How To Choose And Get A College Degree

Decide what your purpose in going to school is!
This might seem obvious, but to determine what sort of degree you want to get, it is extremely important to decide what your real purpose in going to school is – and this will probably go all the way back to the question of what your purpose in life is. Most modern ethicists argue that all people act more or less in their own interest all the time. This is called egoism, specifically psychological egoism – that even when we say that we are doing something for someone else, we are really doing it for what it does for us (like it might make me feel like a good person when I sell my possessions and give the money to the poor).
Anyways, this just to point out that a chain of questions about what you are going to school for will almost always come back to this one answer: “Because I want to be happy!” and you think that this will somehow make you happy.
Money
And so you need to think about what from school will really make you happy. You might decide that you really want to be able to have a family with a bunch of kids and supply them with everything that they could ever need; and you want to give your spouse amazing presents all the time, and take vacations all over the world. If this is the case, then you are going to have to find a job where the income is significant enough to support your lifestyle.
A specific career
Maybe earning potential isn't your goal, but there is a future outcome that is your goal: you want to be a writer or an artist or a musician. Well, studying your craft is what will bring you there, and sometimes that will probably mean getting a college degree, but sometimes it might mean dropping out and studying under a master somewhere. Take Chris Thile for example. He's the guy who plays mandolin with Nickel Creek. He went to college and started studying music, but then he realized that it would be a lot easier and faster for him to study music outside of college because there wouldn't be as many other things that he had to do. On the other hand, a lot of the greatest writer have come out of specialized schools for writing, like the creative writing workshop in Iowa.
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Love of learning
Or perhaps you just love to learn, and so going to school is something that is a very pleasurable experience for you. You would go to school forever if you could. I know for most people it sounds strange to hear about people who love school that much. These are usually the people who get PhDs so that they can continue studying and teaching about the things they love.
To get married
Another reason you might go to college would be to get married. At the school where I studied, we joked about how many girls came to get their M.R.S. degree... This might not sound like a good idea, but I will defend it briefly. Your parents want you to go to college, and they want you to get married so that you are never really able to move back in with them. Even if you don't really want to go to college, you can still make your parents very happy by going to school, meeting the right one, and leaving the nest forever.
Other reasons
Of course, there are a whole host of other reasons to go to school. You might go to school simply because you can – your financial aid is better than what you're making anyways; or because you need to stay on your parents' insurance. If you're an athlete, there are a bunch of other reasons to go to school – or at least one: competition. NCAA athletics are amazing. There is no feeling like pulling on your college jersey and getting hyped for battle. Even if you yourself are not an athlete, sports can be a big reason why people choose certain colleges. If you love to watch football, you should go big and find a DI school with a big stadium.
Synthesizing the information
Now that you have thought about all the different sorts of schools and
degrees that you can get, and the various sorts of things that you can do with a degree; and now that you have considered what factors are most important to you in choosing a degree type, it is time to put all this information to work and figure out what it all means for you. Go in reverse of the order that we just went in:
What are your priorities in getting a degree? What is it that you decided would make you happy?
Now think about the outcomes of specific degrees: Which of these professions or lifestyles would really fulfill your reasons for going to school? Which of them would fulfill the things that you said would make you happy?
Finally consider what degrees you will need to have in order to pursue the profession that you picked out, and what schools offer that degree or those degrees.
Some extra information
Getting career counseling might seem like a weak or unnecessary thing for you to do, but I should think that getting it right and choosing the right path in the first place...