Just chiming in here...
I have:
bachelor degree in mechanical engineering (from a top ranked non-ivy league school)
masters degree in engineering management from the same school (think of it as a technical MBA. applicable to systems engineers / bigproblem solving)
graduate certificate in financial engineering also from same school (programming & insane math for application in finance)
Basically my strategy was as follows:
My older bro was an engineer and so is my dad....so I entered college as an undecided engineering major. I then figured out that I love cars...so I went with a mechanical engineering major with a concentration in automotive engineering.
THENNNNNNNN once I finished my undergrad my dad was all like "YOU NEED TO GO TO GRAD SCHOOL RIGHT MEOW" so I did...but I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I knew I didn't want to be a design engineer bc all my friends did it and they hated it. So at this point I figured...why not do something that will make me more appealing for a management role? So I found that my undergrad school had an engineering management graduate degree that I would get a shweet scholarship for.
At the same time I was applying, a good friend of mine got me interested in the finance industry. So I figured, why take bullshit electives during my grad career and instead I'll take a preset selection of courses to get a "graduate certificate" in financial engineering. I'm not sure if it holds any weight to someone like Goldman Sachs, but I at least can use what I learned to manage my own personal portfolio.
Additionally, I was working full time during my grad school years...in a different state. That was rough lol.
SO basically what I have done w/ college is try to make myself flexible, appealing, and diversified. I went from being a HVAC Control System engineer to a Business analyst during my grad school...and I'm now getting calls from financial firms because they love engineers (we're awesome problem solvers
)
THAT IS ALLLLLLLLLLL
hope it helps any of you confused children out there. I do agree that young kids are screwed if they choose the wrong major, but I also contend that half the people that go to college really don't need to / shouldn't. Yeah you'll have a blast, but is it worth the $100k in debt that you'll spend the rest of your life paying off?
Cheers