yup, you should continue make him believe that you’re majoring in business. you’re a communication guy you can handle that 😉

it’s totally wrong for him to force you into a major, even if he’s paying for it, it’s not like you’re his employee

Well, aren’t you a business minor? You probably have enough courses to be that, right?

A business major is a waste of time, did you know that? It’s easy and you don’t really learn much. My kid majored in mass communications and got a pretty good job as a result doing half-time marketing and half-time data base administrator.

In the business world, it is better to be able to communicate than just about anything else, because the job will train you. So your major is actually smarter and will impress potential employers far more than the business major. Call up IBM and some other top companies and see if I’m right. Then you will have ammunition to argue with for the day when he does find out the truth. Just tell him then that times have changed, and intensive preparation in writing and speaking are the better way these days to prepare for a job in the business field.

In the meantime, can you sidestep the answer by telling him that you are going to be prepared for a job in the business world, something like that? And get some internships–those are really really important.

While he shouldn’t choose your occupation for you I can see that he does have your best interests in mind professionally. A business degree is a much more marketable specialty than communications, and over time it tends to pay far better. Now, if you decide to go get an MBA later it doesn’t really matter, but I get the feeling that you don’t want to do this.

I’m not big on lying, expecially to those I care about. Lying breaches trust at the very basic levels. Regardless of when you tell him you will have to deal with the likelihood that he will not trust you, whether he says so or not, for a long time. If I was paying tens of thousands of dollars to put my daughter through college thinking that she was studying finance only to learn that she’d majored liberal arts… i’d likely not help her much again in the future.

Honesty is always the best approach.

O.K. Adding to this a little bit after reading Robertas comments below me. Robertas stated that a business degree is, “a waste of time”… Check businessweeks annual results of the most sought after degrees and those which pay the most. Communications isn’t on the list while business majors come in nearly equal with engineers in the top three. If this isn’t enough proof I challenge you to find one person with a commications degree leading a single company… anywhere. When execs are getting together to fill a position in management they aren’t saying, “Hey… lets make sure we screen all of the commuications guys first.” I personally have a business management degree and I thought it was pretty damn hard. Now I realize that I have significant leadership experience as a military officer over the last few years, but last week, after only being out of college for 4 years, I accepted a job as a project manager in Nashville making $95,000 a year plus bonus. That’s far above the median and mean incomes in the U.S. Majoring in communications doesn’t make you better able to communicate with people. Like most things in life, when it comes to that, you either have it or you don’t.

Well, eventually he’ll find out, and it might be worse, you can try to explain why you want a communications major, but otherwise, what’s so bad about taking our a loan? Most college students do it, it’s not going to hurt your credit if you don’t default on it, you need to stand up to him and be an adult – besides, if he sees how serious you are about this new major, and that you are going to do it on your own, he may continue to support you anyway, well, after he gets over the fact that you’ve lied so long.

Would it be worse telling your father know and explaining he can’t force you into something you don’t want to do-does he want you to be unhappy all your life or have a good life doing something you love and you’ll be able to pay him back or have him really disappointed in you for lying for 5 years. To be honest if you’ve lied for four years already and he doesn’t no you should carry on lying he’ll be just as disappointed but then at least you’d have the qualifications. And you can always pay him back but maybe he’ll be upset that you felt you couldn’t tell him and stuff I mean really there’s no easy way of finding the answer just do what feels the best thing to do.x

I can’t believe you’ve been lying to him for four years. You are lucky to have parents that are paying for your education.

That said, You need to have an honest heart to heart talk with him, because your relationship with him is going to take a huge hit…..

lie low