Many students look forward to the long-awaited college years after high school. As most students enter their adult years, one of their biggest decisions involves picking a major for their bachelor’s degree. However, for others, that decision is made by their parents. Parents should not dictate their child’s college career, and instead, students should choose their major based upon their true interests.
Parents can be an important and positive influence in decisions affecting a young person’s vocational development, but over-involvement in the decision-making process can undermine parental effects as a positive source of influence. According to Qualifax, “excessive parental control regarding adolescents’ occupational decision-making results in negative outcomes.”
Statistically, one in five students drops out of college without finishing their degree, according to College Factual. Most students end up going to popular schools because their parents may have asked to follow in their footsteps or because they will offer to pay for tuition.
“It’s okay for parents to guide and give advice, but parents should have prepared them better by making them decide their choices when entering the real world and face real consequences,” sophomore international business major Don Kim said.
Of course, many parents want what is best for their child and to make sure that the money they are investing in a college career is worthwhile. However, unhappiness is one of the biggest factors of dropouts.
“If you love what you’re studying, you’re more likely to fully engage with your classes and college experience, and that can mean better grades and great relationships with others in your field,” according to the Princeton Review.
According to the Washington Post, professors can tell who really wants to be in their classes, and who is only there because their parents “told them to.” It is never a bad thing to follow in the footsteps of parents, but many college students aspire to venture on a different route.
In the same article, a professor recalls a time when a student visited her during her office hours to express their stress and worries over how upset their parents would be that they could not pass a prerequisite for entry to a major, but then, in turn, discussed their wishes to pursue a major of their choice.
“Parents who dictate what their children study in school are imposing their own beliefs and values on their kids,” graduate student Geniqua King said. “They prevent their kids from being able to differentiate or maintain their own autonomy.”
If a student is able to pick their major, they are more likely to stick it through. Most of the time, majors are influenced by childhood dreams. At that point, their career becomes more of a passion instead of a means to pay the bills.
By choosing the major of their choice, students will naturally want to conduct research within their major, look forward into internships and maybe join an honor society filled with people who share the same interest. At the end of the day, it is the student’s career. Parents should take a step back and let students chose their own major so that they can be more engrossed in their choice and enjoy their future career.
