I know my chosen major, now what?

So, you know what it is you want to study in college, but now what do you do? The first thing to do is to find out which colleges in your area or online offer this area of study. Things to consider when choosing a college are:

Proximity– is it near enough to you for you to be able to attend classes? Are classes available online?

Costs– how much will a semester/year/degree cost at each university you’re looking at?

Accreditation– just because colleges are open and taking students, does not mean that their degrees will be accepted by certification/licensing boards or employers. Do your research to find out if your future career involves licensing/certification or if employers generally accept graduates of your chosen school. Sometimes colleges look awesome because they are online or make things easier in some way, and then you find out that degrees given from that university do not help people land jobs like they thought they would. There have been some schools which have shut down due to issues like that and people who have degrees from those schools can no longer use them because the university does not exist. Don’t let that happen to you! The theme of this article, like every other article I write on this subject is research, research, research!!

Housing– something that may be important for you, especially if you are moving to a new city/state for your education, is housing at your preferred college. Make sure that they can accommodate whatever housing situation meets your needs. If you need to live on campus, make sure they have campus housing available and find out the costs. It can often be costly to live on-campus and cheaper to find roommates to live with off-campus. Figure out what suits your particular housing needs. If you’re able to live at home and go to school then you’re all set in this area! You’ll be well off in saving money as well- as living costs can be extremely high, especially if you are in a bigger city.

Once you have figured out which college will best meet your needs, you need to figure out what requirements will be needed for acceptance into the college. Colleges want your high school transcripts or proof of GED and any transcripts you may have from other colleges (even if you only took one class somewhere else). They will also want any state or school testing scores you may have earned in high school. They may require you to take additional exams in certain areas of study like English, math, writing, etc. They usually have remedial classes for things like algebra, in case you’re like me and were terrible at math and aren’t quite ready for a college level course in that subject. Some schools have other specific requirements for entrance into their college, so be sure to do some research to find out what else they might want from you.

Final step- apply!!

Good luck to you all! Be sure to drop me a line and let me know how your applications are going. If you have any questions that I haven’t answered here, please feel free to leave a comment below!