Choosing a College Major & Finding the Right Career Fit [MUSIC PLAYING] - Hey everyone. Welcome to Careers Out There. I'm Marc Luber, and this is my first video blog post. So I'm psyched to get started. Let's dive in. The intro video at the top of the Careers Out There home page, I talked about the idea of getting to know yourself better, so you could find that right fit for you. And since that really is the first step of a career search, that's what we're going to talk about in this first video. Without knowing what you're good at or what you like doing, it's really hard to figure out what the right fit is for you. So that really is a great place to start. And I think would be cool if you guys left some feedback on the site. As soon as this video is done, write what is it that helped you find that fit for you. And if you've been stuck, where are you stuck and why, because maybe as a group we can all address it and help each other get over that hurdle. In the intro video, you saw that I was an attorney recruiter for the better part of the past decade, but it wasn't always an attorney recruiter. I didn't even really know what one was until about six months before I dove into that career path. I'm going to share my story about how I first figured out what to do when I was in college and how it really worked for me. And I do this with the hopes that it helps you to either find your way or to share your story for the rest of us. I'm from Chicago. I went to the University of Michigan-- and a great school, great town, great time. Go Blue. I highly recommend the school. Sophomore year, we had to pick a major, and I had no idea what to do. I thought maybe I'll be a business major, go to the undergrad business program. But for that, you had to get an A or a a B in Econ 101. And I couldn't get through Econ 101, because I couldn't do the graphs and all the charts. It just didn't make sense to me. So that killed that idea. Then I had to go to the Counseling Department and sit down with them to kind of figure out what to do as far as the major. Just like you have a counselor in your high school, there's counselors at college too and they can help you to find your way. I wound up getting sent to some guy, who was a private practitioner, like a career consultant for young people in Ann Arbor. I think that's because I was such a lost cause, that they didn't know what to do. So they sent me to this guy, and it wound up being the best money I ever spent for this one hour session. We sat down. And he said, I'm going to cut through all the confusion for you. I said, please, work some magic, because I need it. He said, listen, what is it that has always made you tick? What is it that has always inspired you and gotten you psyched, since childhood until today? And at that time I was 19. Music-- music is what always gets me psyched. It's what I'm most passionate about. So he said, well, are you a musician? And I said, well, I play the guitar and piano, but it would be an insult to musicians to call me a musician. So that killed that idea. So he said, well, what about the music industry? You could work with musicians to help them build their careers. And I said, that is perfect. Yeah, sign me up. What do I major in for that? He said, well, you've got a few options. One is business school. I said actually I'm too dumb for Econ 101. OK, next plan. The other plan is law school, or just undergrad and then fighting your way in to the music industry. And I said, let's say I go to law school-- what should I major in? He said, well, you could do English, poli sci, history, psych, sociology, communications. And I said, I'm overwhelmed. I don't know what to do. Help me pick one of those. He said, well, look at high school. What did you enjoy doing in high school? What classes were you most psyched to go to? And I had two answers for that. One was my English classes. I'm someone who enjoyed sitting around analyzing the minutiae of Walden Pond. And the other was my cable TV class, where we literally produced a weekly show, where we'd go out and interview people. We'd film it. We'd edit it, and then we put it on cable. And he said, all right. English or communications-- that's going to be your choice. I basically flipped a coin in that session and chose English. And he said, that's it. You are set. You're going to be an English major. You might go to law school, and you are going to be in the music industry. And I walked out of that room so psyched and so energized and so focused that there was no looking back. I knew that I was on the start of a journey that was just going to be a blast. And it was. I got to manage two of my favorite bands and be totally immersed in those worlds. I got to work with some of my biggest heroes, the Rolling Stones and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. And I got to work in the marketing department of a major record label. I worked at a major music publishing company, and I got to be the director of sales at a music.com. I got to see what it was like to love your work so much that you don't even want to go to sleep. Literally, I would go to lunch with my coworkers. They would talk about how they can't wait to win the lottery, so that when they do, they can just retire to some island. And I would say, if I win, I'm not going to change a thing. I'm going to sock away the money and keep doing what I'm doing. That's how great a fit it was. Now, over time, the industry changed, and so did my interest and my goals. So I didn't stick with that path. But for that whole period of time, it was the right fit. And you know what, I wasn't making a lot of money. I wasn't making much money at all. But it didn't matter, because I was living my dream-- and all because some guy in Ann Arbor said to me you've got to just focus on what makes you tick and run with it. Let me know if this story was helpful to you. I hope it was. And please join our community for free. Sign up with your email address at the top of the home page, and keep coming back. We're going to have lots of stuff-- new videos all the time. Look forward to seeing you again soon. My name is Marc Luber. [MUSIC PLAYING]