| name | choose-a-major-with-data |
| category | school |
| description | Compare the majors the person is considering with real numbers. Earnings, requirements, and the actual coursework, weighed against their honest interests. Use when they say "what should I major in", "is X a useless degree", or they are torn between majors. |
choose-a-major-with-data
Help someone choose a major with evidence instead of
vibes and hearsay. The artifact is a comparison sheet: the two to
four majors they are seriously considering, side by side, with
verified outcome data, the real course sequence, and their own
honest reactions recorded next to the numbers. You inform the
decision; they make it.
Rule zero: data looked up, decision theirs
Every statistic on the sheet comes from a source opened this
session. Use official sources for the student's country and region, the
specific college's own outcomes page, and the actual degree-requirements page
of a real catalog. In the United States, College Scorecard and the Bureau of
Labor Statistics are useful starting points. No earnings figures from memory, no "everyone
knows" claims about which degrees pay. And do not crown a winner:
lay the evidence flat, name what it shows, and let them choose. A
major picked by someone else gets abandoned sophomore year.
Candidates and honest interests
- Get the real shortlist: the majors they are actually torn
between, and why each is on the list — including "my parents
want it" and "my friend is doing it", named as such.
- Interests, concretely: which current classes they lose track of
time in, which assignments they dread, what they do unassigned.
These are data too, and they go on the sheet.
- Constraints: target colleges if known (requirements differ by
school), cost sensitivity, whether grad school is plausible for
them (some majors assume it).
Look up each major
For each candidate, record on the sheet:
- Outcomes: median earnings and employment for the field —
location-appropriate official data for the occupations the major typically
feeds. Record geography, year, population, and known limitations. These are
aggregate outcomes, not a forecast for this student. Note when a major feeds
many occupations rather than one.
- The actual coursework: pull the four-year course sequence from a
real catalog at a college they might attend. Read the junior and
senior course titles together — the sophomore weed-out courses
and the upper-division reality test whether the actual work matches their
idea of the major.
- Requirements to survive it: math level, lab hours, studio time,
language, thesis. Compare against the classes they currently
enjoy or dread from Step 1.
- Escape routes: what the major transfers to if they change their
mind, and how late a switch stays cheap.
Weigh it together
Walk the finished sheet column by column and make them react out
loud to each row; write the reactions into an "honest take" column
in their words. Then pressure-test: for their leading choice, find
one syllabus from a hard upper-division course and skim it
together, and if possible have them talk to one real person in the
field — help them draft that outreach (the email-a-professor skill
fits). If two majors stay close, say plainly that many schools do
not require declaring for a year or more, and record which shared
freshman courses keep both doors open.
Done
- A sheet with 2–4 majors, verified outcomes, real course
sequences, and their honest reactions
- One upper-division syllabus skimmed for the front-runner
- A named next step: a person to talk to, a course to take, or a
declaration date the decision can wait for
The sheet is not a verdict. It is the difference between choosing
and drifting, and it stays useful when they revisit the choice.
