease.<p>Quantitative analysis: I always hated math in High School, but in the business world, I love slicing and dicing metrics to get the insights from them. Google analytics is my love. I'm not sure what college level courses really entail, but taking a few would hopefully meld my mindset to be even more effective at seeing through numbers.<p>History: This has always been fascinating to me, and useful for business, as human nature doesn't really change. I feel a good professor in this field can offer much more than a book, since a lot of history's details don't seem to be widely known. On this liberal arts note, philosophy seems interesting to me (specifically picking apart logic) but I fear it might be too theoretical to apply much to real life issues.<p>I feel the things above might be the best courses for my goals. What do you guys think?<p>EDIT: Also, my college is a very cheap city college, so no issues there.
======
andre3k1
In my opinion, an "Entrepreneurship" major is a complete waste of time.
Entrepreneurship is something that is learned through trial and error.

Right now I am on an Economics/Legal Studies track. Originally I was doing
Finance, thinking that I was going to be a Wall Street hot shot some day. Then
I interned out in NY... Immediately dropped the Finance major and switched
paths.

You can learn a lot at the University level, but you really need to want to.
Don't waste your time taking shitty Rocks For Jocks classes.

Enroll in classes that benefit you. I.e. a public speaking course, an
accounting course, etc. College is a time to find yourself and who you really
are. It is a time to carve out your life's path. A time to learn how to think
(logic) and how to work under pressure.

Good luck and most importantly follow your heart's desire.

~~~
Locke1689
One thing that makes me nervous -- I know you also go to Northwestern and as
you know economics is the single most popular major on campus. It may be worth
it to focus on a more practical degree in your target field in order to
differentiate yourself from the "horde." If the sub-speciality that you want
to focus on is economics, go for it, but don't just take economics for
economics' sake.

~~~
andre3k1
Very true. Unlike the 99% of other economics majors on this campus, I
thoroughly enjoy the subject.

I know what I want to do after I graduate. I'm moving out to San Francisco. Do
you have similar plans? I'll be back on campus next Saturday if you'd like to
meet up for lunch.

~~~
metamemetics
Northwestern doesn't have finance or business undergrad. Or were you referring
to the Kellogg certificate programs\a transfer student?

~~~
andre3k1
I was set to do a financial economics certificate program as part of Kellogg.
Like I said, never went through with it. Not sure what business undergrad
you're referring to. The closest thing we have is BIP (business institutions
program), which I was going to do but settled with legal studies instead.
Don't plan on going to law school either. Eventually I would like to pursue an
MBA, but first it's in my best interest to garner some work experience. Do you
go to NU?

~~~
metamemetics
> _Immediately dropped the Finance major and switched paths._

Just saying, this makes it seem like you were in a Finance major in a business
school and switched to liberal arts to everyone not familiar with NU. Whereas
you were always in the liberal arts curriculum.

> _Do you go to NU?_

Transferred to Urbana Champaign for CS.

~~~
andre3k1
> _Just saying, this makes it seem like you were in a Finance major in a
> business school and switched to liberal arts to everyone not familiar with
> NU. Whereas you were always in the liberal arts curriculum._

English has never been my strong point.

------
phamilton
<http://paulgraham.com/college.html>

The whole article is great.

"If a psychologist met a colleague from 100 years ago, they'd just get into an
ideological argument. Yes, of course, you'll learn something by taking a
psychology class. The point is, you'll learn more by taking a class in another
department."

I think that's a great test, and I agree about the Entrepreneur program. If it
wouldn't amaze and impress somebody from 100 years ago, it's probably not very
valuable. You can learn enough about it on your own.

~~~
rdouble
That essay is good, but the math advice might lead a practical minded person
the wrong direction. There's a footnote which suggests you want to learn math-
major math, not engineering math. As a math major I can assure you my
coursework in the foundations of abstract algebra has been about as useful as
my medieval philosophy classes. If you want to make the robot put the bomb in
the right place or have the credit derivatives swap into your trading account,
you'll still need to know all the tedious engineering math. The math major-y
stuff might be a good intellectual workout, but you can probably get the same
cognitive effects by learning classical piano. With music, you'll also end up
with a skill that is inherently enjoyable qnd impressive to others, instead of
being stuck with a skill that makes adults nervous and children upset.

~~~
phamilton
I disagree. I'm a CpE major who, on account of being denied a double major, is
cherry picking the upper level math classes (Abstract Algebra, Number Theory
and Group Theory). Abstract algebra teaches methods of problem solving that
you can't really learn somewhere else. Reducing a problem to rings or groups
let's you simplify it drastically. While most problems aren't exactly a direct
ring or group, similar approaches can be taken. Assumptions can be dropped and
more "friendly" operators can be used instead.

At the same time, I do have to agree. If you don't get math, it's not going to
do much good.

------
brianlash
Major in something practical.

Do something that will afford you plenty of lateral freedom (so you can take
that calligraphy course a la
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc#t=4m28s>) but that will give you
some skill you can make money with on the other side.

If grad school is your goal (you didn't indicate so I'm only guessing) then a
purely theoretical degree is fine; you'll satisfy your intellectual curiosity
while demonstrating that you have the chops for higher level thinking.
Otherwise, please please get a degree in something more specific.

The business of designing your own degree makes me nervous. On the one hand
you can use it to show you had the industry to do something off the beaten
path. On the other hand it's this thing no one can easily relate to. If I tell
you I have a degree in Economics you understand what that means (that I'm no
economist is besides the point!). But it comes with certain expectations about
the materials I studied and the manner in which I was trained to think/solve
problems. That signaling goes a long way with employers and/or clients and you
might pay a price if you get _too_ creative.

Also you never, ever know where life circumstances will take you. Best not to
get a chip on your shoulder. Not saying that you have, just saying that I've
seen it happen; we entrepreneurs get it in our heads that "none of this
matters... _I'm_ starting _my own_ company when I graduate." You might be 100%
right, but best to find out when you get there.

One final thing: Don't take anything I've said too literally. A year in the
Business major doldrums got me _overly_ concerned with doing something more
pragmatic (again, I think this is only natural of we entrepreneurs) so I added
Economics to my CV and rushed my schooling to finish a year early. Looking
back that was so foolish... I should have lightened my course load and
finished on time with my buddies. That would have given me plenty of
opportunity to explore more interesting classes (like softer stuff in
communications and theater) while using the extra time to get my business off
the ground. You know what they say about hindsight.

Good luck either way. You sound like you have a good head on your shoulders so
I'm confident things will work out for you.

~~~
klbarry
Some great advice and life lessons in the post, thank you. I must say I'm not
interested at all in grad school, so I might have some concern for that.

On the other hand, with the ignorance of youth, I'm not really worried at all.
I've never really had any problems getting jobs when I've applied for them.
Businesses are usually impressed with my biz experience for a young person. I
imagine I would be immediately ruled out of a lot of hiring processes though.

------
philwelch
I would recommend studying philosophy, not so much so for its content but for
the opportunity to learn to write well. You may have noticed that many
philosophers seem to write poorly. It turns out that writing about philosophy
is pretty hard sometimes--getting difficult ideas and complicated reasoning
across in a clear manner is fantastically difficult. And while becoming a
historically legendary philosopher may require having fantastically innovative
philosophical ideas more than it requires being able to communicate them
well[1], being a philosophy _major_ generally involves just learning how to
write well about existing philosophical ideas and perhaps making various
arguments about them.

Also, it turns out English is a waste of a major--while there are English
majors who are good writers, you'll run into just as many, if not more good
writers in college who are not English majors--and plenty of English majors
who are very poor writers indeed. If you want to work on your writing chops,
find writing intensive courses in history and philosophy. (Studying literature
doesn't teach you a think about how to write literature, it teaches you how to
criticize literature.)

On the quantitative side, you want statistics more than you want to worry
about other types of math. How much can we infer from how much data? How do
you set up an experiment to collect valid data? Is a difference of x really a
difference? You're completely at sea unless you can answer those questions.
You can easily be a huge success in business and in life without understanding
calculus. Being poor with statistics will make things much more difficult.

Finally, business classes vary by quality--classes like accounting which
correspond with an actual set of skills are sometimes worthwhile, but some
business subjects aren't worth taking classes in (MIS, management) and others
(marketing) lie somewhere in between.

[1] It turns out that if you misunderstand Hegel, you still have a potentially
interesting set of philosophical ideas to work with, even if they're different
from the ideas Hegel was trying to convey. So it's no impact to a
philosopher's stature to write unclearly, just an impediment to one's original
intent being understood.

------
mechanical_fish
Here's my impression, as gleaned in part from my friend the Polymer Science
major, who once told me that she had to spend a lot of time explaining to
prospective employers that, yes, it really is a superset of chemistry, she
really had taken all the tough chem coursework and really did understand chem:

Get a real major. One endorsed by a department and whose name everyone
understands. Do not invent the name of your major. A major is a brand.
(Believe me: It need not have anything to do with your future career, let
alone what you actually do in your own time.)

When I say that I have a degree in "Physics" people know for a fact that I
have formal training in quantum mechanics and electrodynamics, that I have
enough math background to navigate Maxwell's equations, and that I've probably
seen an oscilloscope before. If my degree were in "Computational Physical
Sciences" they would harbor doubts. They would be justifiably suspicious that
I was bullshitting them, that I had dodged around grabbing easy electives and
had never done any heavy lifting.

You only have to spend so much of your time taking courses in your major, so
get one and finish it. Indulge your whims with electives -- go ahead and
spread those around; it is good that you want to do that.

As for _what_ to study, I'll adopt my usual advising tactic and tell you to
study something _hard_. Your major is your brand; let your brand be
"interesting, hardworking, and smart". Sciences and math are hard. Statistics,
mathematics, accounting, economics. Biology, chemistry, physics. Electronics.
Mechanical engineering. Linguistics. Dare I say it: Computer science.
Philosophy is actually pretty good. Music can be pretty good -- both technical
and artistic; takes a lot of hard work and determination; a good way to
practice communication and get over your stage fright. Things that make you
read and write a lot are very good -- I minored in history, it was great --
but do not _major_ in "communication" (though if there's an elective lab
course that lets you run pro-level audio and video equipment, that would be
great fun) and do not waste time studying creative writing in college.

(You _really_ can't learn to write like Roald Dahl by taking a course. Very
few of the great writers ever formally studied writing, and Dahl appears to be
no exception. Great creative writing is mostly about practice -- you must read
a lot, and you must write a lot -- and you can get that without paying
tuition, though it certainly does take time. Just go read Stephen King's _On
Writing_ , and/or the essays and forums on Wordplayer.com:

<http://www.wordplayer.com/>

and/or Learn Writing with Uncle Jim:

<http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6710>

and save the tuition money for something else, something you can't get on your
own.)

 _Lab_ courses, for god's sake: Take the opportunity to get your hands on
every piece of expensive equipment that your school owns, be it a piano, an
electronics lab, or a machine shop.

~~~
pmichaud
This comment is pretty much what I was going to say, but let me drive it home:

For someone like you, you will not learn anything in fluffy courses. Your goal
in college should be to become "certified impressive" and the way you do that
is by taking on a major well known to be hard. Generally that means hard
science, physics is a good choice.

Once you are certified impressive in a difficult subject, you will have
maximized the credentialing value of college, while dodging a lot of the
fluffy bullshit other, less rigorous departments would put you through.

------
rakkhi
Sounds like you are an entrepreneur that would look to launch or be part of a
start-up so it begs the question: why go to college at all?

If it is just for the contacts and a piece of paper just do a the shortest
business or engineering course you can and do it online via something like
Open University so that you can focus on building some business ideas or
working for a startup. Try get an internship or voluntarily role at Google or
Facebook, Twitter etc - what you will learn there and the contacts you will
get will be invaluable, even if you work on the business rather than technical
side.

3-5 years of college and grad school will be an absolute waste of time for
you. You don't actually learn anything in college of use, you hopefully just
learn how to learn but you can do this on your own time for cheaper. Also the
contacts but there are better ways of getting a good network together. When I
hire or interview someone I only look at their experience, especially any side
and personal projects they have, I relay don't care what they studied or what
college they went to. MBA's are even more of a waste of time and money

Just don't do a finance course and become a banker:
[http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2010/07/turning-bankers-to-
engine...](http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2010/07/turning-bankers-to-engineers-
in.html)

------
aspir
Major in something you're genuinely interested in that has a lot of elective
space (psychology does this in a lot of universities- history may as well).
Use the space to double major in something else, or heavily stack up in
minors. A math/stats/cs major may be too much for you, but a minor may be
perfect. Just do something you feel is both useful and thought provoking-
you've apparently seen just enough of the "real world" to know what you need
and want. Steve Jobs has said that one of his most influential classes in
college was calligraphy, which led to the development of artistic typefaces on
the first GUI computers.

~~~
philwelch
To be fair, Steve Jobs didn't actually take calligraphy--he ran out of money
and dropped out of college by then. He just kind of bummed around Reed College
for awhile and dropped in on classes that seemed cool, and calligraphy was one
of them. He probably learned enough about calligraphy to impress upon him the
idea that attention to detail--even down to how the written word is physically
shaped and represented--is important. But he didn't necessarily pick up enough
technique to be a great calligrapher.

Lots of classes don't have enough general interest content to be worth
spending 3 hours a term on, but are still worth attending a lecture or two.
Easier if you're a college town bum than if you're an actual student though.

------
Mz
You might try CLEPing some classes to try to skip stuff you already know and
get on with taking stuff of more interest. I agree with your priorities. But
you might find that "Toastmasters" (or something similar) will do more for
your ability to meet and greet and speak than most college classes.
Entrepreneurs tend to relate differently to classes than most degree-seeking
students. FWIW: My favorite classes were generally taught by people who still
worked full-time in their field and taught part-time.

Good luck with this.

~~~
klbarry
After googling CLEP that sounds awesome, I'm surprised I never heard of it. Do
you have any experience doing it?

Toastmasters is awesome, I did it a few times last year than started working.
Thanks for reminding me to get back to it. I'll also take that advice about
professors to heart, it's brilliant. I guess the best way to do it is to
google every prof?

~~~
Mz
Yes, I have first hand experience with CLEP tests (and some other similar test
by a different name, which I can't recall right now). I took 4 years of
college level math from 8th through 11th grades to "prep for college". When I
started college, after having not taken math for a year, they gave me a
placement test and informed me I could retake advanced algebra or take
calculus. Being 18, I was not going to retake advanced algebra. I ended up
dropping out of calculus. I was so bitter about the experience I did not take
another college math class until my thirties, when I clepped college algebra
and got waivered into a statistics class based on my 17 year old SAT scores. I
CLEPed some other stuff as well to wrap up an associate's degree and not risk
having to start over from scratch if I ever got back to college. It still rubs
me the wrong way that a bright student would be told to take yet more advanced
math when they already had more math (as I did) than most graduating seniors.

I don't know how you would predetermine which professors are still working
professionals. I mostly lucked into that situation, in part by taking classes
in GIS, which was apparently still new enough to have lots of working
professionals teaching it and not so many full-time professors teaching it.

~~~
jun
May I ask what was your associate degree? If you have a 1st B.S. already, is
it necessary to CLEP subjects again for a 2nd unrelated degree?

~~~
Mz
Sorry for the misunderstanding. I CLEPed several things to wrap up my
associate of arts. I don't recall if I CLEPed anything after that, though I
did take some additional first year classes....let me see if I can reconstruct
the timeline for you:

Took 2 years of college starting at age 18 at the local hometown college. Had
no major the first year. Chose a history major the second year so I wouldn't
have to change advisors and could largely continue taking whatever interested
me. Dropped out because I got married and began following my husband's
military career from place to place.

Spent many years checking out every available educational option at every duty
station while having babies and doing the military wife thing. Much to my
frustration, they never met my needs (will skip the details to try to keep
this short).

Showed up in California, where in-state tuition (that I qualified for) at a
community college was about $13/credit hour (and later dropped to $11). Talked
to a college counselor. Enrolled in two classes and tested out of three others
and was given credit for my 2 years of college from when I was a teen to wrap
up an Associate of Arts in Humanities in May 1999.

That fall, much to my astonishment, enrolled in a bachelor's degree (I was
astonished because I was trying to lock in those old credits for "some day,
when I might return to school", which I had not envisioned to mean "like maybe
this fall!"). The program: Bachelor of Science in Environmental Resource
Management. Environmental studies degrees are typically rooted in geology
departments at colleges and tend to be very science-heavy. Since I had a
humanities degree, I was missing some of the lower level sciences I needed. I
don't recall if I CLEPed any of those. I do know I took at least one such
class at a different California community college. This was amidst a huge
health crisis, so some of the details of that time in my life are a bit fuzzy.

Later got my Certificate in GIS, the equivalent of master's level work. But I
still have not finished my bachelor's, due in part to a divorce and said
health issues. I also now have a certificate my employer paid for, which is
industry-specific. Employement-wise, no one cares that I have done the
equivalent of master's level work. I don't have my bachelor's degree, so it's
a big "So what?" My plans: make it on my own, where actual ability to Bring It
matters more than a sheepskin.

Hope that makes more sense.

~~~
jun
Thanks for the clarification Mz, wasn't expecting such a long reply actually.
Hope your health is better now =).

I suppose CLEP does help in getting credit but one would still need to check
with the respective colleges regarding their policies.

------
julius_geezer
As much math and foreign languages as you can manage. Make sure that you
achieve real competence in one of the languages.

"He ... believed a competent person primarily has the ability to take things
from one field of knowledge and apply them to others in creative ways." Well,
he's right. But you have to have the information to work with.

By the way, lot of philosophy majors discover that they don't want to be in
academia (or do, but can't get tenure) and that computing not only requires an
ability for abstract thinking but rewards it well.

------
andrewce
For communicative purposes, rhetoric is an amazing field of study. Many of the
texts I used in college were crap, but Jay Heinrich's "Thank You For Arguing"
is pretty phenomenal as far as being a quick and accessible primer to
rhetorically-charged language.

I'd also suggest a good creative writing course (I'd pick prose over poetry,
but they're your classes now); the workshopping process did a lot for me as
far as developing a critical eye toward language. One could only hope that it
would do the same for you.

~~~
klbarry
Holy crap that looks good - now on my Amazon queue. Thanks!

I'd definitely prefer prose to poetry, I've never seen poetry used in
business.

~~~
andrewce
Frankly, either will do you some good. The key thing to take away from this is
not the course matter itself, but the implicit, generalizable lessons from it.

In both, you learn how to put words in their best order. It is just that each
genre has its own conventions (multiple sets of conventions, in fact)
regarding what "best order" actually is.

------
loganfrederick
Where I attend college, the university has a very good system for allowing
students to create their own majors. Your mix of Communcations, Stats/Math,
and History sound like an interesting mix that I think would be good for a
personalized study program. If you're really interested in the courses you're
taking, you'll get much more out of the experience.

Another piece of advice would be to not only choose subjects you're interested
in but also the specific classes and professors in those subjects.

------
anonman1
I studied History. Studying history for history's sake is a waste of time.
You're better off studying history from Wikipedia if that's what you want to
do. Incorporating history with theory (yes, history has theory) will make you
more well rounded. I wrote a history thesis which incorporated ideas from
linguistics, psychology/sociology, and economics to understand a historical
context. Such methods are interesting because you can understand the present
much more deeply.

~~~
klbarry
An example of history I loved was in a public policy course. My teacher was
great and talked about the founding of America - and how much propaganda and
the art of words played into it. He went over specific strategies, and I took
from it in a real way the importance of rhetoric. It's something that's stuck
with me.There's maybe 3-4 history classes in my school I'm interested in,
though.

Also, can I read your paper, and/or have more resources on what you're talking
about? It sounds fascinating.

------
sliverstorm
History for history's sake seems like a mistake. Studying the Civil War or the
history of China or what have you will likely not teach you information about
business you can use. It is likely most relevant history has already been
incorporated into classes it is most relevant to.

e.x. in my introductory class to digital logic, we learned about the history
of logic on the sidelines.

Now, if they have a History of Business, that is very clearly relevant to your
interests- go ahead and take that.

~~~
philwelch
History is a very generalizable subject if you want to understand human
behavior. It's also a great exercise in coordinating information and in
writing. but it's a more promising subject for autodidactism than others but
not a bad choice for formal study.

------
jmspring
There was a pertinent post from the other day. Scott Adams' recommendation and
the comments at:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1676242>

Are quite helpful as well.

Good luck!

------
ochekurishvili
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2010/09...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2010/09/09/AR2010090903350.html)

------
Retailslave
I'm new here so I don't know how to send a PM, but what do you do for your
current job? I'm your age so I'd like to do something that gives me valuable
skills.

~~~
klbarry
Hi retailslave,

I'm on the marketing team for a fashion company, reco jeans. If you're a
technical minded person, learning how to market something like fashion will
blow your mind. I got hired because the owner was impressed with my past
entrepreneurial stuff and they were looking for someone who knew SEO.

If you're looking for an unpaid, just for learning internship, and if you live
in NYC, send me an email at kevin at recojeans. We're looking for an unpaid
intern right now with some html or other web language skills.

------
brianbreslin
Ok, as someone who majored in something unrelated (International Relations) to
what I'm doing now (web development), and having run a business since high
school, I think I can give you some insight.

Get a degree with something practical underlying. I wish I had done econ as a
second major, or minor. But more for purely intellectual reasons (what
financial motivations cause people to do things). Your major is really 60 ( i
think, its been a while) of your 120 credits, in some cases its even less.

So use your 20-30 remaining courses wisely. This whole idea of telling people
you majored in something imaginary will honestly make you look more like a
smug a-hole for years to come than clever, and people won't take you as
seriously as you are taking yourself. think about how this sounds "I majored
in life studies".

However I highly recommend working on your communication skills, take lots of
classes where you have to write analytical papers on a variety of subjects.
The greatest businessmen are also great communicators. They know how to convey
their pitch and turn it into sales.

take a media studies course or two, take an intro to marketing course, take
commercial law (one of my fav courses), take an international business class,
and before you realize it you've just knocked out a minor in
business/commerce.

Math wise, talk to an advisor in that department, your goal seems to fall
under 2 courses: statistics, and financial math. both very useful. Calculus
and higher may not really solve your issue.

History wise, you're on track here to understand human nature, and likely
sharpen your paper writing skills here.

don't forget to take a science course or two, even if they aren't
complicated/hard science classes, you want to avoid a narrow-focus and expose
yourself to great minds all over.

you might also think about taking an introductory Computer Science or
engineering class. I wish I had taken more of these as well.

One of the key things you're going to need is a good advisor or multiple
advisors. Most advisors in college don't care about your track, they are just
forced to help you, and have a huge volume of students to deal with. Here is
an insider tip (both my parents are college profs): look through the course
lists, find ones that interest you, and look up the teacher's email. Shoot
them an email, tell them you'd like to pick their brain, and want some advice
on their field. See if they are free, and if you can come by their office
hours. People LOVE to think others find them interesting. Before you know it
you'll have a handful of advisors, many whom could help you in your business
pursuits as well.

so in conclusion, get a real major as its going to help you be more marketable
to others (think people investing in YOU, long term). Take a bunch of
interesting classes, don't be afraid to take a class in another department
(just ask, they'll let you in), and if you plan correctly, you can probably
knock out a bunch of minors w/overlapping courses.

~~~
klbarry
Thanks for this excellent response, it's something thats been on my mind. A
lot of what I want to do is in communications but it sounds stupid to say I
majored in communications. The name is important.

But here's my issue; anything that sounds sexy for business doesn't work for
me

Marketing Management - A lot of this looks interesting, but here's my thing:
It seems, from my experience, people with marketing degrees are no better at
marketing than others.

Management - These classes look useless to me.

Economics - I'm not interested in the macro part of the economy as a career

Finance - I'm not interested in large scale money management and investing.

So my solution is an ad hoc major. I wouldn't have to call it "life studies"
or another lame name. I could pretty much call it whatever I want, right?

~~~
jholman
Okay, why are you going to school? To learn some things? To get some paper?
Both? To party? Oh, actually, let me break the "learn some things" down... To
learn some job-applicable things in classes? To learn some non-directly-job-
applicable things in classes? To learn about people who think differently from
the people you met in high school?

All of these are good reasons to do post-secondary education. Lots of them are
compatible with each other, too. But if you don't care about some of them,
don't optimize for those things. With that in mind...

A lot of people are talking about the on-paper value of your degree, and you
appear to be interested in that. I'm not sure that's actually right for you;
it appears to me that you're on a career path where no one will ever care
about your degree. Moreover, even in careers where the presence of a degree
matters, the nature of that degree might not; some jobs just say "must have
degree" on them, and that's that. Some jobs do care, but those are rare rare
rare. So, I doubt that you actually need to focus much on the paper value of
your degree.

That said, let's talk about the paper value of your degree. First, school
choice. I'm a Canadian, I assume you're American, so this may be wrong, but I
think that cheap US schools ("cheap city college"?) have very low brand value.
(As I understand it, for a first-world country, the range of brand value in
schools in the US is very high... some very very high-brand-value schools, and
some very very low ones, and a whole range in between.)

And now, I'll get to the major. Normally you don't get to name your own major.
There are exceptions to this, some of which are high-prestige. For example,
Will Shortz does love to brag about his degree. But in general, if your major
isn't a "real major", it's a joke. Also, many schools have a "not-really-any-
major" option, which may be called General Studies, or something like that.
Or, my school has an option to get a degree with no major, but two "extended
minors". These nothing-major degrees are all very low-prestige.

But remember, maybe you don't care about the paper value of your degree.

~~~
brianbreslin
brand value has a BIG importance in the US. you are basically buying your way
into a separate class of opportunities.

Also the opportunity cost of getting a branded/respected degree is MUCH lower
now than in say 20 years from now. You are buying a safety net.

also the fact that most "marketing" majors know squat about practical
marketing is irrelevant, most students lack the ambition and foresight to
break beyond their major of study. you're showing us now through this thread
you're thinking ahead.

no one will be more impressed if you have a self-named degree over being a
marketing major, but proving yourself an expert in web marketing analytics
(which you become on your own, and build up your brand).

------
chegra
1\. Do something that you love 2\. Do something you will excel at.

------
dbrannan
Don't major in minor things.

------
kamechan
so, do you think you can get over the math thing? an observation here is that
most high school math professors are, IMO, uninspiring. as a result, many
students come out of high school confused and frustrated. if you found you
didn't really do well in math in high school, chances are this says very
little about how well you can do in it in college.

personally, i maintain that nearly anyone who is sufficiently motivated to
learn math can do so. my wife is a perfect example, if you would have asked
her last year which subject she hated the most, it would have been math. she
was re-taking some lower level algebra course at a community college, which
she'd previously gotten a D in, and she was committed to taking the minimum
number of math courses required to transfer to a california state school.
however, i told her she could get her university of california education paid
for, and the particular school she wanted to go to required calculus for her
major, so she reluctantly took the plunge.

a year later, math is her favorite subject. she's gotten A's in all of her
math coursework for the past year, including her first calculus class over
this last summer. she's currently taking calculus II, and doing well in it,
now.

i can't tell you how many doors this has opened for her. she was initially a
psychology major, but she's considering going to economics (which is very math
heavy, requiring the typical 5-semester engineering math track: calc I-III,
linear algebra, and differential equations) now instead. who knows where
she'll end up, but the process has been extremely rewarding in that a) she was
a total math phobic before and her confidence has undergone a complete
transformation in the last year, b) math really teaches you to organize your
thinking and think "clearly" in the same way you viewed philosophy as doing
(math and philosophy are actually quite closely related), and c) as previously
mentioned, she can do anything she wants to in school now.

and, actually, having taught math at a community college myself for a couple
years i can say that i've seen this story repeated over and over again. nearly
all my algebra students went on to calculus afterwards, and i'd see many of
the students in my algebra classes do very well in my calculus classes later
on. probably the most rewarding thing is when someone would come to me years
later and thank me for helping them get good at math because it opened up
__________ opportunity for them later. my default response was, "hey, you did
all the work...!".

so, why all this talk about math? the reason is that most of the articles i've
seen regarding job satisfaction by major have one thing in common: a lot of
the "most" rewarding/fulfilling/lucrative/useful jobs are math-related.

is this to say that you'll be miserable if you just get the basic analytical
requirements out of the way and never take another math class again past
stats? no. but i've personally found that having been a math major (and now
back in grad school for computer science) that it's always rewarding when
something math-y comes up to be able to confidently tackle and competently
solve problems. in other words, kick its butt.

most of the time it turns into a puzzle or a game of sorts, rather than a
chore. personally, my flexibility and competency with math has led to many
different and extremely interesting options for me. i've done work in anything
from biophysics/chem to bioinformatics, to writing economic
forecasting/analysis software, to what i'm currently doing, which is solving
computer vision problems.

i hated math in high school. i only really got interested in it at a community
college as a result of a couple of inspiring professors, and i ended up at one
of the top math programs is the country. in high school, i'd never have
guessed that would've happened.

bottom line is that i've never regretted learning to excel at math. if you
have the time and inclination, it might be something to consider. then, after
you get that and your GE's out of the way, you can revisit this question
again.

good luck.

