 What's happening guys? It's Shane here. So my most popular videos today were the college degrees that are actually worth it video as well as the most useless degrees. In this video I basically went over degrees that you should not go into and degrees that you should get so you can avoid falling into the trap of becoming a debt slave. This is fine. I'm okay with the events that are unfolding currently. And after that video was posted I kept on getting hit up over and over again to make a video on how you can choose the best college major specifically tailored to you. And this is a great question and I know a lot of you are thinking about skipping college or whether or not it's right for you, whether it's worth it to go to college or maybe it's just a huge waste of time. You have wasted enough of your time and my money. And I'm going to be sharing my thoughts on this because this is a huge decision that you have to make in your life at a very young age and there is a lot that goes into choosing the best option for you. So I am somebody who did go to college. I played the game of loans and I won and I actually went through the whole system from undergrad all the way through graduate school and got my doctorate. And the crazy thing is the average person will change their major three times throughout their college career. Seven years and no degree. You should have graduated twice. And only about 27% of people who graduate with a college major get jobs that are related to that major. So they spend all this time, all this money, on average they go about $35,000 in debt to get their degree and then what do they have to show for it? Absolutely nothing. However, I was able to choose a career at 17 years old and I stuck with it all the way through, all the way for six years until I got my doctorate. I landed a great job in the career and I'm very happy and fulfilled. And I've been through the whole system from undergraduate to graduate school. I've made a lot of good choices and I've also made a lot of mistakes that you guys can learn from and I can pretty much guarantee you that if you watch this video until the end, you will be able to make the right choice for your future and this is going to be one of the most important videos you ever watch. And I am making this video because when I was younger there were no videos out there like this on the internet. At least I couldn't find them and if I did find them, I would have smashed the living daylights out of the like button so hard that it never would have been able to recover. No, but seriously before I start the video, if you could give the like button a little, light little tap, I would really appreciate that and also it's good for the algorithm and it would help out the channel a lot. Thank you so much. So with that being said, sit back, relax and enjoy the video. So when it comes to picking a major, there are really five easy steps that are very important and you want to do these five steps in this order. Now the first step is going to sound stupidly simple, but you want to identify your interests. What makes you happy? What brings you lasting joy? His smile was one of those rare smiles that you may come across four or five times in life. And it can be extremely hard for us to be honest with ourselves and really figure out what makes us happy. You know, not what makes your parents happy, not what makes your girlfriend happy. Not what makes other people happy, what makes you happy. And the best way to figure this out if you're confused about it, and really you should just do this anyways, even if you think you know, is to make a list at least 10 things that make you really happy. Now I'm not talking about things that bring you just like temporary pleasure, like drinking alcohol or eating a candy bar or something like that. That's not what I'm talking about. That's not lasting happiness. In fact, it might make you happy in the moment, but down the line, it'll probably make you unhappy. When I'm talking about our activities that bring you lasting joy. So you might do it and then a week later, you're still just beaming because it was just such a great experience for you. And seriously, just think what do I like and then write down anything that pops into your head no matter how silly it sounds. And if you can't think of a single thing, you really need to go out and just start trying different things until you find something that really does make you happy because this is very, very important. So for instance, if you're passionate about watching PewDiePie videos, then write that down. If you're passionate about making gourmet coffee, write that down. If you're passionate about ASMR, which is that weird trend where people make really quiet sounds loud, I don't really get it, but you get the idea, write that shit down. Now the next step after you've taken the time to do that is you really want to identify what you're good at and what you're bad at. Now the first word that probably pops into your head is talent. And I do want to say something about talent. I think that talent is real. It is a real thing. There's some people that are just naturally born, being extremely good at math or really fast or whatever. But at the same time, I believe that hard work beats talent 99 out of 100 times. I mean, just think about your work. The person who does the best job at your work is usually not the most talented person. It's the person that works the hardest. The person who does the best in your classes is probably not the smartest person. It's the person who works the hardest. And a lot of the time, the smartest person in your class is really lazy and they just sit in the back because they can. Now it's very important for you to just be honest with yourself about your current skills. Some people are way too hard on themselves. Other people are way too easy on themselves and they think they're just good at everything. But you really want to be objective and fair with this and be as honest as you can with yourself. So it's important to be practical. And one example of this is math, for instance. If you are somebody who's really bad at math, chances are you don't like math. And so therefore, you probably don't want to go into engineering or physics or mathematics. And the best thing you can do in this step, I'm telling you, this is so important and you will absolutely love the results if you actually do this, is message your friends and your family. Tell them that you're taking a leadership class and ask them to identify your top five strengths and your top five weaknesses. Tell them it's due a week from now and please get back to me as soon as you can. Just say it's a leadership class. Right here, this is a leadership class, okay? Professor Shane is speaking. I know you're probably embarrassed about asking them that question but it's totally normal and they do this in business classes and that sort of thing all the time. In bonus points, if you ask somebody who doesn't like you, 60 points, because sometimes they'll give you the most honest answers. And really, the sooner you do this, the better. This is so important and I'm telling you, I did this myself and I was extremely surprised by the responses I got and it really helped me learn a lot about myself. Now next on the list is going to be setting future goals for yourself. So things you want to think about in this category are going to be lifestyle. What kind of lifestyle do you want to live when you're older? Do you want to be traveling all the time? Do you want to travel for work? Maybe you want to have a remote job so you can just be home all the time or maybe you want to have a remote job so you can travel while you're working. How much do you want to make? Maybe you're a minimalist and you really don't need that much to live at all. $20,000 a year is fine for you because you just reuse your toilet paper or some weird stuff like that. I'm cutting toilet paper squares for our bathroom that we will wash and use instead of paper products. Or maybe you're like an Epicurean and you really like the finer things in life and so you're probably going to want to have a six-figure income or above. Another thing you want to think about is when do you want to retire? If you want to retire early, you probably want to make a little bit more just because you want to be able to save more and therefore invest more. And then the next thing is where do you want to live? Do you want to be your own boss? Do you want to be a boss at a company like someone in upper management? Do you want to be an employee who just kind of shows up and just does your job and gets paid for it? And you just live a very simple life and you want to focus on family or other things. Or maybe you want to become an entrepreneur. Start your own business and try to save the world. Batman speaking. Oh, hello. These are all things you really want to think about in this step when you're setting goals. Now, one thing I do want to mention here is making more money isn't necessarily going to make you more happy. In fact, most of the studies out there say that your happiness doesn't increase at all after about $70,000 a year or so. Sometimes it goes up to $90,000 depending on where you live. So that's something to keep in mind and you probably want to aim for something where you have the ability to make at least $70,000 a year because this will maximize your happiness. Now, you know what you enjoy. You know what you're good at. You know about your goals and where you want to be in the future. Now the next step is doing some research on majors that align with your goals. Now, there are a lot of majors out there, but I did find a really good chart that shows the starting salaries and the average salaries for the most common majors out there. And I'll post that up on the screen right now. And this should help you narrow it down depending on your individual choices. And now I'm going to say something that's a little bit controversial and that is that even if something is your passion, I really don't think you should pursue a degree in it unless that degree is going to lead to you getting a job because there are so many free resources out there, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, et cetera. All these different schools offer tons of different classes. You can basically get an entire degree online for completely free. And these are the smartest people in the entire world teaching these classes. So really the value of a degree is your ability to get a better job because of it. And if a history degree, for instance, doesn't allow you to get a good job, then you probably should not get a history degree. So if you're passionate about history, for instance, I mean, this is one of my biggest passions, I absolutely love it. What I would recommend is you really need to get creative and go an alternative route. So you probably want to start maybe a YouTube channel or a blog or an Instagram or something along those lines that where you can provide entertaining content to people and YouTube will actually pay you for people to watch your videos. Now, there are a lot of really good sites out there to do research on different careers. My personal favorite is Glassdoor.com. I think they have the most information and the most accurate data. Now, if you're making this top 10 list and you realize that not a single major on this list is something that you're really interested in doing, you're just one of those people that has to pursue your passion. That's totally fine. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. All I'm saying is I would recommend either A, not getting a degree at all, or B, go to a community college, take super cheap classes while you're trying to figure out which degree is going to be one that is going to satisfy you. You know, eventually, if you do enough research, you will find something that's fun and something that you like. Now, after you've done these steps, go ahead and start narrowing it down and looking at forums that are about these professions. So a really good example of this is if you're looking at a medical profession, studentdoctornetwork.com is amazing. It has a lot of really great resources. There's tons of doctors, pharmacists, PAs, nurses, et cetera that post on there. Another thing you want to look up is how many jobs are available now, how many jobs are projected to be available in the next 10 years. You want to look up the job satisfaction rating. You know, maybe it's a really well-paying job. Maybe it's a job that pays really well, but everybody's absolutely miserable doing it. And then make sure that all the goals you set for yourself can be accomplished if you go with that career or that major. Now, after this, you probably would have narrowed the list down to about three to five. And at this point, it's very, very important that you don't skip this step. This is probably the most important step. What you want to do is you want to start actually contacting people who are in these careers. You need to talk to real people. And there's several ways to do this. You can look them up on LinkedIn and then very nicely ask them if you can ask them any questions. You can look them up locally and then just call their business and ask them if you can either shadow them or just ask them a few questions if they're not busy. Or you can reach out through your network. Maybe you have a family member or friends that know somebody in the profession and then you can ask them questions that way. And then additionally, sometimes different careers will hold different events like career fairs or maybe there's a talk with somebody who's at the top of whatever respective career they're in. You can go to those types of events and then you'll be able to talk and network with people who are doing that job. The big thing is just don't be creepy about it. Be respectful of their time and you should be fine. I mean they'll probably be more than happy to help you and then just make sure you talk to a few different people in the career because you could get a hold of one person who's just overly negative or overly positive. So you want to talk to at least like three people I'd say to get a good idea of what's actually going on and what the actual day-to-day life of a person who's doing that career is. And I can almost guarantee you that you'll start leaning towards one of the careers you know. You'll pick up on the passion in their voice or something like that and one of them will just start making you excited and that is the one that you should go for. So there you go. That is the five steps but I'm going to take this one step further and give you some examples from my personal life. Now from step one I've always enjoyed teaching, problem solving, helping others, experimenting and I've also really been a big fan of science. This equation works for planetary orbits that never changes. From step two I've always been pretty good at experimenting. I kind of had a knack for teaching and I always wanted to go into something where I felt like I was helping people and making a difference. From step three I know that I want to retire before the age of 40 and so I'm going to need to save a lot and invest a lot and then I also will probably end up living in California which is where most of my family lives because I want to be close to family and I want to have a lifestyle where when I'm past 40 I can work if I want to or if I want to I can not work and just go travel or do whatever I want but I have the option of retiring and just being financially stable if I want it. So from step four I made a list of 10 careers and I don't remember exactly what they were because I was 17 but they looked something like this. Doctor, geologist, petroleum engineer, computer engineer, computer science, pharmacist, architect, physician's assistant, biomechanical engineering and physical therapist. Now I crossed doctor off the list because I realized that I didn't want to go to school for all that time and just be working 80 hours a week and then grinding through med school through the best years of my life just to be able to start making money when you're like 35 or something like that and it probably also would stop me from retiring early. I crossed geologist and architect off the list because after I looked at it a little more carefully I found that I wasn't really interested in what they do on a day-to-day basis. My picture in my head of what they did was a lot different than the reality of what they actually get paid for to do on a day-to-day basis and I just didn't really feel like I wanted to do that. I crossed all of the engineering ones off the list because I'm decent at math but I'm not amazing at it and I didn't want to get into something where I was only decent. Then I contacted people who worked in the remaining fields. I talked to them, I asked them about their day-to-day life, what they thought about the profession, their job satisfaction, what they thought about it, you know, going into the future, all those sorts of questions and one of them really started to stand out to me for personal reasons. It became really obvious which one I should go for and that was pharmacy. I went for pharmacy and I never changed my major once because I did all the research, all the planning at the beginning so that I didn't have to do it later on and this ended up saving me so much time and frustration because I watched so many friends and people, you know, colleagues change their majors a bunch of times and they just had all this anxiety. They didn't know what to do with their life and they were just super depressed and anxious all the time and it was just not fun to watch. Now as promised, if you're still stuck at this point, there's a few things you can do to, you know, break the tiebreaker of whatever degrees that you're stuck on and make a definitive decision that you will be able to stick with and the first thing you want to do is flip everything upside down, stop thinking of things in terms of the degree and start thinking of things in terms of the career. After all, the real purpose of going to college is to make the rest of your life better and hopefully create a future where you have a job that's extremely fulfilling. So you want to think of the job first, find a job that you really like that, you know, meets all these criteria and then reverse engineer it. Look on LinkedIn, see what degrees people who got into that career have. You know, was it a two-year degree? Was it a four-year degree? Was it a six-year degree? What schools did they go to? What majors did they have? These are all things that you can look into very easy to look it up on LinkedIn and then you can just reverse engineer it and figure out a very good plan in order to get to that career. Another way to reverse engineer this is to look at specific companies. Now everybody knows that there's certain companies in every single industry that treat their employees way better than other ones. You know, some of them pay their employees much better, better benefits, they treat their employees really well and the most obvious example of this has to be Google. You know, Google gives their employees like free lunch, free massages, free healthcare, just there's so many different perks to working at Google. It is totally ridiculous. And you can find different companies like this by just simply looking up companies on Glassdoor.com, seeing which ones have the highest ratings and then you just want to see what positions those companies are hiring for. You know, where's the demand at and then you would reverse engineer it, look up that position on LinkedIn, figure out what degree people are getting in order to get into that position and bada bing, bada bing, you got it. Now, if these first two options don't work for you, there is a third option, which is to just look at industries as a whole. And there are some industries that are just way better to get into. They have way more opportunity, future growth potential, so many jobs opening up than others. And of course, one of them is going to be the tech industry. And if you go into a booming industry like this, you look at the jobs that are in the highest demand, and then you reverse engineer it just like everything else, find out which degree you can get. This can be a really good idea for how you can break into that industry. And then once you've broken in and you've established yourself, you know, you can job hop around and do all kinds of different things because there's a lot of opportunities in a booming industry like that. Or maybe you decide to start your own company because you have a much higher chance of being successful in a booming industry than you do in a dying one. Or maybe you're the type of person who decided that you just want to do the bare minimum and just, you know, go to work, you know, barely do any work and then go home and just enjoy family life or whatever. I have a friend who is like that. He was an IT guy. He's making about $130,000 a year somewhere around there. And then he actually stepped down, took a pay cut in order to get a job where he basically wasn't doing any work at all. He was just basically on call. And I think he was making $100 or $110,000. So he took a pretty significant pay cut, but he was also able to have a much better quality of life because that's what he wanted. And like I mentioned before, if your passion is somewhere where a college degree simply can't get you there, I recommend just not getting a college degree at all and figuring out an alternative route to get where you want to be. Make sure to check out the videos right here because I made them just for you. Go ahead, smash the like button, hit the subscribe button, ring the little notification bell, and then comment down below any thoughts on this video or any ideas for videos that you would want to see in the future. Thank you so much and I'll see you in the next one.