Here are a couple of articles that grabbed my attention:
1. How do young people chose a college major:
2. Prediction of College Major by Personality Test:
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Scouting the Territory
In my research I have found several studies that sociologists and psychologists have done involving college majors. Based on what I have found, I have decided to focus on two main topics for my paper. The first topic is what does your college major say about your background and the second is what does your college major say about your personality. I am pretty confident that I will be able to find sufficient scientific research (statistics as well as specific case studies) to help me. One of the main reasons I chose these two main topics is because the terms "personality" and "background" led me to several articles on Google. Many people seem to have created "major stereotypes" similar to racial stereotypes.
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This is an interesting topic that students have had success with. I am curious about your approach to the topic and you might be interested in some interesting suggestions for how to pursue it which I will discuss below.
ReplyDeleteFirst, it might help to look at the blogs of some students who have taken on this topic before:
http://maryalicehauer.blogspot.com/
http://cortescollege201.blogspot.com/
http://erinelizabethlynch.blogspot.com/
There is also another student in class pursuing this topic:
http://thisurlbetternotbetaken.blogspot.com/
The topic of college major is interesting now because one would assume that the new career-focus of college is pushing students to choose majors for the money rather than out of personal interest. But I think you are right that students are still looking to do something that interests them most of all, and that idea is fed by these personality tests and books like "What Color Is Your Parachute?" I think Generation Me also feels very entitled to personal fulfillment in their work, unlike generations past that focused most on serving community, family, and masculinity. It would be worthwhile to frame these questions about personality and college major as historical and cultural developments.
I will write a second comment about another approach (since comments have a word limit).
Last year, while working with students interested in major choice as a subject, I remembered a project I did long ago as an undergraduate myself on why students chose their college major. It took a more anthropological approach, though I did talk more generally about the meaning of major and associated career in the creation of a coherent sense of self.
ReplyDeleteThis was for an "anthropology of college life" course with Michael Moffatt I took in the 1980s. Moffatt's work (especially in Coming of Age in New Jersey) actually inspired me to come up with this class.
I did a study of why students chose their college majors, based mostly on interviews. My research was inspired by the work of Charlotte Linde in "Life Stories":
https://catalog.libraries.rutgers.edu/vufind/catalog_search.php?record=872758
http://www.amazon.com/Life-Stories-Creation-Coherence-Sociolinguistics/dp/0195073738
She also wrote a series of articles in the mid-eighties on her research that I read, and I found the articles better than the book.
I do not have my essay on the subject, which is a shame, as the interviews I did were very extensive and I had transcribed them. I was also studying journalism back then, so it was a natural topic for me.
Linde argued that, in telling stories about themselves, people rely upon a fixed set of "explanatory systems." She asked people about their choice of career and found people relied upon psychological explanations ("I became an accountant because I enjoy being fastidious about details"), etc. I found the same was true with major choice, though I also found a very broad range of explanatory systems in operation back in the 80s, including careerism, aspiration to a higher social class than uncouth parents (an explanation for studying Art History), "calling," and even astrological tendencies ("I majored in acting because I am a Pisces"). Linde's argument was that, in order to make yourself understood by others you would feel compelled to explain your choices based on a mutually available "explanatory system," and she thought there could not be an infinite number of explanatory systems available but just a fixed set operating within different discourse communities.
It may be that today there are fewer explanatory systems available, or that people always feel they have to justify major choice based on money in some way. A study of people's life stories and major choices might show the dominance of neoliberal discourse, for example. Or it might reveal that, despite the apparent dominance of neoliberalism and careerism, students still fall back on their own personal interests in choosing college majors. Or maybe their stories reveal constant conflict between those two registers.
It might be rather ambitious as a research project, but I found it fun and interesting myself. You'd still have to do library research, of course, but you'd also have primary research to illustrate your theories. You could just interview five people you know. But record the interviews and transcribe them. And the transcriptions could be from a couple paragraphs to a couple pages in length. You just want the narrative essence of why they chose their majors. And then you would be able to quote from them in your paper.
There was another student in class who originally was interested in this topic but switched. I wrote him a comment that would now be more useful for you:
ReplyDeletePerhaps you could focus on how (or whether) rising tuition and rising student debt affects choice of major -- "balancing passion and practicality" as some research articles put it.
I think it is an interesting question as to whether or not students are even chasing more lucrative majors for the money because they are in debt, or if -- like most American students -- they are mostly following their passions and personalities no matter what the cost. It may be that following your passion is not always a wise decision, especially if it leads you to default on your debt -- but it is hard to convince a young person of that as they all assume "I will be the one writer/filmmaker/artist/actor/etc. who will succeed and make it big," My own theory would be that the Me Generation is convinced that they should follow their interests in college no matter what and that they are entitled to do so.
It's also possible, for some people, that following your passion can be a wise move. After all, those who did succeed against all odds have always been incredibly passionate about their work. It's just a very risky decision for someone in debt to make, so I would be curious if the rise in debt is or isn't driving students to make more practical choices when it comes to majors.
You could also look at the corollary: that Rich Kids Can Afford to Study English.
One students started with these questions, though he ended up focusing on STEM majors in his final paper. But his blog might point you to some interesting resources:
http://cortescollege201.blogspot.com/
This article he lists in his bib sounds like a great place to start:
Tepper, Steven J., and Danielle J. Lindemann. "Perspectives: For The Money? For The Love? Reconsidering The 'Worth' Of A College Major." Change 46.2 (2014): 20-23. Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Oct. 2015.
You might even find that one online if you search.