Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Remind me that this is why we skipped...

This is one of the problems in life, generally.

You only figure out what's going on after it's too late to do anything about it.

Yes. Our DD is already deeply frustrated by this. I'm amazed that she has so clearly seen this already--

How on earth am I supposed to know what will make me happy and fulfilled when I'm forty?? I don't know who I will BE when I'm forty. I don't even know who I might be when I'm twenty... How am I supposed to choose the right major??

She wrongly interprets this as a lack of maturity since so many of her academic peers (who are 16-17) seem to know full well what they intend to do with their lives and express few doubts.

We tend to think it entirely possible that the opposite is in fact true. Our advice to her is to "choose what you can love, and choose BROADLY, not narrowly in terms of preparation."

Interested in Particle Physics? A math undergraduate degree can take you there-- or to teaching-- or to chemistry, or biophysics, or engineering, or law school, or even med school or an MBA program...

If you are interested in becoming a doctor, spend undergrad making sure, and for heaven's sakes choose a major that will allow you to be employable with that undergraduate degree, because that is one very specialized skill set after med school.

I think that we're teaching kids to specialize earlier and earlier, and that is not at all a good thing. Breadth is a strength all its own-- in any field or endeavor.

Jon, you're absolutely right. You can't know what you have no way of knowing. Unfortunately.

While I do in general believe that this is true, I have two friends who graduated with MD/PhDs and then decided that they didn't want to be doctors or researchers. Both are now excellent patent lawyers (MD/PhD/JD), doing pharmaceutical work. I don't think it was a particularly cost-effective route, but they both made it work for them.

Yes, you can always become a patent agent if you get enough undergrad science credit.

Although I found being a patent attorney similar to eating sawdust every day.

One of the attorneys I used to work with had a biochem undergrad degree, I think, and was doing work for a generic pharmaceutical manufacturer.

That is such a long road though! College = 4 years, MD = 4 years, PhD part 2-6 more years, law school = 3 years. I had a few friends at Harvard Med who went all the way through and then realized they hated being around sick people! Ideally, you would figure out before medical school that you don't really want to be a doctor.
One friend of mine got a PhD in philosophy at Princeton (took him 6 years, after 4 years of college) and couldn't find a job in his field. So he went to law school.

Agreed. Which is why when DD7's principal said in a meeting that the kids need to know what they want to be when they grow up before they leave elementary school, I looked at her like she'd just swallowed a bug.

Amen! I hate when they make these types of comments. Usually, in the same breath, they will state that many of the current jobs will not exist when our kids are adults. They also speculate that half of the jobs that will be available when our kids are adults, don't exist yet. So the message is : know what you want to do but don't be surprised when that job no longer exists and be ready for something no one has created yet.

Is this why most students in college change their major at least once if not multiple times? I thought they already knew what they wanted to be when they "Grew up" leaving elementary school!

In college, I could switch to any major I wanted to switch to as long as it was engineering or else I would lose my scholarship. I think I switched a total of three times.

So, I got a nice collection of engineering science, civil engineering, and chemical engineering classes that took me 5 years because of the prerequisites.