If you’d like to be a elementary or high school teacher, or work in a school or personal situation where you are teaching people, studying education will help you learn the techniques of teaching, sometimes called pedagogy. Education majors learn about how to teach different types of students, how to manage classrooms, and help students grow personally as well as academically. In most states, becoming a teacher involves having studied education and obtaining a credential.
Personal and culinary services include careers from learning to work in a restaurant as a chef to hair styling and cosmetology. If you’d like to work in a business that is intensely customer service driven, and is about providing services to real people every day, this could be a great fit.
Communications technicians work on the devices you use to communicate. Building and maintaining radio towers that smartphones use to communicate, installing and maintaining the routers that the Internet runs on: these are done by communications technicians. If you’re a computer whiz, and love installing and maintaining this kind of software-driven equipment, you might enjoy this field.
Communications and journalism are among the many areas of study that have been profoundly affected by the Internet and smartphones. A generation ago, this was a staid career that moved so much slower than it does now. So if you are passionate about the news or about the ways in which politicians and media personalities communicate; or want a career as a journalist or public relations person, you might enjoy studying communications and journalism.
Ethnic and cultural studies is a relatively new field that addresses the issues of bias, inequality, and discrimination both in terms of the individual and systemic issues they raise. If addressing racial inequality or gender bias is something you’re passionate about, you might enjoy this field, where you’ll study how they have evolved over time, and how often they are baked into our perceptions of the world.
Architecture involves designing buildings. It’s a field that combines visual design, functional design, and engineering in unusual ways. People build buildings to live in and work in, to use as hotels and monuments, so buildings all have both form and function. Architects find ways to create designs that are visually interesting, and also ways to create designs that work, structurally and in terms of the use that’s intended. So it takes an unusual mind to be a great architect – combining design aptitude with a precise mechanical bent and artistic skills.
If you’re a passionate environmentalist, and want to find ways to conserve the natural environment, you might enjoy the field of natural resources and conservation. This field involves the studying the effects of human activity on the environment, as well as the effect of climate change, and finding ways to address these changes. There are many careers that lead out of these majors – from being a park ranger to working at universities or environmental NGOs (non-governmental organizations).
People who study agricultural sciences study all the techniques – from genetic modification to aquaculture – that have helped the world’s food production keep pace with an ever increasing population, the effects of climate change, and people’s appetite for ever more complex diets. So if you like working both in a lab and outside, developing and improving techniques for crop production, and if both food and science are passions, you might enjoy studying agricultural sciences.
Agriculture is a modern, scientific enterprise these days. Farmers use satellites to plan planting schedules, use genetic engineering to improve yields and pest-resistance, and futures markets to ensure the right price for their products. But at it’s core, if you study agriculture, you should enjoy getting your hands in the dirt and growing food. Farmers work long hours sometimes, very early and very late, and are dependent on weather and climate for the success of their work. If you like working outside, using modern technology to grow food, and enjoy the idea of being a provider to others, this might be a great fit.