So i’m kindof going through a crisis where i’m rethinking my major. I applied (and am accepted into one) to a bunch of Occupational Therapy master degree programs at various colleges, but now I’m sort of rethinking it.
I have a passion for literature and psychology. And yesterday I had an alumni interview for Yale and he majored in History and Music (double major) and found a job in Boston doing research. And he only graduated this past May. I was always under the impression that Bachelor’s degree in History, English, or Psychology are generally worthless, and that you need a PhD to really get anywhere with those fields?
I understand that my interviewer likely has an advantage on his resume, having graduated from a prestigious institution, but still. Am I making a mistake tying myself down to such a vocational major?
I applied to Tufts and Yale, if I they accept me (which I know is a slim chance for everyone) and I graduate , would I be ok in the job market with a liberal arts degree?
“Many are called but few are chosen”- ie many have an interest/passion but there are simply not as many jobs available. Often people major in their passion but must accept the reality of needing to work at something else to pay the bills. btw- even STEM fields grads do not always find grads, despite elite school credentials and advanced degrees. Be prepared to not get your dream job. Do you like OT? If so, reconsider your future and add job skills in it. You will not be forced to work in OT the rest of your life. Everyone needs to add value to be paid for what they do- are your chances of continuing in your interest instead of a professional field (by your standards anything practical or science is vocational- I resent that) realistic? Will you be a contributing member of society or do you think we should support you to play at what interests you?
yes they are worthless and you should definitely become an unhappy Occupational Therapist because everyone knows that you can’t get a job unless you start a Master’s degree once you graduate from HS.
Sorry for the sarcasm, but this horse has been flagged for years on CC. You will get a bunch of posters telling you that liberal arts grads are for losers (they conveniently ignore the fact that math and chemistry and physics are liberal arts subjects- so they love STEM but hate the sciences) and then you will get a bunch of posters (I am one of them) telling you that by the time you are 30 you will know dozens of people who hate their lives as accountants and nurses and yes, occupational therapists, but that their parents forced them into a vocational major so they’d get a good job right out of college.
Barrons and Canuckguy will tell you that majoring in Business is the way to go, and then a bunch of us (Shawbridge et al) will tell you that when we hire for our own companies, we NEVER hire undergrad business majors.
Do something that demonstrates a modicum of critical thinking (essential for the liberal arts)- go onto the career websites of Tufts and Yale and look at the employers who recruit there and what kinds of jobs they are hiring for.
I’m not sure who told you that a BA in English, History or psychology is useless- a very tiny fraction of people who major in those disciplines go on to get PhD’s (tiny, although from reading CC it seems like every HS kid knows they want a doctorate but the numbers in the real world don’t bear that out).
Do you know any occupational therapists- and is there anything about the field that excites and challenges you?
iMO, studying the liberal arts is what your undergrad is for.
In our extended family, most nieces & nephews have liberal arts degrees.
Most are happily employed, with & without grad school.
A good liberal arts education will expose you to many new ideas, teach you to think critically, turn you into an excellent writer (if you aren’t one already), and make you a proficient collaborator and communicator. These are all skills that are highly sought after by many employers. The major field of study is less of a concern. As a graduate with a degree in the liberal arts, you should be able to adapt readily to many new situations, acquire skills easily with limited supervision and problem solve on your own. You will be adaptable - a music major with a liberal arts education can be a highly compensated bond analyst and trader on Wall Street. A liberal arts theater degree can serve as the foundation for a successful career in the foreign service. I could go on and on with the examples, but I think you get the idea.
Granted this was many years ago, but a friend took the pre-reqs for OT at a small LAC, degree in communications, went for OT masters at directional public. Loves her job working with severely disabled kids in public school. With all the IEPs she does, the great writing skills she developed in college have served her well.
I had a lot of friends with various liberal arts degrees. They are doing a lot of different things. One went on to business school and is now running a non-profit. Two became Episcopalian priests - one also published a number of fantasy and children’s fiction on the side. One got a PhD in history. Another has had many jobs, currently is a member of the NH legislature. Another one is a lawyer. One has written a well reviewed memoir. Another wrote a best selling novel and has never written another book. One writes about TV for the NY Times. Another is working for Al Jazeera America.
Among my younger son’s friends who just graduated in June: Several are at non-profits. One is tutoring for money and trying to make a go with his band. (He graduated from Yale, but figures its now or never - his friends are convinced if he doesn’t get lucky with the rock music he’ll teach high school history.) One joined the Army. One is out in LA working for Sony pictures.
It is interesting for me to see some of my daughter’s hs classmates jobs, 5 years out of college. A sociology major worked for youtube and now google people operations, an art history major also at google in corporate ethics, a french major as a program coordinator (not French) at an overseas college, a chem major teaching english in china before and after getting an extra credential. None of these people studied for these jobs. One psychology major is in business school, an engineering student is in medical school. People just don’t work in the area that they study all the time. Sure some will go on to grad school because they want to work and research in those specific areas.
Out of the history students I know at my institution, one is currently deciding between the Peace Corps and Teach for America, one got a prestigious non-profit fellowship for next year, one is working as a policy analyst in Beijing, several are in graduate school, and one is in a punk band. I also know of a French lit student doing research on a Fulbright fellowship, a psych student studying theatre direction at Yale after working in a theatre company for a year, an English lit student who’s making a living as a spoken-word poet, a poli sci senior who has a job as a jeweller’s apprentice/model lined up, a classics senior who got a job as a game developer, and so on and so forth. The list of different career paths is endless.
Some of these people leveraged their coursework and academic performance to find a job. In all cases (barring the grad school outcomes), however, qualities like persistence, extracurricular engagement, internships, knowledge of the job market, and/or ability to network/write good applications/make a good impression were far more important.
People with strong ambitions find the knowledge and resources required to work the system on their own. There are greater concentrations of these people at selective universities, and those schools equip them with resources that make their task easier, but ultimately the university name and major are not half as significant as ambition, persistence and research.
Sadly, the great deal of misinformation that goes around on this topic finds greater purchase in low-income communities, leading to members of those communities disproportionately earning vocational degrees that restrict their career choices and development from the start.
People who believe vocational degrees are more useful in the job market than solid academic degrees backed up by strong extracurricular engagement have little opportunity for social mobility, and will certainly never gain access to certain high-status jobs and circles where a degree in classics or philosophy is seen as infinitely more valuable than a degree in occupational therapy.
If you see college as essentially white-collar trade school for which you take out large loans that must be repaid starting immediately upon graduation, then a more vocational degree with immediate market value makes sense, even at the price of intellectual development or long-term career planning. I am a big fan of traditional liberal arts degrees, including arts, literature and languages, mathematics, and the sciences, because I think they have intrinsic intellectual value, but for many, they are becoming an unaffordable luxury in this economy. The mere fact of having a bachelor’s degree no longer gives you the edge in the hiring market that it once did when only 15% of the population had one.
I agree with @Ghostt re both the intrinsic value and social-signal value (in certain context) of liberal arts degrees, but I also recognize that many students simply can’t afford to take the financial flyer on a speculative intellectual adventure with an uncertain outcome. They must prioritize short-term practicality above all else. I can’t really blame them for that, although it’s a sad state of affairs.
The circumstances of being from a low income family means that such students must think about the shorter term job opportunities after graduation, when they must start repaying their student loans. In contrast, students from high income families often have some family support after graduation, so that they can take unpaid internships or jobs with sub-subsistence pay levels for a while in order better reach longer term goals.
If you have heard of the kids and marshmallows test (kid gets an extra one if s/he does not eat the first one for some time), it would not be inconceivable to see that if the kid is starving, s/he may find it harder to forego eating the first one immediately.
Of course, many of the replies seem to be based on the idea that students in pre-professional majors are somehow inferior in thinking skills. Also, many of the popular liberal arts majors are chosen for pre-professional reasons (e.g. economics as a substitute for business, political science or English as a pre-law major, biology as a pre-med major, etc.).
Only some jobs care about what you actually majored in. What they want to see is experience. If you find a good internship or two over the summers or do a co-op, you’ll have a better chance than even many engineering majors.
Doesn’t need to be a formal internship. Major in Art History; spend the summer volunteering at your local historical society upgrading their quarterly newsletter, writing and distributing press releases before their annual dinner, c onverting their fundraising database to a better/faster version and getting them a Facebook/Twitter presence and voila- you are now qualified for entry level roles in publishing, PR, a wide range of non-profits, any industry looking for entry level social media talent, etc.
I’m advising a couple of kids in my neighborhood now who are frantic that they didn’t get an “internship” for the summer. Make your own internship. Your local newspaper would be happy to have cheap talent covering local sports. Your local hospital’s finance department would love to have someone with strong analytical skills working on their annual report. Your public library would love a grant-writer who can spend some time getting funds from foundations to expand their digital footprint. An animal shelter might welcome someone who can re-do their graphics and signage which was last looked at in 1990 and is tired and worn.