A few years later, I have a better idea. Now I'm choosing a master's degree.
Analyzing yourself - What courses have you enjoyed in the past? I was really into the marketing class that I took during my first four years of college. So interested that I recorded each lesson so I could go back and listen to the ones that inspired me. Asking yourself what parts of each of your previous jobs you loved or hated is also a good way to analyze yourself.
Job searching - I've found this is the best way to determine what degree I would like to pursue. I typically use Indeed.com for my job searches. (Full disclosure: I have never gotten a job that I learned about through Indeed. I very rarely ever got interviews from jobs I learned about through Indeed.) However, Indeed has a nice feature that will send new job postings to any of your customized searches to your email, and I'm a total dreamer. Vitamin C implied that you'd think it's so cool.
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Sidenote: a) check out those cool 90's moves! b) wish I looked that good in yellow. c) I fell down the rabbit hole of 90's music and lost an hour of my life.
Talk to people - Once you narrow down a few degrees, talk to a few people who earned that degree and ask them how it helped them land a job. Were there a ton of options out there? Did their degree make them feel pigeonholed?
What Didn't Work for Me:
Tests - All those career tests told me what I may be good at, but not what I would love. They didn't help me at all.
Asking others how they found their mojo - What I did discover is that most people haven't. And the ones that have say "they just knew". Maybe people just didn't want to talk to me.
Working within tight timeframes - "I have to decide before I graduate high school!", "I have to decide before my sophmore year of college!", "I have to decide before I graduate with my BS so I can apply for an MS!" I felt pressured. I felt like I was making decisions because they had to be made. I needed a little time with less pressure.
My decision: Marketing
Update:
Ironically, the first class of my Master's degree was Decision Making Analysis. Why don't they teach you this in highschool?! One of the first techniques we learned was so applicable that I have to share. This one is for all you number freaks like me.
Step 1: List your potential majors on a sheet of paper with some space in between.
Step 2: List the pros and cons about each one. Try to keep the total pros/cons the same (how I did 3 for each)
Step 3: Rate each one on desirability from -100 (completely and utterly undesirable) to 100 (super-awesome-fun-time)
Step 4: How likely is this pro or con to happen? Give each a percentage.
Step 5: Get a rating for each pro/con by multiplying desirability times the probability. Don't forget your negatives!
Step 6: Total your ratings for each major. The one with the highest total rating might just be your winner.
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