<p>How does Steve Case (founder of AOL), a political science major at Williams, know how to start a computer company? It seems that in his case (and some others) that your college major doesn't really matter. what are your thoughts?</p>
<p>Yeah you can say that. You’re right.</p>
<p>Look at Bill Gates. He got rich and didn’t even have a collegiate degree. </p>
<p>The only thing you’re not accounting for is that these things happen to 1 in a million. Just because one guy did something profound and unconventional does not mean their path is a conventional path.</p>
<p>If you think a college major doesn’t matter, major in psychology or sociology and try to develop the next big sensation on the Internet. </p>
<p>The cases that prove a college major matters outweigh the instances that you have sought forth that reveal otherwise.</p>
<p>Because (and I’m assuming, I don’t actually know) even though he majored in political science he probably spent every spare moment fiddling around with computers and dabbling in programming AND he was probably in the right place at the right time when the proper opportunity came along.</p>
<p>If you want to know how things went the right way for Bill Gates read ‘Outliers.’</p>
<p>I think that the bottom line IS that your major doesn’t matter provided that you’re going into a field that is brand new and there really aren’t many people with experience in the field already. Once the field is established I think that having a major in that field probably starts to matter more.</p>
<p>You only hear about these success stories. Why? Because for ever success story, there’s a million failure stories, and people honestly expect the failure stories.</p>
<p>just do what you want to do (sounds self-absorbed though)</p>
<p>Yea why wouldn’t your college major matter. I can understand deviating A LITTLE from the field, but you can’t go in a 360 degree turn without the proper education.</p>
<p>You only need a degree to get professional jobs; architects, engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc. If you’ve got the drive and desire, it’s irrelevant what degree you have.</p>
<p>
/End of thread.</p>
<p>to the TC</p>
<p>your college major matters, but it might not for others.</p>
<p>your undergrad major is irrelevant unless you want to be an engineer or accountant. </p>
<p>Your intelligence and drive will determine your mid-career earnings power. Also, the prestige of your undergrad matters way more than anything. Even then, this is mostly correlation and not causation, i.e. smarter, harder working kids go to Harvard. </p>
<p>The WSJ did a study on this…major was not important 10 years out.</p>
<p>My most successful friend studied classics at Dartmouth. He works in private equity. He makes way more than yer average chemical engineer.</p>
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</p>
<p>huh?</p>
<hr>
<p>Honestly, I don’t really think undergrad majors matter too much, depending on the one you’re talking about.</p>
<p>Look at Marketing - with a degree in that you can do whatever you want, provided you have the skills. However, after talking to many marketers, they say you can also major in whatever you want and still do just fine as a marketer, especially since a lot of what you learn in college is outdated by the time you’re out.</p>
<p>It can also matter less if you plan to pursue a higher degree - many people going to law school will major in something completely unrelated to law that they’re interested in.</p>
<p>However, for some majors, it does matter. Nursing and other medical fields, accounting, etc, that requires you to have a broad base of set-in-stone knowledge. The types of fields you can’t just “walk in on.”</p>
<p>“huh?”</p>
<p>They are saying you can’t major in english and expect to get a job in a biology lab easily.</p>
<p>With certain professions you need a specific Undergrad major - Architecture, Engineering, Accounting, Nursing, etc - maybe Comp Sci, I’m not sure about this one.</p>
<p>With other careers, there’s more than 1 Undergrad major you can pick, but you’re limited to a group of majors. For example, if you want to be a Marine Biologist, you have several options - Biology, Chemistry, Biochem, Neurobio, marine bio, etc - but you can’t study English Lit obviously. </p>
<p>For things like Finance it helps to have a Finance degree but it’s not necessary - Math, Econ, or Business would work well, as would many majors. </p>
<p>For most professions, your major makes no difference - you don’t need a Marketing/Business degree for those fields. Unless you have a specific profession like Architect in mind, don’t worry about it. : )</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=alexblake]
How does Steve Case (founder of AOL), a political science major at Williams, know how to start a computer company?
[/quote]
He didn’t, which is why AOL’s walled garden paradigm failed to retain its popularity. Moreover, [AOL’s</a> subscriber base has been shrinking for years](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aol_subscribers_Q201-Q407.png]AOL’s”>File:Aol subscribers Q201-Q407.png - Wikipedia). The company has been irrelevant for years.</p>
![http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aol_subscribers_Q201-Q407.png]AOL’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aol_subscribers_Q201-Q407.png%5DAOL's){kind=link}
<p>"They are saying you can’t major in english and expect to get a job in a biology lab easily. "</p>
<p>a 360 degree turn puts you where you started</p>
<p>haha XD - that is true - revising statement</p>
<p>You can’t go a 180 degree turn without the proper education!</p>
<p>except that billgates is an inherit genius, he was winning real math comp.'s in middle school…and practiced programming in high school extensively back when it was unknown to the general public.</p>
<p>mixed in with a great partner, and he created what you have today.</p>
<p>It seems that it’s usually the humanity majors that don’t matter as much. You don’t see many doctors who were actually an art history majors or a physicist who was actually a medieval studies major.</p>
<p>“a 360 degree turn puts you where you started”</p>
<p>Well whatever I’m not a math major. Jeeze. </p>
<p>At least I got what they said. =/</p>