Taking College Classes to Explore Your Interests and Career Possibilities

If you are starting out in college right now, taking classes that interest you is a great way to explore and determine if a corresponding major and/or career is a good match for you and worth considering further. At the minimum, you can find out if you really are interested in the subject matter.

A simple example of this is taking a college class like “Introduction to Art” or “Art Appreciation.” Because an art class at the college level will delve deeply into the subject matter and require in-depth work, you will get a much better idea of whether you really, really like the subject of art.

Then you can think about whether you want to study art some more by taking additional classes. At the same time, you can think about whether you are interested in pursuing some kind of an arts-related career, like becoming a professional artist, high school or college art teacher, or a museum curator to name a few possible arts-related career paths.

There is a flip side to taking a class based solely on your interest in the subject. Few students can get away with just taking whatever classes they want without having some kind of an academic plan, especially if your goal is to pursue a degree while on a budget. Be sure to meet with an academic counselor or adviser to review whether a class that you’re interested in taking can also help satisfy any requirements based on your educational goal. This will help in being efficient with your class selections and educational planning.

Also, when evaluating your interest for a particular subject, avoid the trap of liking or disliking a class based solely on the instructor’s personality and/or teaching style. A number of students have told me that they were turned off by a particular subject because their “teacher was just horrible.” On the other hand, I’ve also heard from students who didn’t care for a particular subject yet still very much liked the class because the teacher “made it enjoyable.” Judge your interest in a particular class or subject by your interest level of the actual course content and not by the instructor’s personal qualities or their teaching style.

Taking more of an objective approach in determining whether you are really interested in a particular subject area will allow you to ultimately make more effective career decisions.