Finding Your Fit
A Brandeis education prepares you for many potential career paths. While a major is focused on a specific academic discipline or field through your coursework, you will build broad skills that are transferable to many different careers. The Hiatt Career Center works to support you in exploring majors and how they connect with future opportunities.
With that, we emphasize the importance of discovering who you are by understanding your interests, values, personality and skills that can help lead to finding a major(s) that is the best fit for you. Choosing a major doesn't necessarily mean you are choosing your future job, but if you have a career in mind, certain majors and studies can help support that path. Here's how you can get started in exploring, identifying and choosing a major at Brandeis and how to connect it to a career.
Getting Started
Identify your values, skills, interests and motivations
Reflect on the classes or activities you enjoy, and then look for majors and occupations where you can continue to build upon those interests. If you already have a career that interests you, you might work backwards to consider majors that will help support your future plans. Some resources to help advance your thinking include:
- What Can I Do With This Major?: Review various major categories, employers and the types of majors that they typically pursue and develop strategies for being a marketable candidate as it relates to your major and experience.
- TypeFocus: An online tool to help you explore your personality preferences, discover your values, skills and interests to help you connect them to a range of fields that may be a good fit for you. Meet with a Hiatt counselor to review what you learn.
- Appointments with Hiatt: Meet with us to explore majors and identify future options.
- Get involved: Take part in student clubs and organizations, join a variety of classes and volunteer to explore and hone your interests.
Explore Majors at Brandeis
Knowing what your options are and what Brandeis has to offer in terms of areas of focus and study are helpful to both imagine yourself in the major and decide what is a good fit for you. Some Brandeis research you can conduct on your own includes:
- Reviewing the list of Brandeis majors and minors and the latest course offerings by department and major/minor requirements in the University Bulletin.
- Attending "Meet the Major" events to learn about different majors from students and faculty.
- Finding out how to declare your major and consider designing your own Independent Interdisciplinary Major (IIM).
Explore Careers
Identify potential careers and conduct industry research
Whether you are still exploring or have an idea of what you are interested in, continue to do research to learn even more. This can serve as most helpful in narrowing down your choices as well as developing plans. Explore careers more in-depth with these resources:- Vault: Provides in-depth intelligence on what it's really like to work in an industry, company or profession — and how to position yourself to land that job. Search current jobs and internships, research a company, school or industry, get the inside scoop on what it’s really like and find the career advice you need to launch your career.
- Occupational Outlook Handbook: Provides information on responsibilities, education, pay and outlook for hundreds of occupations
- O*NET: Offers detailed descriptions, responsibilities, required skills, preferred interests, general work styles and environments for a variety of professions.
- Job Simulations: Leading companies, including Accenture, Citi, General Electric, JPMorgan Chase, Lululemon and many more, allow you a bite-sized opportunity to try out different types of jobs.
- Internships: A great way to try out potential careers for yourself. Volunteering, part-time jobs and informational interviews are also helpful in exploration.
- Identity at Work: Shows how intersecting identities might impact work and professional development which is why we have gathered information to better support students and alumni of all backgrounds, affiliations, identities and preferences to navigate the workplace.
Learn + Make Connections
Browse student and alumni major and career paths
One of the best ways to find out more about potential majors and careers is to see what other students and alumni like you have done. Use these resources to find what Brandeisians intern, live, work and study at Brandeis and beyond.- Beyond Brandeis: Find where Brandeisians go! You can search the first destinations of Brandeis graduates within six months of graduation to get a sense of entry-level opportunities and how students apply their degrees.
- LinkedIn: Review profiles of Brandeis alumni and students to see sample career paths that match your interests.
- Handshake Student Profiles: Browse students who have shared their profiles right in Handshake, search by majors, employers and student clubs.
Inquire + Ask
Take a proactive approach and reach out to your network (including friends, family and professors) to ask about majors, careers and industries. You can also lead the charge by asking direct questions using these features in Handshake:
- Student Q&A: In Q&A (Question & Answer), students can ask career-related questions, and get answers from other students or alumni from any school.
- Peer Messaging: Peer Messaging gives students and alumni the ability to make their Handshake profiles visible to other students and alumni across Handshake schools and to message them.