Skip to main content

Education: How to Select a College Major?



I don’t think I ever had a choice but to study and get a degree.  That was the story of all the middle class Sri Lanka Tamils growing up in the 1960s and 1970s.  We were indoctrinated from a very young age that education was our path to salvation.  That too, all of us had to become engineers or doctors.  If we failed to get admitted to the two or three Sri Lanka Universities that existed at that time (Colombo, Katubadde or Peradeniya), the rich kids were sent abroad to study medicine and the others studied accountancy at home.  

I don’t know why Sri Lankan parents wanted their children to study medicine or engineering.  Some have told me that it is because of their desire for their children to excel in fields with good career potential. There might be some justification for that in Tamil literature. Great Saint Thiruvalluvar wrote “The benefit which a father should confer on his son is to give him precedence in the assembly of the learned” (தந்தை மகற் காற்று நன்றி அவையத்து முந்தி இருப்பச்செயல்). I suspect that it also has to do with the prestige and social recognition that the parents get when their children become doctors and engineers.  

Sri Lankan education system in the 1970s, remnants of British colonialism, consisted of GCE (Ordinary Level) national exam after grade 11 and GCE (Advanced Level) after grade 13.  Most Sri Lankan students are assigned a field of study (biology for the medical stream, applied mathematics for engineering, and humanities for other) when they enter High School in Grade 10 at the age of 14.  The GCE (AL) results coupled with a complicated race and location based formula the government uses, determines a student’s future career.  A majority of the youth drop out without a university education.  

Those who enter Sri Lankan Universities rarely ever change their assigned field of education.  Hence, it is possible for Sri Lankan graduates to complete their education with very little interest in their assigned profession.  Comparatively, many students in the United States have more flexibility and change their majors multiple times. The rigidity of the Sri Lankan educational system may have contributed to the social unrest among the youth, leading to the JVP insurrection of 1973 and the Civil War from 1977-2010.
 


I chose to study Biology in grade 10 because I did not want to be woken up early in the morning by my dad to be taught mathematics.  After I completed my GCE (OL) in grade 11, I elected to continue my education in India because as a Tamil studying in Colombo, I thought I had only a little chance of entering the medical college in Sri Lanka.  But when I dissected the first frog in Grade 13, I knew biology is not for me and medicine is not my career.  It was a live frog that had been put to sleep but its heart was beating!  I had to change my field of study quickly if I wanted to stay and study at Madras Christian College in India.  I was able to talk to my teachers and friends and I selected Economics for my undergraduate degree. 

Question: What is the best approach to select a student's major before entering college?

 My experience:

  •  In Sri Lanka, the kids are assigned or chose a field in Grade 10.  At the age of 14, they often don’t know what they really want to do in life and can make a mistake.  The Sri Lankan educational system is not sufficiently flexible for the student to make any changes.  In comparison, students in the United States frequently change their majors while enrolled at the University.  Although the Sri Lankan approach can reduce the cost of education, it can have high social costs.
  • While enrolled at a University, if students keep changing their majors frequently, it can increase the cost of education.  In the United States, some of the cost is paid by the parents or through student loans, and the remaining is paid by the State from higher taxes imposed on all of us.
  • A better approach is needed.  There needs to be more investment in secondary schools for screening students for career aptitude and other psychological testing.  University education is more expensive and much can be saved by better testing and screening of secondary school students to help achieve national and local priorities. 
  • When the schools do not invest sufficient resources to help the student determine the careers, it is important for the family to invest resources and time.  The approach adopted by Sri Lankan Tamils to encourage all their children to be medical doctors or engineers is not sufficient when other professional approaches and lucrative careers exist. The Princeton Review is an excellent resource to use in guiding your decisions about selecting a college and your major. 
  • A family that does not invest time and resources on their high school student, can't complain later about high student loans and/or high taxes. 
      
    Share Your Experience:  When and how did you make your decision regarding your college major?

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE REASONS FOR THE SUCCESS OF ASIAN AMERICANS: ROLE MODELS AND MENTORS

I have often wondered why Asian Americans are the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States.  In many ways, I share their experiences.  Like 74% of them, I was also born abroad; and like half of them, I will say, I speak English very well.  Some other statistics and comparisons are also interesting and for some people, may explain why Asian Americans are more successful.  More than six-in-ten adults ages 25 to 64 who have come from Asia in recent years have at least a bachelor’s degree.  I had a Master’s degree when I came to the United States in 1984.  In spite of all the reasons cited above, I used to struggle to explain why Asian Americans do better than any other race.  This is because I didn’t believe that the reason for my success was the education that I had when I entered the country.  Being unable to explain, I could not share my experiences and help my brethren in my adopted count...
Post a Comment
Read more

LOSS OF MY MOTHER: PAIN HEALS SLOWLY BUT MEMORIES NEVER FADE

Exactly one month after my 15 th birthday, I was surprised when my uncle picked me from school.   I was told during the ride home that my mother was sick but I did not suspect anything.   After all, she had cooked breakfast and teased me about being in a hurry to get to school to show the new clothes that she had got for my birthday.   Only if I had known that would be the last I will ever see her, I would have clung to her till the end, said a proper goodbye and apologized for ever having hurt her.   When I reached home, my father was crying and told me that my mom had died.   As I did not react, my brother screamed and tried to convey the loss to me.   Later I learned that my mom died at the hospital.   I knew that she had gone with my dad to see her cardiologist for a check-up; who then told my parents that she was having a heart attack and admitted her in the hospital. Within an hour she was dead.   It was a shock for all of us but i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Travel Creates Memories – Where to Travel?

I have traveled to 19 countries but places that I want to visit in my bucket list keep growing.  My spouse and I enjoy traveling and creating memories.  Given time and money constraints, we are often forced to make choices about where to travel and when to travel to make each visit special and a memory to cherish. Thinking of places we have visited, the question of where to travel is relatively easy in hindsight.  Most of the places we have visited are for cultural tourism.  Cultural tourism is a kind of tourism that involves learning about the history of a given region, the lifestyle of people in a particular geographical locale, architecture, oral traditions, religions, festivals, cuisine, etc. Activities of cultural tourism involves visiting museums, theaters, art galleries, and learning about indigenous cultural communities and their traditions, lifestyle, and values.   The countries that we have visited that can be included in this category incl...
Post a Comment
Read more