Students Don’t Realize Their Public Speaking Skills Can Be Turned Into A Career

50–70%Many college students face the struggle of finding their role in the play called Life, and often they change their majors frequently before finding something that fancies them.

Studies have been conducted in the past to better understand what influences students to change their career paths. In an article written by Virginia Gordon in 1981, he prefaces his research with the fact that student indecision has been a focus in research studies for the past 50 years, and that indecision can stem from external and internal forces. Types of internal and external forces can include societal pressures, the multiplicity of interests, concern with self-identity, and situation-specific anxiety.

These indecisive factors (many more factors besides what I listed can apply) influence students of today’s generation! Not much has changed in regards to that. Hence the reason, nearly 50% of students are undecided when they enter college, and about 50–70% of those students switch majors more than once.

For instance, I set my sights on being a Forensic Investigator and found that it wasn’t my forte. Thankfully, WVU consists of 14 colleges and schools offering 353 majors! Communications seemed like the perfect fit because I’m an avid social butterfly in any crowd, so I switched to Public Relations and the rest is history!

A speaking career isn’t exactly what most students consider when switching majors – I bet PTSD memories from a particularly horrible presentation just popped into your head, am I right? But Scott Schwertly can give you the top 10 reasons why you should consider it! Schwertly suggests figuring out which category you identify with as a public speaker:

1. You Share Instruction (e.g., teacher)
2. You Share Life Experience (e.g., sharing stories)
3. You Share Expertise (e.g., TED talk experts)
4. You Share Motivation (e.g., life coach)

Now the top 10 reasons why people public speak:

1. You Have Something To Say
2. You’re Inspired By The Greats
3. You’re An Entrepreneur
4. You Want The Competitive Edge
5. You Want To Fix Something
6. You Want To Establish Credibility
7. You Want To Train
8. You Want To Stop Giving Free Advice
9. You Want To Burst Career Goals
10. You Know You Can Do It Better

Check out Schwertly’s blog – It goes more in-depth.

Point being, if you’re a great public speaker then go be a social butterfly and get paid for it! If you’ve considered turning your public speaking talents into a career, what would your dream job be?