Advice On Choosing a Major

I made a big mistake. As a highschool student I knew that I wanted to be a marketer. I wasn’t a fan of medicine, science, law, and I even knew that I didn’t want to do finance or accounting. Marketing felt like a natural choice to me because it seemed to be the perfect balance of business savvy and creativity so choosing it as a major seemed like a no brainer. I then went on to take four years of courses on advertising, research, statistics, and held a number of great marketing internships. Today, two years after my graduation, I realize that my decision to major in marketing was a mistake.

Marketing came naturally to me. I had always been fascinated with molding a brands message. I would see ads on TV and instantly come up with criticisms and think of ways to make them more effective. The Internet was another area that I was extremely comfortable with and I felt this intrinsic knowledge of which sites were working and which were simply poor imitations or shots in the dark. I had a sense for navigation and UI and could easily flip the switch from talking to geeky coders to everyday users. I did very well in college and graduated with top honors in my class. Looking back now I see that success was actually a sign of a problem. Although I worked hard for my grades it may have also been that I was simply good at that subject and not challenging myself enough. I was a born marketer and didn’t need to study it – what I lacked were tangible skills to supplement my marketing skills.

My mistake was choosing to focus on something that I was good at, and could probably perfect through experience rather than textbooks, instead of honing skills that could reinforce and supplement my core passion. In retrospect, I should have studied computer science or even graphic design – I was interested in both before college as well. If you’re reading this and are in a position to start your studies fresh I suggest you take a good look at what you know you’re good at and then focus on everything else. Aspire to be a one-man powerhouse not a one-trick-pony in what ever profession you choose.

I Blame The System

Some colleges and universities are very good at allowing you the freedom and flexibility to cover different topics as you work towards graduation. Mine was not and many others simply fail to create a curriculum tailored around student interests. Instead there are asinine rules in place that waste everyone’s time, energy, and motivation. Especially motivation. Most of this wastage comes in the form of required electives like two courses in the sciences and three in liberal arts. I remember taking a class on dinosaurs one semester because I had no interest in learning physics or chemistry further than a highschool level. My time spent learning about the Mesozoic Era would have been better spent in an intro to typography or photoshop class. Steve Jobs once said that after he dropped out of college he was able to drop-in on the classes he was interested in. It was in a calligraphy class that he snuck into where he gained respect for typesetting which he eventually applied to Apple’s first operating system.

The education system is flawed and so is recruitment. These rules and exams all trickle up to companies who simply don’t know how to find the best candidates for each position without relying on standards that were based on the aformentioned asinine practices. It’s a real shame.