Reading murder mystery novels IS a hobby, not a career.
Passions I mentioned in my post prior to yours…art and creative writing… have many career applications.
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Yes, sounds like the FGLI has an “axe to grind” after what was undoubtedly a great education at a very reduced price. Additionally he/she moans about URM’s and females.
Now they’re going to law school, I’m going to guess at a very reduced price, since they can’t seem to find a “high paying job” in a low unemployment rate environment.
Now, I know how you lure folks into “discussions,” but I have a gut feeling and I’m sticking to it. And I’m not going to argue my feeling(s) about an anonymous Reddit post. Just sounds ungrateful.
I expect there are careers related to mystery novels-perhaps in publishing, for example, or forensics.
In any event, I would hope a career would match the intersection of what a student 1) enjoys; 2) is relatively good at; and 3) others are willing to pay for the student to do that work.
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This made me chuckle because on this forum, we are sharing feelings and are anonymous posters!
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@roycroftmom wrote:
It just seems like a different type of example as you mention READING such novels.
Art and creative writing are things my two current rising seniors DO a LOT in an active way with a talent involved. These skills and talents are directly related to many careers. These are even classes one takes in school, unlike “reading murder mystery novels” is not a class in high school one studies.
DD was in a similar predicament and I pushed for a STEM double major in addition to her humanities major, even though that is not her innate “talent” or “passion.” No regrets, as she has a high-paying internship this summer that would not have been possible with just a BA in the humanities. She felt bad for herself at first but then quickly got over it when she saw how much money the job would pay.
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Not ALL jobs in a humanities or arts field are low pay. Further, not everyone cares about making a very high salary.
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If your daughter is happy with the job, that’s great. As a parent, I see my kids’ happiness as the main thing that matters.
You mentioned that you pushed for a STEM double major, and we all parent differently, and I never pushed my kids in any of their endeavors, whether it be activities growing up, college majors, summer plans, careers, etc. I’m not right and you are not wrong. Just a different approach.
I don’t mind you disagree, but I would ask that you not put rolling eyes and thumbs down emoticons on my posts as it comes across as rude and not a friendly discussion.
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I am curious – what are some high paying jobs in the arts (not counting movie actors), and what is a high pay? Say both starting and mid-career. I have a friend’s daughter who is looking at music composition. I just want to be better informed on what the numbers are for a 95th percentile pay in this sector – say acting and music (either performance or composing), and what percentage of the people majoring in these fields get to such jobs? It is hard to place this in context without hard numbers.
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I cannot quote you salaries, sorry. Simply, there are tons of people who work in the arts and in humanities fields and they are not all poor! What would our world be like without them?
I do have a kid, as I wrote, in the theater and music worlds (several aspects of these fields including performing) and I do not know how much money she makes. I just know she does pretty well for her age and is not lacking for anything. She has MANY friends in her field (including ones she went to college with) who are quite successful as well.
I don’t know what you consider high pay, but just saying they are successful and not low income. Many are working at the top levels of the field.
Sorry to not provide you with “hard numbers” but simply observations. The humanities and the arts have professional jobs that pay well. Does every graduate go onto a very successful career? Probably not. But many do.
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ok. Thanks. Was looking for general numbers. They are so hard to come by. Usually when you have a sense of what the numbers are, one feels more comfortable not pushing aback against the idea of spending 300k on an undergrad. It is still the parents’ money. Will it take 1 year to pay back? Or 10 years? Everything is so opaque. Many other professions are not like this.
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My daughter is also a gifted writer and a voracious reader. I was delighted that at an age that everything is ‘boring’ and kids take the path of least resistance, she would put so much effort in something that seemed difficult to me. She won writing competitions, got published, became the school newspaper editor in chief, and went to reading events where she would read her work in front of strangers. However, we told her that creative writing is not something that you learn in college. In my opinion, you need to have rich spiritual and/or real life experience to be a good writer.
We made sure that she has a solid education in a variety of subjects including math (even though she firmly refused to do the Russian school of math 
) She did the hardest classes in HS, including AP physics and BC calc, and did well.
As she did her UG in the UK, she had to apply direct to a major and chose PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) as the most versatile and the closest to a liberal art education. Under the pressure of her pragmatic British friends, she ditched philosophy after the first year and took minimum classes in Politics, majoring mainly in Economics. Economics is heavily theoretical in the UK and involves a lot of math.
She is now working in an economic consultancy in London doing mainly data analysis. She finds it interesting as the cases are high profile, her colleagues are bright, she is very well paid and has 6 weeks vacation as does everybody else in the UK. She is fully independent, has gone to Paris for one long weekend and to Kopenhagen for another. Her company sends people to do a masters after the first two years, and she is planning to do hers in Barcelona. The masters in Europe are only one year. The one in Barcelona costs 16k euros which she is planning to fund herself, including living expenses.
If the economist career does not work out long term, she can probably do something else with her PPE degree and even write a book. I stopped worrying.
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@Mumfromca
That sounds truly wonderful for your daughter! Hooray for her success! She sounds happy and is doing well. What more could a parent want for their kid?
For me, I never worried about my kids doing well. It wasn’t really about their fields of interest. They are very driven and so I just never worried.
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Reading this thread is somewhat eye-opening. I shouldn’t have worried too much - things work themselves out in a variety of ways. Thank you for posting your stories!
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I just feel differently. I don’t put value on the college degree based on the major! To me, the college degree has value because my kid became educated. Further, a college degree is pretty much needed for most professional work. The major is not the main thing I was paying for. I never ever considered “How many years it will take to pay back!” Rather, their college education was my investment in their becoming educated and helping them have a future. How much money they earn is nothing that I ever thought about when investing in college. Also, my kids received some need based aid and so the four years did not cost $300,000, btw. Anyway, my kids earned degrees. I don’t think of the major as the totality of what they earned or learned in college. It is but one mere aspect. It so happens my kids ARE working in their intended fields of interest, but even if they were not, their college degrees would have been worth it to me.
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There was this with pay levels by college major, though it is from a Payscale survey (with the usual caveats about Payscale, although at least the sample sizes by major are much larger than sample sizes by college):
Note that it does not necessarily mean that graduates are in jobs related to their majors.
The elite and near-elite (90th percentile) from all majors do well by mid-career (unless by the standards of someone who wants a $150k per year entry level pay). But note that some college majors’ pay distributions have wide variation between the high and low end, while others have less variation between the high and low end. For example, music majors have about a 5:1 ratio of the 90th percentile pay to the 10th percentile mid-career pay, while nursing majors have about a 2:1 ratio.
Thanks.
@mumfromca Also, my kid in the performing arts, earns money in several facets of her field that she NEVER studied in college but happens to be good at and people are willing to pay for her talents. She only studied performance, but does much more than that professionally (though also performs).
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My S went to school thinking he would study one thing and then took a couple of classes and decided to switch. He is one of those kids that has many interest and he took that test people here mentioned to see what he would be good at and it came back with everything. He is double majoring in humanities and a minor too! He has an internship this summer that will help him explore one of his interest and it pays well. Will he making six figures out of school, probably not, but he doesn’t need that kind of money to live.
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One of my kids has an advanced degree and has shared job posting lists with me. I am interested to see that many of the jobs on the list say “bachelor’s degree or related experience.” I think this supports the idea that you can major in anything but try to gain relevant career experience outside of school, through interning, volunteering or a job.
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