<p>@Zalrons - Maybe late but a piece of advice.</p>
<p>Don’t take the LSAT in February, my cousin studied for a year taking LSAT courses and studying the books, and did horribly on the February LSAT, he said there’s something different about it, like they throw in weird questions and throw people off, and additionally that is the only LSAT out of the 4 periods per year that they don’t publish.</p>
<p>And maybe I seem a little too optimistic, but that’s just me. And I couldn’t imagine doing anything else except practicing law. It’s my dream, my aspiration, my everything and when I start at a UC in the Fall I’m going to give it my all to get the best GPA I can get and study my ass off for the LSAT it’s definitely not something that’ll be easy but my ambition and perseverance will push me through.</p>
<p>Oh yeah I’m sure you’ll be fine! And it’s difficult deciding when to take the first LSAT. I know the curves vary every single time depending on how everyone scores so I’m trying to figure out which month would maximize my score. </p>
<p>@Cayton: Here’s a hint for you. Diogenes. When freed from captivity, someone asked him what was was. Diogenes replied, “A leader of men!”. As luck would have it, he was assigned to tutor the son of Alexander the Great. </p>
<p>Returning from a great battle, Alexander found Diogenes tanning himself. Asked Diogenes if there was anything he could do. “Yeah, get out of my sunlight!,” said Diogenes. Afterward, Alexander the Great said if he weren’t Alexander the Great, he’d like to be Diogenes.</p>
<p>Business skills. Aristotlean balance. Assets - Liabilities = Net Worth (a variation of the accounting key ‘Assets = Liabilities + Owners Equity’) Add to your assets by becoming a whiz at Word, Excel, and Outlook. Tutorials are easy to find. Start with the Microsoft site and/or YouTube. Be on time. Make connections of supervisors/co-workers who will tell someone that you are reliable and show up on time ready for work. Be sure you have a white shirt, black pants, and rubber soled black shoes. With that basic attire, you can work tables or a computer.</p>
<p>Limit your liabilities and build your brand. The best way to do that is to avoid behavior that is perceived to be self-indulgent and impulsive. That’s “pleasure”. Employers want “happiness”, found at the Golden Mean of excessive pleasure or pain.</p>
<p>Internships are all right. A job might even be better. </p>
<p>I’m telling you, if you have those software skills, the black-and-whites, show up on time every day, have no excuses, can think, have a list of 3-5 people that can validate your assetness, and drive a stickshift, you will never be unemployed.</p>
<p>Browse the Georgetown study on College Majors, Unemployment and Earnings. From the 2013 report, overall unemployment rates for recent college graduates is 7.9%</p>
<p>Unemployment rates are relatively low for recent graduates in education (5.0%), engineering (7.0%), health and the sciences (4.8%) because they are tied to stable or growing industry sectors and occupations.</p>
<p>Graduates in psychology and social work also have relatively low rates (8.8%) because almost half of them work in healthcare or education sectors.</p>
<p>Unemployment rates for recent graduates in information systems, concentrated in clerical functions, is high (14.7%) compared with mathematics (5.9%) and computer science (8.7%).</p>
<p>I find it interesting that graduates in education have one the low rates of unemployment, after health and the sciences. I wouldn’t have expected that.</p>
<p>@Brownparent, thanks for the great information! The results are very surprising. I’m feeling surprisingly optimistic after all the comments in this thread, so thanks to everyone for their stories & contribution! </p>
<p>I think one of the most important things prospective students can do is to “begin with the end in mind.” Visiting career centers, looking at placement records for its graduates, etc. are critical considerations when deciding where to apply to college. Now, since OP is already in a university, OP should go park in career center on a regular basis and get help preparing for a job/career. Internships, etc., all need to be a part of the work with the career people. If you know how to market your skills, the major is less relevant. The key is getting help early and often so you know your options, be they graduate school or the job market. Just DO NOT wait. Begin this search in the freshman year and become the career center’s best friend. </p>
<p>@TIk1127 exactly how I feel my plan is to be a Community college Professor, to be able to teach students like us, but if that doesn’t work out I agree with you. Sometimes jobs just want to see you have a degree. There are so many people out there with degrees in one thing and working in another. I have a question will you consider teaching high school? </p>
<p>I feel like i don’t want to but I am sacred it will be hard getting a job at community college right away. </p>
<p>It’ll be very difficult to ge ta full-time job at a community college. You will almost certainly be an adjunct professor for a while, which doesn’t pay very well. </p>
<p>There’s nothing wrong with getting a master’s degree/Ph. D. in the humanities, but doing so to become a professor is pretty risky. There are too many job applicants for professorships in the humanities. In fact, there are too many job applicants for professorships in every academic discipline, unfortunately.</p>
<p>An advanced degree in the humanities will probably better serve you elsewhere, such as in the business world(business employers actually like hiring humanities graduates) or as a middle or high school teacher.</p>
<p>Yeah, I was talking to one of my professors about teaching at a college/university and it’s tough. Schools can get away with hiring so many adjucts because the pool of eligible candidates is so large. </p>
<p>I assume you’re leaning towards working in the business world? Out of curiosity, where did you hear that business employers like hiring humanities graduates? </p>
<p>Well, I don’t really know yet, but I will explore my options soon, and I can see myself working in the business world in some niche position. Hopefully that will work out, lol.</p>
<p>This details the many reasons humanities graduates are attractive to employers in the business world and in other sectors. They typically have the best writing and analytical skills as well as communication skills among all majors. They also have lower unemployment rates than you’d expect because of these skills that they have and the degree to which they’ve developed them.</p>
<p>An interesting observation mentioned in the article that I linked to is that it’s getting more difficult to get a good-paying STEM job with a STEM degree straight out of college. I mention this because it’s relevant to this thread, one that asks a question that many who major in STEM ask their humanities counterparts. For example, many people with biology and chemistry degrees seem to be struggling to get good jobs in their fields. At least, that’s what I’ve observed in my amateur research online. I don’t want to be misconstrued as saying that majoring in STEM is a bad idea, as it is not, but the conventional wisdom that getting a degree in those fields is a guarantee for getting a good-paying job isn’t true anymore. In fact, some people have predicted that there’ll be too many people majoring in STEM pretty soon and it will be harder than ever to get a good job in those fields. </p>
<p>This has already begun to affect the fields of biology and chemistry, as I said before. In fact, according to Payscale.com, bio degree holders earn less in mid-career salaries than philosophy majors. PHILOSOPHY MAJORS! I suggest that you and everyone else look up this phenomenon. Quite a few articles have been written about it. Too be fair, though, there might not actually be a glut of STEM majors in the future. There may be, though.</p>
<p>I didn’t get a chance to read all the responses, so I’m just responding to the OP’s question. My wife earned a Humanities degree at a CSU. She now brings home just over 100K. But that’s after 15 years of working up to that salary, and to be honest, it’s barely enough to survive on when you have a daughter and a mortgage. One of many reasons I’m back in school myself. Like someone mentioned to me at a cafe the other day, the undergrad is the new High School diploma. It just doesn’t go as far as it used to, and to be honest, STEM doesn’t go that much further than a Humanities degree, so just choose the major you love. </p>
<p>Humanities degrees are just fine, but your eye should be on graduate school. That should be what everyone takes away from this thread, your graduate school plans after your UG, if you want to truly be successful with a Humanities degree. I’m not saying you can’t be successful with a UG Humanities degree, but the writing is on the wall for all degrees, it’s a saturated job market in a lackluster economy. It is what it is, and universities will have you believe your UG will take you to the moon. That’s just not reality. </p>
<p>Get your graduate degree, in my opinion it’s the ONLY way to have a real shot at a future in this economy. And this is why I get sad when I hear about kids pissing away their GPA in their UG because they don’t foresee graduate school in their future. I see countless undergrads after two years trying to find a job deciding to return to school, but BOOM, they hit a brick wall when that 2.3 comes back to haunt them as they try to get into (and pay for) their graduate work. </p>
<p>I too am going to law school after UCLA, and I wanted to quickly address your $100K debt concern. It’s 100% about your GPA and LSAT, that’s it. Not your background, prestige of school, major or anything else. So just focus on your UG GPA and study your butt off (for months) to nail the LSAT. Then, that $100K debt turns into a full ride somewhere. Law Schools don’t care about what you majored in, they really don’t. I’ve spoken with several adcoms over the years. It’s GPA/LSAT, that’s it. A friend of mine, who got his degree from Phoenix online university, got a 3.9 and a 171 LSAT. He’s now attending a T14, with an almost full-ride scholarship. His goal was to pick the easiest major possible to get a 4.0, and over those few years he studied the LSAT at least 2X/week while finishing his UG online. He said when all is said and done he’ll be about $20K in debt, which includes his UG and a law degree from a prestigious law school. Not too shabby. Even in this market, he’s got a real shot at financial success.</p>