<p>At UCLA I plan to major in East Asian Studies in which i will take mostly international politics and economics courses. To compliment the major, I plan to double minor in Political Science and Public Policy. How marketable do you think this degree will be?</p>
<p>This depends partly on which East Asian Studies major you’re talking about, and specifically what type of career you’re planning on. I can tell you from personal experience that it really won’t open benefit you much in terms of salary or career options unfortunately. When I was an undergrad at Berkeley and decided to dual major in Chinese and Japanese I looked at every career possible to try and benefit from them. Unfortunately there simply aren’t many. Also, all the careers that do utilize East Asian Studies majors/skills will require absolute fluency, something which won’t be gained until immersing yourself in the East Asian country for years after earning your degree. Most all of the careers that require bilinguals in the business sectors go to those who were raised in both cultures. And there are a lot of overqualified people for those jobs. Careers as translators in the business world can be profitable, but it’s extremely competitive and hard to get into the field since most companies already have translators with decades of experience under their belts.</p>
<p>An East Asian major can be highly beneficial in many aspects of your life, and there ARE careers out there that are very profitable for fluent bilinguals. There are Human Resource jobs that pay $250,000 a year for those with the experience and who are at the level-1 of the Japanese Language Profiency Test, for example. But most of those jobs require at least 10 years prior experience, and at that point you could just as easily get a HR job in the U.S. that would pay a similar wage for the same experience. </p>
<p>Don’t let any of that discourage you, though. If you’re majoring in East Asian Studies mainly because you think it’ll make you more marketable, you may end up dissapointed in the years to come. But if you’re doing it because you love the subject, you’ll be happy no matter what you end up doing. And if you’re creative and resourceful the job options are definitely out there. </p>
<p>Best of luck! :)</p>