Major & Career Exploration Coaching

If you have landed on this page, you may be considering if your major is right for you. Here in the Academic Success Center, we are here to help you navigate that! Making this decision will take intentional thinking and information-gathering, but it will be worth it!

Knowing yourself well is essential when making major and career decisions. Learning about yourself includes knowing your values, interests, and skills. Below is a list of resources we will use with you in our Major/Career Exploration meetings.

• : A web-based major and career exploration tool that is available to all prospective and current MSUM students.
• Majors to Match Your Personality: A tool that aligns MSUM's major options with the common personality types to help you see connections.
• What are your interests, values, and strengths? You can list what you know already, or can use your results from Focus2 assessments.
• Career Wishlist & Dealbreakers: What are your absolute must haves for a future career? (Good salary, location, etc.) What are your absolute no’s? (Getting a higher degree, competitive field, etc.)
• Values Sort: What matters to you? Go through a value sort activity with your major exploration coach! This will help you identify the skills you most want to use or the values that are most important to you in your future career.

In this step, you will focus on learning more about your potential options that you identified in step 2. You and your career coach will begin building your own personal career comparison spreadsheet to organize your options. Below are some resources you and your coach may work through to fill in your spreadsheet:

• Undergraduate Programs page: Find a list of all the majors, minors, emphases, and certificates that Moorhead offers at the undergraduate level.
  
  
• Program Outlines: Each major at Moorhead has its own breakdown of how many credits their program requires, along with a listing of the courses required. To find a major’s program outline…
  • Use the Undergraduate Programs page to find a program’s home page.
  • On the program’s home page, click on the ‘See all the [PROGRAM] degree options’ button to access the ‘Courses & Curriculum’ page.
  • On the ‘Courses & Curriculum’ page, under the ‘Undergraduate Degree Options’ section, click on the degree option you’d like to view its program outline.
    
    
• 4-Year Plan: Each major also lists a 4-year plan to recommend a semester-by-semester approach to progressing in this major’s degree requirements. To find a major’s 4-year plan…
  • Use the Undergraduate Programs page to find a program’s home page.
  • On the program’s home page, click on the ‘See all the [PROGRAM] degree options’ button to access the ‘Courses & Curriculum’ page.
  • On the ‘Courses & Curriculum’ page, find the program’s ‘4-Year Plan’ beneath the degree options’ program outlines.
    
    
• Careers & Outcomes: You can learn more about the specific career opportunities afforded to student’s who finish a given degree through the ‘Careers & Outcomes’ page. To find a major’s careers & outcomes…
  • Use the Undergraduate Programs page to find a program’s home page.
  • On the program’s home page, scroll down to the 'Careers & Outcomes' content and click on the 'Learn More' button.
    
    
• Major and Career Exploration Fair: Every fall, the Academic Success Center & Career Development Center host a fair in which all academic departments promote their degrees & the career opportunities for those degrees to Moorhead students. Early in the fall semesters, be on the lookout for information about that fall’s event.

Consider career options from the majors you are interested in. Recall your career wish list as you learn about different career options. This is imperative in ensuring that your major is right for you in the long term!

• : Learn typical career areas and types of employers that hire in these fields.
• : A resource developed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Handbook provides information on working conditions, required education, earnings, and job outlooks for occupations in the U.S.
• : A free database with hundreds of occupational definitions to help students, job seekers, businesses and workforce development professionals to understand today’s world of work in the U.S.

At this step of the process, you and your Major & Career Exploration coach will begin to compare your options using a comparison tool your coach has. This will help you narrow down your decisions.

Consider the following as you make choices:

• This can be a good time to talk with others you trust (friends, family, faculty, etc.). Academic Success Center staff can also help you weigh out your options.
• If you are a first- or second-year student: You do not need to know exactly what career you will do. At this stage, the goal is to choose a major that is related to industries of interest. There are many jobs that do not require a specific major and it is very common to change your career later in life.

When you’re ready, make your decision about your educational plan. If you need to change your major or declare a new major/minor, submit the major change form.

• Major change form: Scroll to the middle of the page to find the 'Major/Minor/Certificate Change Form' and log in with your StarID and password.

Decided on your major? Great! Your next step is to view that program’s College or Career Major Maps.

Note: This step may occur later for you if you’re at the beginning of your educational journey. Consider this step when you’re ready to consider your career.

Once you’re ready to discuss your career preparation, seek out the assistance of our Career Development Center to talk about career options.