This is an amended re-post of something I first wrote back in 2012.
We're in the lead-up to the start of the A semester & lately I've spent a lot of time lately advising students on their programs of study. (Consequently I'm a bit short of the time needed to give attention to serious posts on Serious Subjects.) One of the things we often talk about is which major(s) a student should study, where a 'major' is the subject that they will devote most time to over the second & third years of their degree.
This is an important decision for first-year students as it pretty much determines how they're going to spend much of their study time in the ensuing years, and so we take quite a bit of time to talk about the various options, and I often find myself asking 'where do you see yourself in in 5 years' time? It's serious stuff as you don't want to get it wrong, and sometimes I encounter someone who is just a bit confused by the various majors on offer & how they're structured – but happily I have yet to meet anyone with the views parodied by the good folks at xkcd 🙂 (Thanks to my friends at Number8Network for passing this on, and yes – someone has already had a go at singing it!)