<p>Wow, give me a chance here, you don’t even know me :)</p>
<p>As it happens, I am a huge literature fan, and have gotten very irritated at people who denounced fields like English. This thread is about the average student, and frankly the average humanities major gives my hardcore humanities friends a very bad name. The average math major doesn’t tend to disgrace the field quite as much, though some very bad math majors may! The reason is, as Venkat says, people who don’t care so much about their majors often self-select into easier majors, and there are easier paths offered in the humanities than elsewhere. </p>
<p>Actually, I was telling about how I know some relatively lazy engineers to my English major friend, and she kind of brushed that aside, saying I hadn’t seen lazy until I’d looked at the average students in some of her classes. </p>
<p>If you lighten up, silence_kit really was actually pretty funny.</p>
<p>“My problem with it is that the first 10+ pages of this thread is literally just post after post talking about how stupid/lazy/worthless/wasteful/etc humanities majors are”</p>
<p>I don’t take majors that don’t make money seriously. As an older college student, I pity the people who major in things that will be very hard, if at all possible, to make a living off of. Majoring in something that doesn’t have a good job outlook is a gamble im not willing to take, and I don’t understand why anyone would.</p>
<p>Right, because “making a living” is what we should all strive to do. Some people actually want to enjoy the work they do, not just settle for an average job that pays the bills. </p>
<p>It is only depressing if you look at it that way. I personally think life would be depressing if I could not afford to provide for myself, if I was living with my parents, if I couldn’t pay my bills. You can find a major/carrer with a good job outlook AND enjoy it at the same time.</p>
<p>But what about a high salary in a field you don’t care for? Some people become doctors for money, while others pursue what they enjoy and don’t care for money.</p>
<p>Still not worth it. No amount of money is worth wasting your life. Do what you enjoy, get good at it, and the money necessary to survive will follow.</p>
<p>I never said a high-paying carrer. I said its dumb to major in something with a poor job outlook. In this ecomony you have to be practical. Find out which careers have a good job outlook, and pick which one intrests you. If you like something that will not pay your bills, save that for a hobby.</p>
<p>And I’m sure now you’ll pull the “you don’t know what it’s like” card. You’re wrong. I’d have no problem living on less than 40k coming out of college. Take a look around your house / dorm / room. If you’re like most people, a lot of the stuff you own isn’t really necessary. People spend hundreds a year on junk, whether it be junk food or junk possessions. </p>
<p>If having a shiny car means more to you than enjoying what you do for a living, then I truly pity you.</p>
<p>I have to secondsrose9173. Ideally, everyone would be able to have the career they want and pay the bills–but that doesn’t always coincide with reality.</p>
<p>Take those people who want to be full-time actors and writers and painters; if they can be successful actors and writers, more power to them, but if they aren’t making ends meet then then they need to pursue, if temporarily, another career.</p>
<p>srose you are acting like someone who majors in a humanities isn’t going to eventually reach a point in their life where they can make a good living and pay for all their necessities.</p>
<p>You are missing my point. If you major in something useless just because you can’t enjoy it…you won’t be making 40,000 a year. You will be waitressing or working as a cashier. You won’t be able to pay your bills, let alone buy a “shiny car”…I am an older college student. I am going back to school and my major will only make me about 40,000 a year. But it is a major that has a high demand. It is about what jobs are in demand and what jobs are not.</p>
<p>Yeah, I mean who would want to enjoy their college experience?</p>
<p>Of course you have to be realistic, but it’s not like every non-business, science, or engineering major is useless. Yes, acting is hard to be successful in. But I’m willing to bet that working as a waiter, working towards a dream, is much more fulfilling than “majoring in something in demand”.</p>
<p>I wanna fight. I choose the engineering side cuz you learn how to think. Like, not about this one single topic (women studies, history, sociology, whatev), but it gives you the analytical skills to do whatever. I’m a Computer Science major, one of the most versatile majors you can choose, with it you can work at essentially any company, in any field, at i think the 4th highest average starting salary. That’s a good investment right there. Speaking of which, I saw an article on Yahoo like 3 days ago that listed the top-earning college majors. 14 of the 15 were engineering. Score another one for math/science/engineering.</p>
<p>“Still not worth it. No amount of money is worth wasting your life. Do what you enjoy, get good at it, and the money necessary to survive will follow.”
What planet does that logic work for? I’m imagining awesome people on the streets looking at the homeless english major and just saying “God damn, he really enjoys what he’s doing. Quick, give him some money!” Sorry, someone needs to hire the humanity majors before they can make any money, and not too many people want to sink to that level.</p>