Myth
: (noun) any invented story, idea, or concept.
Today, there is great pressure on students to specialize
earlier and earlier in their education.
It’s not surprising, therefore, that the main criteria
most high school students, including homeschoolers,
will employ in selecting a college is the list of majors
available at that institution.
The reasoning behind this approach is the following:
because college is simply about job training, one had
better study the major that is directly related to the
career one aspires to enter.
So if you want to be an accountant, you had better study
accounting. If you want to be successful in business,
major in business. And so on and so forth. Or so goes
the theory.
And if a school doesn’t have a business major? “Forget
it! There’s no chance you could ever be a successful
entrepreneur graduating from that place.”
As the director of admissions at a liberal arts college
with seven majors (History, Philosophy, Theology,
Mathematics, Political Science and Economics, Classics,
English Language and Literature, to be precise), these
are comments and concerns I regularly hear.
One problem with this emphasis on majors is that
most 17-18 year olds simply don’t know, and can’t be
expected to know definitively, what career they want
to enter following college graduation, and hence, don’t
know what major to select as freshmen.
Additionally, there are several other problems with
this approach to selecting a college. Here are some
commonly held myths about majors:
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