How To Choose A College Major

Woman thinking Experiencing MAJOR Confusion?

You don't know what you want to do for a career?

So how can you choose a college major?

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Here is a 7-step process to resolve some of the confusion and frustration of choosing your college major.

1. Find out what kinds of activities interest you. Activities are divided into six different areas, also known as Holland Codes.

Realistic or R activities Investigate or I activities
Artistic or A activities Social or S activities
Enterprising or E activities Conventional or C activities

2. Identify your activity interest areas (your Holland Interest Code.) To identify your three top activity areas of interest go to http://ecos.princetonreview.com. Do the ECOS career interest assessment. At the end of the assessment you see your three letter activity code. This letter code uses the above-lettered list of activities. The three letter activity code, also known as the Holland Interest Code, will match to a list of occupations with activities that match to your activities of interest. You will then be able to click into "Find Careers that match your code." NOTE: Setup your personal ECOS account:
1. From the home page, click into "STUDENT"
2. Create an account.
3. Input code member # - 51663670263
4. Create your own personal User Id and Password. (Keep a record of - for future use)

3. Choose an occupation of interest The inventory will give you an occupational code that will identify careers that relate to your interests.

4. Choose a college major ECOS will provide career majors that are related to the chosen occupation.

5. Choose a 4-year college that you might want
to transfer to Once you identify a college major, you are then ready to begin your college search through ECOS for colleges in the US http://ecos.princetonreview.com or for more detailed information on NJ colleges use. http://www.njedge.org

Note: to use ECOS you will need to log on to your ECOS account.

After identifying the 4-year college, review the academic programs offered by the 4-year college and select one that corresponds to your interest area and occupational choice.

6. Select an OCC program of study Review the list of OCC Programs of Study. Identify the OCC College major that correlates to you primary interest code and chosen program of study from the 4-year college.

7. Transferring to the 4-year college Monitor the transfer of your OCC classes to the NJ College of your choice through NJ Transfer at www.njtransfer.org to make sure you are choosing appropriate classes for the maximum amount of classes for transfer.

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