[This post was created in conjunction with Augsburg Exploration Day on October 8th, 2025. You can view the slides from this presentation here.]
The Truth About Majors and Careers
You might think that your major dictates what career you can do. But in actuality, only 30% of graduates end up working in a field directly related to their major after college. Why is this?
- Skills transferability: many jobs value skills that aren’t exclusive to specific majors like communication, problem solving, and analytical thinking.
- Job market dynamics: Changes in the economy and in the labor market can mean certain fields may not have as many openings, leading to graduates to look elsewhere.
- Evolving interests: Graduates discover new interests after college or want to explore different industries that don’t directly align with their original field of study.
- Employer desires: Many employers hire for roles that don’t require specific majors, focusing instead on overall abilities, work experience, and cultural fit.
So if major doesn’t equal career, how do you figure out what field you should go to?
Career Design, Strengths & Values, and THRIVE
In the Strommen Center, we approach career decision making through career design: a process around being curious, trying things, getting unstuck, and seeing support. This process begins with and circles back to the concept of meaningful work, the idea that four different areas combine to make meaning: what you’re energized by, what you’re skilled at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.
In this post, we’ll start by focusing on two sections: what you’re energized by and what you’re skilled at. Starting with these sections can give you a good foundation to help connect your interests to life goals and help with empowerment and career success.
This model connects with the THRIVE model for vocation, another way to approach not just making meaning in your work, but making meaning in your life. Reflecting on these areas can help you gain clarity in purpose, in community connection, and in knowing yourself.
What if you already know yourself and there is no process of self-discovery, but rather naming and connecting? What if self-knowledge and self-actualization are not individual processes but part of our communities? What if you had the agency to show up exactly how you would like to show up in the world? We start here in our deep reflection to help us identify skills, strengths, and values.
Skills, Strengths, and Values
Skills, strengths, and values are all used in understanding how we thrive and how we work. Here are some of the key qualities of these three areas:
| SKILLS | STRENGTHS | VALUES |
| Abilities developed through practice | Innate qualities, “natural talents” | Core beliefs, guide decision-making and give sense of purpose |
| Identified through reflecting on experiences | Identified through reflecting on experiences | Identified through reflecting on the self |
| Ex: communication, coding, social media, and content curation | Ex: Honest, problem solver, tolerant, goal-oriented | Ex: Humility, family, flexibility, generosity, commitment |
Consider: What areas overlap? What strengths are also values? Are there any connections between all three areas?
If you’re struggling to identify some of these areas (particularly “natural talents”), consider things you have learned to do out of necessity in your life and skills/strengths/values you have that perhaps others don’t have or value as much as you do. Keep in mind we’re focusing on you, not what you think employers or jobs are specifically looking for.
To help with identifying your skills, strengths, and values, try identifying good experiences. These are: something you feel you did well, something you enjoyed doing, and/or something you are proud of. These can come from any time and any part of your life.
Once you’ve identified these areas, reflect on how your strengths, skills, and values connect to your experiences and how your experiences feed into your strengths.
Pathways Brainstorming
After identifying and reflecting on the above, let’s do some big picture brainstorming. What possible areas of work might your skills, values, and strengths connect to? It’s okay to be broad right now! We’re looking for areas like healthcare, business, public service – and if you’re not sure, that’s okay too!
A great place to start exploring possibilities is the Labor Market Tool. This resource allows you to search by keyword or job role and includes information on common tasks, skills, competencies, and related roles. Record options you’re interested in on our career exploration tracker or on a visual mind map.
Do you need to do more research? Consider using one of the below sites to find more information or additional career areas not included on the Labor Market Tool:
- What Can I Do With This Major: Helpful in drawing connections between your major and adjacent fields
- Explore Health Careers: Includes information on a variety of health career paths beyond doctors, nurses, and physicians assistants (but includes information on those areas too!)
- Careers in Art: An exploration tool for a wide variety of opportunities in the arts, including theater, design, digital arts, and more!
- Career Dreamer: Powered by Gemini, this interactive tool helps you connect your current experiences with skills and brainstorm possible pathways connected to them. If you want a more guided experience, this is the one to start with.
- O*NET: An in-depth database for career fields hosted by the Department of Labor
Next Steps
Once you’ve found a few career areas you might be interested in, consider what next steps are. Do you need to do more research on these areas? Do you want to do an informational interview or job shadow someone doing this work? Do you need help finding connections or want to talk to a faculty member who has knowledge of this field? Do you need to do more reflection on your skills, values, strengths, and/or interests?
Are you ready to set some goals to move forward with your exploration? Consider using our NICE goals resource to help brainstorm some possibilities.
