Deciding on a Career & Major
4 Steps to a Career Decision
Step 3: Making Decisions and Setting Goals
After completing Step 1 and Step 2, you can begin to develop an initial career goal. Counselors can help you make decisions about majors, careers, and classes by appointment.
When you make a career decision, please keep in mind the following...
- Good information is the foundation of sound decisions. Personally satisfying decisions are usually based on honest information about yourself (Step 1) and accurate information on the labor market (Step 2). Decisions are made with the understanding that they are based on the best information that you have at that point in time.
- Career decisions can be modified. You develop and change, and so does the labor market.The average person changes careers 3-9 times during their lives. Most people don’t make one career decision, but a series of career decisions throughout their lives. Career/college major decisions need to be made with the understanding that they can be modified.
- Set priorities. Reaching goals includes personal action and change. What are you willing to change to reach your goals? Decision-making requires that you thoughtfully examine your personal priorities.
Deciding on a College Major
Most employers want employees the skills/experience to get the job done. The exact college major is often, but not always, secondary in importance to having the right skills for the job.
- Explore your options. Search for majors at the University of California (UC) and the California State University (CSU) on ASSIST: Explore Majors by discipline, major, or campus. You can also link to campus departments for most majors. UCTransfer.org also includes a section on choosing a major and campus for the UC system.
- Select a major that interests you. Choosing a major where the majority of the required courses interest you will usually point you in a direction towards success. You may research required courses for majors in college catalogs located online and in the LPC Career Transfer Center.
- Research college majors most common to your initial career choice. While some professions require a particular college major, many careers do not. Many people work in jobs that don’t seem directly related to their college majors.
The following websites can help you begin to understand the relationship between careers and transfer college (bachelor degree level) majors.