As I talk with students about their plans for college, I am often times party to the decision process behind the selection of schools and majors. I am sometimes awestruck at the quality of decisions that are made. Just as often, however, I am dumbfounded at other decisions. I wanted to take a few minutes to write down some of the best and some of the most horrid reasons I have heard for selecting schools.

So here are a few thoughts and opinions that I have developed over the years about how to select a college.

Selecting a college

The process of selecting your future school has many factors to consider. This can be a difficult decision that requires a fairly large decision matrix. Some of the big decisions involved in state, out of state, private or public, tuition costs, housing costs, and proximity to family or friends. These are the obvious, and I am sure you will be considering these.

My TOP 5 GOOD DECISION points for selecting a college include:

Availability of credible majors - This is critical to your success in college. As I have written about elsewhere, a vast majority of students change their majors at least once during their college careers. Being at a school with a selection of credible majors should be a consideration for you in the event you are in that majority who make a change. A benefit to larger state universities are the large number of majors available and the ease of transferring to a new major should you decide.

Reasonable undergraduate infrastructure classes - Every major will have a core requirement for a wide range of different subjects. Smaller schools will only offer these core required classes once a year. College is not always a linear path to success. There will be times when you will need to drop a class, or other conflicts that may prevent you from being able to take a class when the school offers it. Larger schools and community colleges do a better job at offering alternate times for certain classes. Smaller schools don’t always have enough staff available. This should be something for you to consider carefully. Does it make sense for you to take many of the undergraduate core classes at a community college? It is cheaper, schedules are typically more flexible, and classes are much smaller. Just a thought.

Transfer credits - Real life can sometimes cause you to make changes. Finances, health, family situations, or your experiences at your chosen school may require you to change your plans. If you were to select school A, how easy would it be to transfer those credits to school B? You should check into this, or life could end up costing you an extra year taking classes you have already taken to satisfy graduation requirements.

Cross department cooperation - In the science and technology world, it is becoming rare to be involved only in a specific field. Electrical engineers, for example, are now expected to have a lot of computer science expertise. Mechanical engineers are expected to be able to handle electronics. Some schools have an excellent reputation for cross departmental projects and research. The University of Washington, for example, is very well known for collaboration between the School of Medicine and the School of Engineering. Can you find out about the school you are thinking about? This diversity will enable you to learn about subjects you might not otherwise be involved with.

Proximity to home - This is always a difficult decision for many students. On the one hand, staying in state and in fact staying close to/at home can be a huge benefit for costs and support. On the other hand, living on campus has it’s advantages of being immersed in the school experience. This is a decision you need to make for yourself, but keep in mind that having family support during school can make a huge difference. The costs are something you really need to consider. The difference between in and out of state tuition is a really big deal.

To counter these, here are the WORST 5 DECISION POINTS I have heard for selecting a college.

I don’t like the sports teams - Hands down, this is perhaps the worst decision point I have run into in helping students with college. A student from eastern Washington who wanted to do computer science decided against the University of Washington mostly on the fact that he was a committed Cougar fan. The UW is among the top 10 respected computer science departments in the world. This creates all sorts of opportunities for students. Bottom line: Unless you are planning to be a professional football/basketball player or depending on some sports scholarship that you ALREADY have been awarded, selecting a school based on something this trivial is a huge mistake. This should not even be part of the decision matrix. Select a college based on your personal expected outcome, what the school is going to do to help your future career. Basing a decision like this on who is playing football for 10 games a year is the height of immaturity. Get over it.

I will be close to my sweetheart - The transition from high school to college will involve a huge number of changes to your personal life, attitudes, and interests. It is fairly common for high school students to make college decisions based on relationships that have lasted through a year or two of high school. The number of high school relationships that survive through college turns out to be extremely low. I can’t find a definitive number, but my research on the subject is suggesting less than 10% of relationships make the transition, and less than 4% end up in marriage. Please try to be objective about this, even though it is an emotional subject. Select a college based on YOUR needs and interests. Where your high school sweetheart ends up shouldn’t be in your decision matrix. If it happens you end up the same place, that’s nice. Sorry folks, this is a bottom of the list data point.

Proximity to home - Yeah, OK, it made both lists! I have worked with a few students who have decided on Maine and Florida as their schools based on their proximity, or rather lack of proximity, to home. They wanted to get as far away from their families as possible. This was a HUGE factor in their chosen schools. If this sounds like your situation, please take a couple of steps back and realize that the difference between schooling in Montana vs Maine is not really an issue. Yes, you may want to be away from your family for valid reasons. However, after a relatively small circle of say an 8 hour drive, there is no distinct advantage to getting your self stuck up in the opposite corner of the country. There are a lot of choices. If you are going out of state, you are already going to be spending a substantial amount more on tuition. Shop around, find a school that interests you, and don’t worry so much about dodging your family.

Surfing / Garage Bands / Rock Climbing – Boy, I don’t want to get listed as a killjoy but some students pick schools based on cool things to do after class. Schools know this, and will market at you the ‘benefits’ of enrolling at their school with extra curricular activities. My favorite (aka most disappointing) is the engineering student who decided against MIT in favor of UCLA based on his desire to learn how to surf and the lure of studying at the beach. He has since graduated and never did try surfing and found that the beach was a difficult place to study. Others have been swayed by everything from rock bands to rock climbing, mountain biking and skiing. These are all a great deal of fun. This should also be at the bottom of your decision matrix if even on it.

Party Schools - Ok, here comes Mr Killjoy again! Nothing is more disappointing to me than seeing students make college selections based on the party scene at the school. It happens a lot, and is a really really poor decision. Some schools have a reputation as having a very active party / drug / drinking lifestyle. I have had a number of students drop out of Western Washington, for example, after spending two or three years not progressing due to social pressures to party it up every night. This is your decision. I can’t make it for you.

However, consider this: Your success in the future is built nearly entirely on the work of people who have come before you. As an engineer, you won’t need to invent the transistor. Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain did that for you. You are working from what they did. You don’t need to reinvent the C computer language, Kernighan and Ritchie did that for you. You are working from what they did.  A huge group of people partied their way through high school and college. It was the 70′s and the 80′s. We have been there already. It didn’t work, and was a poor decision. You are working from what we did. Do better!

One of the great joys in my life is watching the students I work with head off to college. I am always fascinated by the depth of their passion for various topics. Since I am so heavily involved in FIRST, many students are rather surprised to hear that I don’t actually care what they major in. I have a soft spot in my heart for those who choose science and technology, but that is only because I am a nerd and feel the need to spawn new nerds! Honestly, my only hope is that all students use their time in college to find their passions. (Yes, you may have more than one!)

You have to love what you do to be good at it. The corallary is that if you don’t enjoy your subject of study, you are unlikely to do well at it. Keep this in mind for what I have to say next.

The most common ‘trouble’ that students find themselves in during the first year or two is the realization that they don’t actually like the subject they are working towards. I have some observations for you.

0) Coming out of high school, you are making a huge decision based on incomplete information. It is totally unreasonable to expect this answer to be correct. How should you know what you want to do for the rest of your life? I know senior citizens who still haven’t figured it out after 65 years.

1) You are not alone! An actual number appears to be difficult to determine, but many studies I have found cite that at least 75% of students will change their major at least once. Personal experience: I changed mine from theater to physics to math to computer science! What should you take from this? If you have a desire to change majors, do it! You are not a failure, moron, a flake, letting anyone down, or being indecisive.  You are evaluating a previous decision based on new information. To the contrary, it would be stupid to continue if you are not liking it or not doing well enough to succeed.

2) If your parents didn’t go to college, then changing majors may be difficult for them to digest. They often times have unrealistic expectations on how college actually works.  You will need to educate them that this is common. (Search “Percentage of students who change majors” in your favorite browser). If your parents did go to college, it is likely they will be more understanding. Since they might be footing the bill, you will have to work this out with them.

3) Remember your high school graduation party? All of those “So, what are you going to study in college” questions. It is unfortunate that everyone asks. Most of us come up with an answer and stick to it without knowing if it is a good answer or not. This leaves us in the situation of having publicly stated our plan and set expectations without knowing for sure. Ignore it. Your plan, your life, you can change it.

4) Try to be realistic. Not all majors are going to help you be successful. There are a number of easy majors which don’t provide you with marketable skills when you are done. Beware. Engineers make the most out of college because engineering is a hard program to go through. If you are changing your major, you need to evaluate what is going to work best for you.

I like to hear students taking a range of classes for the first two years. You will eventually get a major that suits you. Be sure to take the opportunity to learn how to communicate while you are there. A writing class and a public speaking class are critical. If you ever want to be a leader, you will need these skills to be effective.

Go forth, do what you love and love what you do. The world already has plenty of dispassionate people who don’t enjoy their careers. Do better than that.

Change. It is constant, reliable, and repeatable. Rather ironic isn’t it? Change is the most reliably consistent thing in our modern society.

Change has a couple of major flavors.

There is incremental change. Every few months, some basic change happens in our lives. Usually it is for the better. Upgrades, improvements, new ways of combining existing technologies. It makes our lives exciting and interesting.

The other flavor of change is paradigm shift. These are the big ones. Change to the fundamental way that our world works. Most of these are in the way we communicate, interact, work, and socialize. These are big changes that affect huge numbers of people.

Incremental change is important. It is where most people spend the majority of their efforts. This is where most established corporations live. They are the instruments of incremental change. Nothing wrong with incremental change, it has a long established history generating huge value to society.

In recent history, paradigm shift happens about every 10 years. Paradigm shift is almost always the providence of the young, the energetic, the inexperienced, the new thinkers unencumbered by the warrants of incremental change. Visionaries without portfolio.

Start working backwards in our modern lives. The paradigm shifts are there. Some more mature than
others.

Backup 5 years: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, MySpace. These shifted the basic nature of how we communicate. Using new technologies to their maximum limits, these companies created new ways for us to accomplish the old tasks of humanity.

Back another 10 years. Yahoo, Google, Amazon, EBay. Companies who took hold of new technologies to create a paradigm shift of incredible magnitude.

Back another 10 years: Dell Computer, Gateway Computer. Completely changed the way that people access technology at the retail level. Brought the technology to the masses at a scale that shocked everyone.

Back another 10: Microsoft, Apple. Had a vision that everyone should have access to technology in their home. Seems so obvious now. At the time, it was considered a silly idea by a bunch of nerdy high school kids.

I have picked just a handful of companies here. Some are now among the largest corporations in the world, doing great work in incremental change. Some are still small and their paradigm shifts are still in progress.

So, what is my point? If you are as keen as I am about keeping up with change then you need to look no further than recent history.

Every one of these paradigm shifting companies was started by a high school or college student, many of them in dorm rooms, with an idea, passion, and a set of skills to make it happen. If you could build a time machine, and roll back the years to invest in a company like Microsoft, Apple, Dell, it would be a complete no brainer. You would also be handing your investment to a teenager with a passionate dream.

Since we don’t have a time machine (yet!), the best we can do is try to find the next big paradigm shift. I have no idea what the next big thing is going to be. I do, however, know where it will come from. I am quite confident that the next big thing will involve a bright, energetic FIRST student with a passion and a supportive environment that will allow them to make their vision come to fruition.

We are at about the half way point of the current paradigm cycle. Get involved, this is your chance to invest in our future, establish a relationship with the stewards of that future, and improve the way our world works.