What Major Should I Choose?
Unearth Your Natural Aptitudes and Leverage Them To Choose Your College Major
Take the Guesswork out of Choosing a Major
Choosing your college major might be even more important than picking the college you’ll attend, but the task is harder if you don’t think about your best career path first. Even if you have a dream career in mind, what you think you want to do isn’t always what aligns with your strengths and interests. When you’re asking yourself, “What major should I choose?” consider that the wrong choice can lead to:
- A challenging college experience because you’re not studying something that genuinely interests you
- Frustration both inside the classroom and in your social life
- Wasted time if you need to change majors and start again
- Missing out on the full college experience
- Delayed career satisfaction, only discovering fulfilling work after it feels too late
- A gradual loss of motivation to keep up with your studies and coursework
We Can Help College Students:
Understand your learning styles and internal motivators to make study plans that boost results.
Reveal your natural aptitudes so you can find a career that will give you a fulfilling life.
We Believe That You Have Unique Strengths
Career Upside
Executive & Career Coaching
Scientifically proven to boost employment successes and opportunities.
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20+ years of executive and career coaching
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Birkman Certified Professional
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Emory Executive Coaching Diploma
Experienced Leader with Fortune 500 Companies
Understand Your Learning Styles and Motivations
Knowing how you learn best can make studying and retaining information more manageable and effective. The Birkman Method helps uncover your natural learning preferences—whether you absorb information best through visual, auditory, or hands-on experiences. With this understanding, you can develop study techniques and habits tailored to your strengths, making learning more effective and enjoyable.
Equally important is identifying what truly motivates you, especially when asking, “What major should I choose?” Are you driven by personal achievement, helping others, or exploring new ideas? Birkman identifies your motivational drivers, ensuring your study goals align with what fuels your passion rather than feeling like a chore. Studying with purpose and alignment makes you more likely to stay engaged, succeed academically, and enjoy the process.
Choosing the Right Major: How the Birkman Method Can Help Align Your Passion with Your Career Path
Choosing a major should be about more than school spirit or sports loyalty—you should base it on what truly excites and engages you. The Birkman Method helps you explore careers that align with your interests, personality, and strengths, providing data-driven insights into what fields might be an excellent fit for you. Instead of picking a college first, what if you flipped the script and explored career paths first, selected a major supporting that career, and finally chose a school best suited for that major?
For example, if you love meteorology but your current college doesn’t offer it, Birkman can help you weigh the trade-offs of switching schools or choosing a major. By using interest data, personality insights, and strengths assessments, you can find a career path that truly fits, making your academic and professional journey more meaningful and fulfilling.
Align Your Natural Strengths with the Right Major and Career Path
Your natural aptitudes—the skills and abilities that come most easily and naturally to you—are key to answering the question, “What major should I choose?”. The Birkman Method assesses your skills and how your personality and interests align with different career fields. For example, you may be significant with numbers, but Birkman can reveal whether you’d thrive more in finance, engineering, business strategy, or data analytics.
Exploring career options before choosing a major reduces the likelihood of changing majors multiple times. You can better plan for a career that aligns with your strengths, interests, and work style. This process leads to greater job satisfaction, a stronger sense of purpose, and a lower risk of burnout.
Balance Schoolwork and Social Life for a True College Experience
College isn’t just about academics—it’s also about self-discovery, building relationships, and enjoying new experiences. However, everyone has different social energy levels, and what works for one person might not work for another. Birkman helps you understand your social needs—whether you thrive in large social groups, prefer deep one-on-one connections, or need solo time to recharge.
A career counselor can use Birkman insights to help you create a schedule that balances study time, personal time, and social activities in a way that feels right for you. Whether choosing a major, joining clubs, volunteering, or setting social boundaries, understanding your unique personality helps you make the most of college while maintaining balance and well-being.
Interpret Your Self-Assessment Data to Understand Your Personality
Taking personality assessments can help you understand how you interact with others, your stress responses, and how you thrive academically and socially. The Birkman Method goes beyond simple personality typing by revealing your needs, stress behaviors, and motivators, offering a deeper, more personalized approach to career and academic decision-making.
For example, if you’re highly independent and analytical, you may excel in research-heavy fields like STEM or finance. If you’re creative and people-oriented, marketing, education, or counseling careers may be more fulfilling. But what if you’re a mix? Birkman accounts for situational flexibility, recognizing that some people are great in groups but recharge alone or vice versa. Understanding these insights helps you make academic choices that feel authentic and energizing.
Find Meaning in School Life, Social Life, and Beyond
Your college years should be about more than just getting a degree—they should help you discover what gives your life meaning. The Birkman Method helps identify what fulfills you, whether helping others, achieving personal growth, or making an impact through your work. With these insights, a career counselor can guide you toward extracurricular activities, internships, and experiences that align with your values and passions.
For example, if you have high musical interest, Birkman may reveal whether you’d enjoy pursuing a career in music production, teaching, or even integrating music into therapy or marketing. Connecting your academic pursuits with a broader sense of purpose will prepare you for a fulfilling college experience and a meaningful career after graduation.
"As the parent of two young adults, we knew a few years ago that we needed additional help to equip them as they made plans for their futures. When the first one was heading off to college, we reached out to Todd to see how he might be able to help.
Our son was bright but lacked direction. He’d taken plenty of aptitude tests in school, but we wanted something that would provide a more comprehensive analysis, taking into account what motivates him and how that aligns with his interests. The thought of choosing a major and deciding what to do was very stressful. We had Todd work with him, and I’m happy to report that our son is now in his first year of law school. I’m convinced that the time Todd spent administering and explaining the Birkman to him was key in helping our son find a direction.
We were so happy with the results that we had Todd work with our daughter a few years later, and she’s set to graduate almost a full year early after Todd helped HER see that she could turn her interests and creativity into a career in graphic design.
I fully recommend Todd as a coach. He has the unique ability to see through the data to the person behind it and adapts his coaching style so that the recipient is open to hearing what he has to say. Our kids couldn’t be more different, but he was able to help them both a great deal."
Kristin Emerson, Mother of Two
