J
James D
Guest
In this speech, Salgado states that his studies in economics were a great help to him in his career as a photojournalist.
What should my college major be?
- Thread starter JeremyLangford
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lightshot
Established
Jeremy,
You don't need a major right now, do you? Just because you pick something now doesn't mean that it's written in stone so please don't do yourself a disservice by trying to have everything mapped out and planned out at this early stage in your life. You are allowed to change your mind and the direction of your education. 🙂
If you really don't know what you want to major in, then take your time and figure it out. There are no penalties for remaining undeclared, and if I remember correctly you do have some time before you have to declare your major. In the meantime taking core classes that count towards your general education graduation requirements is productive.
Core classes such as math, biology, and English writing take up a fair amount of time in college but the electives can help you fine tune your decisions. Electives such as economic history, alternative math (also called everyday or practical math), behavioral biology, or even a basic course in cinematography can help you find your major.
Most college students switch majors more frequently than underwear so try not to worry about not knowing for sure what you want to major in.
You don't need a major right now, do you? Just because you pick something now doesn't mean that it's written in stone so please don't do yourself a disservice by trying to have everything mapped out and planned out at this early stage in your life. You are allowed to change your mind and the direction of your education. 🙂
If you really don't know what you want to major in, then take your time and figure it out. There are no penalties for remaining undeclared, and if I remember correctly you do have some time before you have to declare your major. In the meantime taking core classes that count towards your general education graduation requirements is productive.
Core classes such as math, biology, and English writing take up a fair amount of time in college but the electives can help you fine tune your decisions. Electives such as economic history, alternative math (also called everyday or practical math), behavioral biology, or even a basic course in cinematography can help you find your major.
Most college students switch majors more frequently than underwear so try not to worry about not knowing for sure what you want to major in.
noah b
Established
Hey man, I actually live in Johnson City so we are not too far apart. I'd get your core classes out of the way first, then figure out what you wanna do after that. Art is always a great thing to major in, I switched mine for a year then went back to it. I've been a photo major since I've been in college and it is a lot of work, but I love it.
JeremyLangford
I'd really Leica Leica
Wow, that's awesome. I'm actually a triplet with two sisters and one of them moved from here to Johnson City for school. She's a freshman at ETSU.
morback
Martin N. Hinze
Graphic Design is a huge field. It's not just photoshop and vectors. Graphic Designers like to call their job "visual communication" (doesn't that include photography too?). In that field you learn to pass a message to a certain audience in the most efficient and clear way possible.
It's a very broad discipline that requires you to know a lot of extra skills to be good at. You need to be able to wrap your mind around social issues, cultures, alien vernacular, history and all those things that shapes our world. Then you need to find the proper graphic treatment for the message. That's where skills in photography, drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, doodling, lettering, (and also photoshop, illustrator, indesign, dreamweaver, ...) ect comes in.
That field is essentially whatever you want to make out of it. But you need a desire to communicate.
I majored in that field, and today I design mostly books and other miscellaneous printed materials. I enjoy that tremendously, with the usual frustrations of working for someone else of course.
My point being, don't have a preconceived idea of whatever a certain academic field is. Try it out and see what it's like from the inside. You don't have to stick with it if you don't like it. Things change and you always have the opportunity to change with it. Especially in college. And then in post-grad education. And then in life.
It's a very broad discipline that requires you to know a lot of extra skills to be good at. You need to be able to wrap your mind around social issues, cultures, alien vernacular, history and all those things that shapes our world. Then you need to find the proper graphic treatment for the message. That's where skills in photography, drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, doodling, lettering, (and also photoshop, illustrator, indesign, dreamweaver, ...) ect comes in.
That field is essentially whatever you want to make out of it. But you need a desire to communicate.
I majored in that field, and today I design mostly books and other miscellaneous printed materials. I enjoy that tremendously, with the usual frustrations of working for someone else of course.
My point being, don't have a preconceived idea of whatever a certain academic field is. Try it out and see what it's like from the inside. You don't have to stick with it if you don't like it. Things change and you always have the opportunity to change with it. Especially in college. And then in post-grad education. And then in life.
JeremyLangford
I'd really Leica Leica
The other day I was reading about cool sounding careers like optical engineering and color science. I figured that UTK wouldn't offer anything too closely related to either of these things but then I read that people can major in applied physics and then go to graduate school for optical engineering somewhere that offers it. I really don't know if I could handle majoring in physics but I might try taking an intro course. This just gives me more to think about and consider.
leica M2 fan
Veteran
Jeremy - read all these posts over again several times especially Lightshot's. He is actually telling you all you need to know. Listen well.
JeremyLangford
I'd really Leica Leica
I completely agree with Lightshot and I am not declaring a major any time soon. I'm just trying to make sure that I'm considering all the possibilities.
MadMan2k
Well-known
You should think about what kind of photography you would do for a living, and what you study might change according to that.
If you want to have your own studio or be a freelance photog in a particular area, you need to know a lot about business.
If you want to be a photojournalist and cover international news, you need to know a lot about the world and probably other languages.
If you want to sell 'fine art' prints, you need to know how to sell yourself as an artist, sell your work, and how to do a lot of drugs (just kidding.. sort of)
Personally, I'm not so picky about what I'd like to shoot for a living, but I don't want to be locked down to one city or one country, so that tells me I need to learn about foreign languages and cultures, business, etiquette, and not be attached to the 'american dream'.
If you want to have your own studio or be a freelance photog in a particular area, you need to know a lot about business.
If you want to be a photojournalist and cover international news, you need to know a lot about the world and probably other languages.
If you want to sell 'fine art' prints, you need to know how to sell yourself as an artist, sell your work, and how to do a lot of drugs (just kidding.. sort of)
Personally, I'm not so picky about what I'd like to shoot for a living, but I don't want to be locked down to one city or one country, so that tells me I need to learn about foreign languages and cultures, business, etiquette, and not be attached to the 'american dream'.
JeremyLangford
I'd really Leica Leica
I have finally decided on a major. I'm going to start at UTK next semester and my declared major will be "Journalism and Electronic Media". This major requires many video/cinematography classes which I know I will love as well as many Photojournalism classes which I will obviously also enjoy. I plan to minor in Cinema Studies and either minor or double major in Studio Art.
rbsinto
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I'd suggest a major in Quantum Chromodynamics, which will prepare you very well for the real world.
40oz
...
Marine biology. Specialize in tropical shallow-water species, especially those found near sandy shores. I hear southern France has unique aquatic species that have never been fully documented, with many unknown species and unclassified sub-species. The world would owe you a huge debt for taking it upon yourself to shed scholarly light on such a subject.
Andy Kibber
Well-known
This thread is kind of upping the ante on the standard "what lens should I take on vacation?"
