Explore Majors & Careers
![Graphic showing the four exploration steps](../images/exploring-majors-image.jpg)
Purdue offers more than 200 degree options - and that is not even counting all of the specializations, concentrations, minors, and certificates you can earn! In addition, the changing global landscape offers more career choices than ever before. For a student exploring majors and careers, it can sometimes be an overwhelming process.
How can you explore your options and choose the right major and career for you? The best way is to break this complex decision into smaller pieces. This gives you time to gather, and fully absorb, information and experiences. Here is our four-step process:
Identify your abilities, values, interests, and goals
Questions to ask yourself
- In a conversation, what are the most important things I want others to know about me?
- What are my strengths? In school? In the community? Within my family? Within my group of friends?
- When I reflect on my past jobs, volunteer experiences, and internships, what did I like the most and what did I like the least? What sort of skills did I enjoy using or learning to use?
- Which school projects, hobbies, or activities are so fun that I lose track of time?
- What drives or motivates me to do my most meaningful or important work?
- What are problems or issues in the world that I wish I could solve?
Resources
- EDPS 10500 (Academic and Career Planning): This class will assist you in exploring the connection between personality characteristics and interests, majors, and careers.
- O*NET Interest Profiler: Matches interests with the careers in O*NET's enormous database
- CliftonStrengths for Students - myStrengths: This is a free talent assessment for all Purdue students. (Staff members at Purdue also complete the assessment!) It helps identify a student's top strengths. Students in EDPS 105 develop a plan for nurturing and applying their top 5 Strengths in their college academics, career, and job search.
- Applying Talents in Career Discovery: Tips for applying Strengths in career discovery (from South Mountain Community College)
Investigate college majors, coursework, and careers
Questions to ask yourself
- Which majors does Purdue offer? What are the required courses on each major's plan of study? Which seem interesting?
- What types of activities and assignments might I expect in the courses? Do they match what I like to do or hope to learn?
- What skills do I hope my favorite majors will teach me? Do these match what I am seeing in the course titles and descriptions?
- What are some career titles that I find interesting?
- What are the daily tasks within the careers? Will I enjoy doing these tasks?
- What is the work environment like in these careers? Energetic with lots of people interaction? Quiet? Always changing or relatively steady? Which might motivate me to do my best work?
- Will I be working mostly with people, numbers and data, ideas and theories, or material things? Which one do I most prefer or what is my best mix?
Resources
- Purdue Majors and links to plans of study: Organized both by career interests and in alphabetical order
- Purdue West Lafayette catalog: Organized by college and includes links to the official degree plans of study, the departments, and the University Core options
- What Can I Do With This Major?: Career guides from the University of Georgia
- What Can I Do With This Major?: Career guides from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
- What Can I Do With This Major?: Career guides from the University of Tennessee
- Purdue Career Research Portal: Company info, career guides, employment data, and more from Purdue's Libraries and School of Information Studies
- Slate's Working podcast : In-depth interviews with a wide variety of professionals
- Career OneStop Occupational Profile : Career exploration, training & jobs from the U.S. Department of Labor
Network with students and career professionals
Questions to ask yourself
- Who do I already know who is working in my major(s) of interest?
- Do I have any family already in my career field(s) of interest? Alternatively, can my parents or relatives connect me with someone they know in their workplace or friend circle?
- What companies would I like to work for in the future? What social media resources do they offer that I could connect to?
- If you were to interview someone within your major of interest, what are you most curious to know that you have not already found out online?
- If you were to interview someone working in your career field of interest, what questions would you ask them?
- Is the person I am interviewing typical or atypical for his or her major or profession? Would I like working with or for this person?
Resources
- Purdue Ties Alumni Database, which can be searched for alumni willing to network with students
- Google “Purdue [your major of interest] Ambassadors” to identify students to talk to
- CCO's Building Your Network and Informational Interviewing tutorial
- PASE (Purdue Alumni Student Experience): Get connected to Purdue alumni
- Professional organization members connected with your potential career
- Company representatives at places you'd like to work
- Join LinkedIn Groups of interest
- A Day in the Life profiles on Vault.com
- Investigate the “day in the life” of your career on Quora or YouTube
- Purdue Alumni X /Twitter Page
- Reddit IAmA (Ask Me Anything interviews)
Sample new academic and career experiences
Questions to ask yourself
- Are there clubs I was involved in high school that I really loved? Are there similar clubs at Purdue?
- When I attend club call-outs or meetings, what do I think about the people and the projects they are doing? Do I feel like I could fit in here? Why or why not?
- What are volunteer or job experiences that I would like to have to best determine what this job is really like?
- What “insider knowledge” would I like to know about the major or the career?
- Are there other experiences that interest me? Like working in a professor’s lab? Assisting a department or computer lab (and being paid)? Taking part in a study abroad experience (either short or long)?
- Does my major offer a co-operative education program or a required internship?
Resources
- Boiler Link: Fantastic place to explore the 1000+ Purdue student organizations (Purdue login required)
- Fraternity, Sorority, and Cooperative Life at Purdue: Great opportunities for community, networking, and philanthropy
- Student Employment at Purdue to gain real world experience
- Office of Undergraduate Research: How to get involved and opportunities
- Volunteer for local organizations who are positively affecting a cause you believe in
- Office of Professional Practice: Includes databases of internships and co-operative education opportunities. "Co-ops" are paid, semester-long work experiences, that are interlaced with your regular college coursework.
- Study Abroad Program Search: Get Purdue course credit while exploring other cultures. Scholarships are available.