Quote: (08-15-2013 03:57 AM)youngmobileglobal Wrote:
Simultaneously, if you are a humanities student you better be slaving your ass off to teach yourself wordpress, SEO, web design, PHP, ruby on rails, video shooting and finalcut pro, keynote, HTML/CSS/Javascript, Mandarin, Spanish, etc etc. You can teach yourself all of the skills I just listed there for less than the cost of either one STEM course or one humanities course at your university.
You would be much better off by picking one or two of those skills and learning them well. Trying to learn too much at once will lead to failure. There is no job in the world that requires you to be a quad-lingual internet marketer who can code in 5 languages. If you can speak both English and Mandarin well you can get paid tomorrow without the degree or all that other crap. If you can code Ruby on Rails well you can get paid tomorrow without the degree or all that other crap.
Quote: (08-15-2013 02:32 AM)swishhboy25 Wrote:
Alright, took a couple days to digest your feedback, thanks so much Im really at a loss to what to say.
Exactly. You were given way too much information so you weren't able to take any action. There was a lot of good advice but too much of it and trying to do all those different things at the same time is bad advice.
Here is a simplified approach.
1. You have to pick what you want to do, not what somebody else wants you to do. Make your own decisions or you will regret it later.
2. Start trying to answer the higher level questions. Do you want to be an entrepreneur, work for a corporation, teach, coach sports, etc.? What country or countries do you want to live in? Do you want to do a STEM type of job like engineering or coding 5 days a week? What do you enjoy and what makes you happy?
3. Think about how your skills, interests, and aptitude relate to your answers to those high level questions. Don't stress out and over-think this. There are no perfect decisions. Make a good decision and adjust later if necessary. For example, I know guys that majored in CS but got burnt out on coding and ended up being successful in other positions in software companies like consulting or project management.
4. Don't worry so much about the low level questions until you figure out the high level questions.
Examples:
-GPA doesn't matter if you want to be an entrepreneur but it matters a lot if you want to get into law school.
-Speaking both English and Mandarin is huge if you live in the US or China but much less valuable if you live in Colombia.
-Knowing how to code is very valuable skill but what if you hate writing code?
-Knowing how to speak a lot of languages is a valuable skill but what if you are reclusive and want to spend all your time writing code alone?
...
My two cents based on what you said about yourself and your interests would be to consider majoring in something like international business and becoming fluent in Mandarin or Spanish. Studying abroad and international internships are fun and will look good on a resume but I don't think you should spend extra time in school just to do several of those because you already speak multiple languages, have international experience, and have more work experience than most college students. You could take some CIS classes as part of the business degree and you could learn things like SEO on your own so you will be competent with technology and have some skills to help you in an entrepreneurial venture.
A business degree is probably going to go further than a humanities or social science degree but it isn't that big of a deal if you major in basketweaving and learn other skills on the side. A STEM degree is better than business but it doesn't fit your interests and definitely isn't needed if you speak Mandarin. "Solidering" through a STEM degree can make sense in some cases but most people who demand that you get a STEM degree don't have a fucking clue about STEM majors or getting through a rigorous STEM program if that isn't what you are interested in or good at.