undecided?

I feel frantic again. This happens every time registration for the next semester comes around. I am in my third semester overall, working on my first year of college. The problem is I have many interests and can't weed out what I should pursue on my own time from what I could pursue as a career, and which path I should take in terms of study: pleasure or business, so to speak. I know that I could really turn anything into a career if I work hard enough. I guess I just keep thinking if I could attack it from the "What will I do when I graduate?" angle, it'd be easier to figure out what direction to go in. But when I do that I feel limited. So I go back to thinking about what would just plain be fun to learn, and that seems like a good idea, until all the thoughts about what I might be missing out on, or what might be more 'appropriate' or 'wise' or 'career-enhancing' to study, start flooding my brain.
Help...?

I would just take all the required courses you have to for the first couple years and see what comes up. There's a lot of stuff you have to take multiple of for it to be an option for a major or job and it's pretty easy to see if you want to keep taking courses in a particular subject. Maybe divide some of your thinking in "half" with math and science to one side and the arts to another or different sorts of arts to one side or different sciences, depending of whether you are an "art" person or a "science" person? For the first couple years, 15-20 courses it's just an extension of high school, what did you like there?

Thanks Perna.

Oddly enough, even though I did really well in high school, I didn't actually "like" anything except French and Drama, and I dropped out of Drama after about a month or so I think. I have considered doing a degree in performing arts, except it makes me nervous because one has to audition for those and I have not acted or taken any classes. I have thought about just winging it, lol. French - and other languages - are out for me because my hearing has deteriorated to such an extent that I cannot make out words when people are talking to me. English is my first language and if I can't understand that, my chances of understanding other stuff are pretty slim.

I used to think I was strictly an arts person. Then a year and a half ago I did Math 11 again because it's been so long since I graduated and I needed to upgrade. I was worried about it because I hated math and science in high school and never did very well - Cs in my subjects when I got mostly As and a few Bs in everything else. In fact, in grade 11 I failed my math and physics finals. But I finished my math 11 last year with 93%! And what's more, I really enjoyed the natural challenges of math and I felt invigorated by it. So I am enrolled in more math, and in physics 11 for the July/August semester, and considering taking math and physics 12, and chemistry 11 and 12 after that, if it all works out, and perhaps majoring in something like astronomy, or mathematics.

The major problem is this: I LOVE EVERYTHING. Okay, not everything. I can rule out anything business-related or sales-related. My first two semesters I took one course each: Statistics for Social Sciences (got an A+) and First Nations Science, which was basically a biology course for non-science majors (another A+). This summer I've been taking drawing, painting, and academic writing. I was hoping that as I went along things would start to become clearer but, if anything, they're only becoming more confusing. I'm afraid that once I start taking the sciences it'll get even worse, lol.

Wow, that is a concern. Of course, remember we can read and study all our lives regardless of our careers.

What can you see doing day after day after day after day as a career and still enjoying it? I think that's a factor to consider for a career.

Thanks for the reply, Trav.

Well, I have essentially two lines of thinking about this. The first is, astronomy would be a kick-*** job. Looking at stars, discovering things, mapping, building telescopes, probably living and working in really cool places (Chile, Hawaii, etc) since that's where a lot of the big high-powered telescopes are...so, if I HAD to have a 9-5, that would probably be the kind of job I'd like to have. There's some interaction with people, but not so much that I feel overwhelmed (ANYTHING customer-service or sales-related is out of the question for me). Also, I'd spend most of my time in a lab of some sort, doing some independent or small-group work. Which is perfect for me. One of the things I have to consider now is my energy level, and my anxiety. I'm on disability right now, and I do want to go back to work, but when I go back it needs to be sustainable, something I can do that's engaging and won't wear me out/down. Plus, some added bonuses: in order to work at the level I want to work in astronomy, I have to have a PhD. I would start with a double honours in Physics and Astronomy in a really cool little city here, and then go into the MSc, and then the PhD. Once I get to the MSc level, they essentially award their students roughly $22,000 PER YEAR in funding to complete their studies. The funding they award to PhD students amounts to almost $100,000 each! More than any other department. So, if I am a good enough student, and I make it that far, I won't be incurring any debt. And, I can come off disability because I'll be able to support myself, and I want that more than anything else in the world. The folks at disability cause me more stress than all my diagnoses combined.

My other line of thinking is, I'm a talented artist. And it's something I enjoy doing immensely. If I dedicate myself to my craft there's not too much I couldn't do. So there's nothing saying I can't live as an artist. Work in galleries to make extra money, or as a college professor, or a high school teacher, or teaching arts programs in the community, while I have my own artistic practice. That is also something I could see myself doing as a career.

You should probably see if you can find and talk to people in the professions you think you want to follow. Your idea of what an astronomer does made me smile a bit; one of my good friends is an astronomer and worked at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. 25 or so years ago and since then has been working at the National Science Foundation (NSF). There is some part of every job that is cool, like imagined but most of it is day-to-day stuff, like the rest of life :-) You have to really love the day-to-day stuff and think that's fun to do well in a particular profession, not be able to stay away from it even when it is combined with stuff you don't like like customer service and sales, LOL. I hate data entry, for example, but had to build a 2000-record database from scratch for my research project that took me the last 3-4 weeks full-time and being excited and wanting to see what the data would tell me for the paper I had to write up kept me at it eagerly. My astronomer friend has had to judge school science fairs and present papers, do "glad-handing" (basically, sales :-) and lug around heavy equipment ("portable" atomic clocks -- about twice the size she is :-) and do the upkeep on mundane charts/statistics and the actual stars are few and far between. What we see in the media, Neil deGrasse Tyson's "Cosmos", is not what most astronomers do.

Perna: thanks for that. Yes, I am fine with all of that stuff. I love data entry. I would love to judge a science fair. I don't mind that kind of stuff. Or making presentations, reports, etc...I understand there will be "everyday stuff". I guess that's another part of what makes it so difficult though. You raise a good point. It's one thing to say, Okay, this is what I want to do, and train for it. The reality, though, is that what most people end up doing with their major is incredibly different than what they trained for. That's why I'm cautious about going into science. I read up on a lot of the websites that document and predict science careers, etc, and most of the people that work in physics have surprisingly dull jobs. Some people who have Astronomy degrees end up working in the automobile industry.

For instance: they have developed a new physics degree at the university I attend. It's Physics for Modern Technology. They have told me it would be excellent preparation for graduate studies in Astronomy, and they're probably right. But at least a third of the program is business-focused. I get why they do it. I just hate that absolutely everything in this world always comes back to money. I don't want to study something for the money in it. If that's what I wanted I'd just take a business degree - or a science degree; people with physics degrees are among the top-paid employees anywhere, on average - and be done with it.

School doesn't really train. Training is only done with practical subjects like bookkeeping or accounting, some computer programming courses (not all, most of it in university is more "theoretical") etc. My husband's an engineer and it was his work-study jobs that trained him for that, not the coursework in all those subjects; you can't build a bridge or an airplane just because you know physics and the proper math. If you like to study you might want to look at becoming a professor, though nowadays one has to have real world experience for that usually too. What is hard about professions is you really only learn what they are by working several years in the field. It is hard, too, when one gets out of school because the real work world doesn't really care about the school stuff, like you said, there are people with astronomy degrees working in the automotive field. Going to school, one has ideas of what one likes and imagines what it is like based on that (what one reads, basically) but one graduates and a whole lot of stuff we don't know anything about get in there and shift things around. I didn't get to my "true" profession/life until I was in my 40s-50s.

Yeah. Totally. I have kind of the double-edged sword experience of only ever having worked up to this point (I'm 35, started working when I was 12) so it kind of adds a level of bleakness to it, if that makes any sense. What I like about a lot of programs, though, is that, as you mentioned, there are co-ops (alternating academic and paid work experience terms) and then, at the graduate level (and even for some qualified undergrads) there are TA (teaching assistant) and research opportunities. So it is possible to be somewhat prepared for the field prior to entering it, or at the very least to explore different opportunities. Thank goodness for that.

Astronomy sounds like a plan. Maybe some of your creativity could go into art work about the universe--planets, etc. I'd love to have a painting of Mars.

You sound like an intelligent "scanner". Have you taken the self inventories to help you nail down the areas you like the best? Are you working with the uni counselor to explore career opportunities? There are plenty of resources available to do all this, including the projection of what type of career people the world will need by the time you graduate.

I wouldn't go too specific if I were you...and don't be afraid to change majors later. (I did so between master and doctorate!)

I'm supposing that you bore easily and need change. That should be first consideration--not something that locks you into one task area. And you need to decide if you wish to work alone or with others most of the time. Are you a self starter or do you need others to motivate you? These types of considerations will help you narrow your good choices.

Yes! All of the above!