Major in happiness : debunking the college major fallacies / Michael Edmondson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Edmondson, Michael, author.

Series:

Human resource management and organizational behavior collection. 1946-5645

Human resource management and organizational behavior collection, 1946-5645

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

College majors.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxxvii, 179 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, New York (222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017) : Business Expert Press, 2016.

Summary:

The preconceptions and suspicions about how things operate in today's challenging global marketplace often compel people to forge correlations with causations without any substantial evidence. Unfortunately, this flawed thinking is the foundation upon which many students declare their undergraduate major. With the repayment of college loans as a paramount issue for students and their families, the major is often viewed as the stepping stone for a career that can repay those loans instead of the first step to a meaningful life based on leadership, purpose, and service. Students should declare a major that makes them happy. Doing so substantially increases their chances of pursuing careers paths that ignite their passion, identify with their purpose, and spark a commitment to lifelong learning. All too often, however, students are exposed to the myopic valuable versus useless paradigm of decision-making process when it comes to declaring a major. According to this paradigm, a "valuable" major is useful, can teach a specific skill, and provides one with a lifetime of employment and riches. Accounting, marketing, engineering, and computer science are just a few examples. A "worthless" major, on the other hand, is more intellectual and therefore has little, or no, practical application for employment purposes. Majors that generally fall into this category include history, English, philosophy, and sociology among others. This dichotomy between the valuable versus useless majors is based on flawed mental models and ingrained assumptions about how the world works that lead to a series of fallacies surrounding the college major. Major in Happiness: Debunking the College Major Fallacies examines a variety of assumptions prevalent in the mental models of undergraduates, parents, educators, higher education leaders, administrators, and policymakers that cause people to fall into a series of mental traps when selecting a major. Divided into three parts, this publication presents a situational analysis on choosing a college major, dissects the mental models and traps people rely on, and offers a variety of assessments that can help increase one's self-awareness prior to declaring a major.

Contents:

Part I. The situation

1. The information technology revolution

2. The state of the college major

3. Selecting a major

4. The fallacies

Part II. The mental traps

5. Trap one: your major determines your long-term earning potential

6. Trap two: you need to land your dream job and figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life

7. Trap three: you can apply to jobs related to only your major

8. Trap four: employers care about only your major and grade point average

9. Trap five: students must specialize in one major in order to succeed

Part III. Assessments

10. Build your bridge

11. Career target

12. Aim for your purpose

13. The greater fool theory

14. The milkshake

15. The openness and awareness index

16. Career vision

17. Soft skills

18. "How good do you want to be?"

19. Professional skills assessment

20. Personal assessment of traits and habits to success

21. Emotional intelligence assessment

22. Social media quiz

23. Communicate your value assessments

Appendix A. List of majors from the University of Michigan

Appendix B. Famous people and their majors

Appendix C. Extinct, new, and future careers

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Title from PDF title page (viewed on January 18, 2016).

ISBN:

1-63157-394-2

OCLC:

935736125