I recommend seeking out your field of comparative advantage, and then optimizing that. In other words, what area are you more likely to be more effective at than others? A large part of that is considering what you are likely to enjoy doing.
If you want to be a lawyer, then consider how you can be the most effective lawyer you can be; but otherwise stay away. There are many other people who will be better lawyers than you.
If you want to go into finance or investment banking, then do so. But don’t do it just because it’s the highest income opportunity. It’s a tough field to break into, and you are unlikely to succeed without a lot of motivation. You may not succeed even with a lot of motivation, but if you are motivated at least you’ll have fun trying.
If you want to go into software development, you’re starting a little late; but you should spend your last 10 months in college getting as much of a head start as possible. In particular take your university’s intro to programming class and whatever its successor is. At Denison it looks like that means 111, 173, 174, 271, and 371. Cram in as many of those as you can. If you like them and do well, that’s a big clue that programming may be the most effective career choice for you. If not, cross it off your list.
Engineering you’re unlikely to be successful at without an undergraduate engineering degree.
But overall, you’re more likely to do more if you first decide what you want to do and then optimize to do that job most effectively, rather than picking a field because it seems likely to have a disproportionate impact.
I recommend seeking out your field of comparative advantage, and then optimizing that. In other words, what area are you more likely to be more effective at than others? A large part of that is considering what you are likely to enjoy doing.
If you want to be a lawyer, then consider how you can be the most effective lawyer you can be; but otherwise stay away. There are many other people who will be better lawyers than you.
If you want to go into finance or investment banking, then do so. But don’t do it just because it’s the highest income opportunity. It’s a tough field to break into, and you are unlikely to succeed without a lot of motivation. You may not succeed even with a lot of motivation, but if you are motivated at least you’ll have fun trying.
If you want to go into software development, you’re starting a little late; but you should spend your last 10 months in college getting as much of a head start as possible. In particular take your university’s intro to programming class and whatever its successor is. At Denison it looks like that means 111, 173, 174, 271, and 371. Cram in as many of those as you can. If you like them and do well, that’s a big clue that programming may be the most effective career choice for you. If not, cross it off your list.
Engineering you’re unlikely to be successful at without an undergraduate engineering degree.
But overall, you’re more likely to do more if you first decide what you want to do and then optimize to do that job most effectively, rather than picking a field because it seems likely to have a disproportionate impact.
I’ve taken 111. Unfortunately, unless I go back to Denison for another semester, I’ll be able to, at best, take one more computer science class.