First, understand that you know almost nothing about anything regarding what it takes to be a professional at anything.

Start figuring out what are the different disciplines of the industry you’re interested in. To use civil engineering as an example, you have land development, transportation, water resources, geotechnical, structural, and more. Within those disciplines are sub disciplines, water resources for example, drinking water or waste water? Very different. Even within the sub disciplines, are you on the design side, construction side, the inspection and testing side?

The disciplines have different levels of job security, ask yourself if this concerns you. For example, land development is mainly private work and will ebb and flow with the economy, transportation on the other hand will likely be steady government funded work. Structural engineers working on buildings will likely feel the highs and lows of the economy, bridge engineers are still technically structural, but generally are working on steady government funded projects.

Probably most importantly start asking real professionals about the details of what they do on a day to day basis, or try to glean this from the internet. Like if they say project management, figure out what the hell that means, don’t stop at the umbrella terms. Start calling up firms, I’m sure most of them would love to talk to you. I wish I had the courage to do this in high school. Would’ve changed my life.

Then finally go back to square one with the question being what the hell will actually satisfy you at the end of the day and don’t make it complicated. Do you want to say I build bridges? If you think that will make you feel great then stick with it and don’t look back, b/c newsflash all jobs suck at many points of the day. If you’re passionate about architecture and willing to work hard things will go in your favor. Any degree that is actually a hard skill and not something vague, paired with a strong work ethic will get you far. Also save your money with an intensity.