<p>Hi everybody
I'm about to start the daunting college application process. I'm almost alone in it---first generation to attend college ever. But what worries me most is the fact that I haven't decided my major. I know I can do it in my junior year in college but that would only make things worse. Honestly, I'm good at math and average at science. But I don't imagine myself involved in those areas. And I don't like working with money, so marketing, business and economics all got out in my possible majors.
What i like the most is the humanities. History, art history, anthropology, philosophy...all are ideal things to study. But that wouldn't get me a job. I don't care if I don't earn a three digit thousand dollars a year. I just want a job that would pay, for example, a family of 3. Teaching is what I've considered the most.
Yet that smart voice within me tells me to be involved in science or finance to get a job, since positions in teaching are hard to find. Anyways, I just want to hear your opinions. I went to yahoo answers and got mixed reactions. The realistic approach "get a useful degree." And the optimistic approach "if you're good you'll find a job in your area." So, what you think?</p>
<p>What’s your budget for college?</p>
<p>I would be very leery of getting a humanities degree. You could find a job with a humanities degree, but it will probably be low paying at first, and hard to find. Not to mention that you’ll have to go wherever you find a job, and you can’t be picky with location.</p>
<p>With that being said, a business degree won’t get you a great job straight out of college either. Applicant pools are swimming with business majors, so you definitely won’t stand out. You will however find a job more easily, and it will more than likely be a better paying job. But you don’t want to do something that you hate for the rest of your life.</p>
<p>Do tons of research to see what types of jobs come with different types of majors. And if you decided to go with your head, I would do finance or economics over management, because everybody has a BA in business administration. Someone in my family has that degree, and they are working as a cashier at Dollar General. It’s tough.</p>
<p>Maybe double major or do a minor, so that you can follow your heart while still being practical. Unfortunately, these days, a good job will never be guaranteed. Good Luck!</p>
<p>The Idealist website lists volunteer and paid opportunities all over the world. Definitely spend some time there looking for ideas. A lot of those jobs aren’t on direct paths from specific majors, so getting one eventually will take some ingenuity. But people are being hired to do interesting, important work, and you could be one of them.</p>
<p>A humanities degree is not as worthless as people make it out to be. It’s still problematic to take significant debt to get one, but art history majors do have better career prospects than, say, biology majors.</p>
<p>Having said that, it sounds like the problem is that you don’t know what job you’d like to have. Shutting out scientific and business jobs really removes the vast majority of options; if you really want to be a teacher it’s not the worst decision, but I would recommend reconsidering whether or not you’re really opposed to any kind of business job.</p>
<p>You could go into policy and make a decent amount of money. Although its not really humanities, political science is interesting and I think you would like it better than the “science and math” stuff.</p>
<p>This recent thread from the Harvard forum may be helpful. I continue to see bright students with “useless” majors find very good and interesting jobs.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1379724-useless-majors.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1379724-useless-majors.html</a></p>
<p>While I don’t disagree that “useless” majors can still lead to good careers, there are very obvious reasons why the value of an art history degree at Harvard does not imply anything about the value of an art history degree at Generic State U.</p>
<p>e: I mean, look at that thread. The sixth poster knows three people who were hired at Google from liberal arts programs. How many people at schools below the absolute top know anyone who was hired at Google?</p>
<p>You can get a good job with a humanities degree. Museum or art gallery curator or archivist, critic, arts administrator, docent, etc. Humanities graduates often get jobs in business and finance, too. Go for it.</p>
<p>It’s a myth that you can’t get a job if you major in the humanities. It only appears that way because there are many jobs that lead <em>directly</em> from science and math majors, but there are jobs out there for humanities majors. Most jobs are open to any major. There’s no point in majoring in math or the sciences if you don’t like them, because you’ll be expected to use them in your job.</p>
<p>If you want to be a teacher, out of the humanities history is your best choice. You could also choose English, but there is a glut of graduates in English. You might consider studying Spanish and going into bilingual education, or looking into special education.</p>
<p>The best thing to do is do some research into careers that seem interesting to you, and select majors that would prime you for those jobs.</p>
<p>And I went to a top 100 but not tippy top school and I know a few people who got hired by Google, as well as some folks who got hired at Apple and Microsoft. They were all science/math majors, though.</p>