The Difference Between A Great Career And Unemployment : How To Pick The Right College Courses

Yes, I know that a lot of people think that college is a four-year excuse to party, and have the time of your life, and actually, some folks do treat it that way. However, for those focused more on how college can improve their future prospects, than how many parties they can go to in a week, it can provide a truly valuable experience. In fact, you could go as far to say that college, and in particular, the courses that you pick can be the defining factor that lies between you and your dream career. That is why it is so vital to choose the right ones. With this in mind, find some advice on how to make the right decisions on academic courses that will benefit your future, in the post below.

Ask Yourself What Do You Want To Do

First of all, to choose the right college course, you need to think about what you want to do for the rest of your life. We spend at least 8 hours a day at work, and as the average person worked for at least 50 years, this adds up to be a pretty long time. Meaning you don’t want to pick the wrong thing and get stuck there, after all being a police officer, a doctor, an accountant, or a teacher are all very different roles. Ones that need different college courses to get into and that suit very different people.

You also need to consider the other factors that surround work. Such as salary expectations, working conditions, and how much autonomy and responsibility you will be comfortable with. Yes, it is hard to image these things when you haven’t even begun college yet. But they will actually make a huge difference to the quality of your life in later years.

To help you with this, it can be useful to do an internship giving you a real taste of what it’s like in your chosen profession, and whether it’s worth studying that at college. For example, someone considering a career in teaching may choose to work as a learning support assistant or shadow a teacher for a few weeks. Then armed with that information, they can be a lot more certain that picking a degree course in education is a good choice for them.

Of course, some lucky people have always known what they want to be when they grow up from early childhood. So for them, it’s a lot easier. This because they have a clear career plan, so it makes choosing the college courses that fit in with this super simple. Lucky them!

Field of interests

However, if you are not blessed with such insight at a young age, you will still need to make a decision on the type of college courses to take. In this case, it can help to narrow things down to a particular field of interest, such an education, medicine or law.

After all, if you know that you are great at biology and chemistry and are interested in helping people, medicine would seem to be the logical choice. Although, that doesn’t mean you have to plump for becoming a doctor right there and then.

Instead consider picking some of the more general college courses in this field, that will allow you to keep your options open. Some will allow you to transfer your credits, or allow you to specialize later on, once you have a better idea of what it is you want to do. This then gives you some time to consider whether being a doctor, doctor’s aid, nurse, or another medical practitioner will work best for you. While still studying in the field that you want to be in.

What are your values?

Another approach when picking college courses that can also be useful is to choose things that are line with your values as a person. These may be from your own personal value system, ones that fit in with your religious beliefs, or a combination of both. This can work so well because using your values is a great way to find meaningful and rewarding work. A factor that many studies show to be the most important in career satisfaction overall.  

So, to do this, you may need to engage in a little soul searching to find out what is truly important to you. It could be mercy, forgiveness, kindness, justice, or love that you value. In particular, those souls attracted to roles in law enforcement may find that the values of justice, forgiveness and kindness are especially important to them. Meaning they can best be of service in a job such as a police officer, where they can live these out and make a true difference in society.

Of course, it makes sense that these values would affect your course choices a well as you career ones. Making a course like this online criminal justice degree a good decision in this case. As it can provide the foundation of knowledge and experience, while also emphasizing the application of values on a day to day basis that is needed to be a great police officer.

What do you love now?

Another way to approach the selection of college courses, one that is particularly useful to those who have no clue what they want to do in the future is to pick things that you love to do now. This actually works well, because firstly, if you have a real passion for a subject like law, it’s going to be easier to study. Making the next four years of your life not quite as tough as they might be, as college is definitely no easy ride.

Secondly, when we have a particular passion for something, we often do better at it naturally. Of course, this can be incredibly useful to us. Both while we are studying and in later life. Just think of the example of a lawyer. It’s unlikely that someone that isn’t great at memorizing cases, debating issues, and seeing loopholes are going to pick this career, as they just won’t do that well. That is why picking something that you can excel at is vital if you are going to succeed in later life. Making this another clever way to choose your college major.