Choosing a Major

Choosing a major can be a major – dilemma that is! With the increasing competition for places in University and College courses students are expected to make choices earlier than ever in their education, often in year 10 or 11, to maximize their chances of acceptance to the school of their choice. That can seem daunting to a person who doesn’t really know what they want in terms of career at the ripe old age of a teenager.

It doesn’t have to be that stressful though. Gearing studies in a certain direction is possible while still keeping options for future studies open. Most of us have a propensity for left or right brain thinking (and I can never remember which is which), that is to say if your brilliant in English, Math is often not your thing and visa versa. Knowing this, courses can be chosen for your skills (bearing in mind most of us actually like the things we are good at and loathe the things we suck at) right from early on in your course of study.  If you are interested in taking a fun test to find out if you are a left or right brain thinker the Art Institute of Vancouver has an online test available here.

For the last years of high school students should steer their courses toward a general but specific direction. Sciences combined with Math are good choices for those right brain people (or is it left?) and Arts and Humanities topics for those other brained people. Stick with this until you get to tertiary education and then choose conjoint study or a major with future divergent options if you still aren't sure of exactly which direction you want to take.

Even the top (and most competitive) subjects like law, accounting and medicine allow for first and second year students to take a number of courses which can lead in other directions if the student discovers that one thing isn’t really what they thought it would be, or it’s too long, or it’s too hard, whatever. Basically right up to this point it really isn’t a biggie to change direction.