Hi, I’m a high school junior. Everyone around me wants to be an engineer/scientist/programmer/something in the STEM fields. My parents have, for the longest time, pressured me into becoming a doctor. I know for a fact that I will not make a good doctor. I’m horrible at science and math. The only classes I love are English and history. I want to major in creative writing/international studies/maybe economics but my parents always get angry at me when I mention it. I’ve always just said I would go to medical school to placate them but now that I have to apply for colleges in less than a year, I’ve tried to become upfront with them. They both guilt trip for wanting to major in the humanities and tell me that I’m being selfish for wasting their money and wanting to go to Oberlin (my dream school) instead of a fancy Ivy League University. What should I do? Is finding a stable job as a liberal arts major really as hard as most people make it out to be? Should I just give up and go to medical school, as a last resort? (even if I don’t think i’ll survive it).
Wait, what? You’re not in a position to decide on medical school right now. Do your parents understand that you can be “pre-med” with any major?
They immigrated here so they’re not clear on how the process goes. All I know is that I don’t want to be one.
Humanities majors are broader than STEM ones, really. Granted, specific jobs like being a writer or historian are hard to attain, but liberal arts degrees themselves are supposed to shape how you think and prepare you for a wide range of opportunities. At this point, you can’t know what opportunities will be open to you after college, so go with what you love to do and see how the climate is when you’re done. If you still don’t think your prospects look great, you can always try med school or something similar afterwards. This is your life.
Your parents might be more accepting if they understood that it’s possible to get into medical schools as a humanities major. You might even have better chances that way, because you’ll get better grades if you enjoy what you’re studying. Basically, you want to show your parents that a humanities major won’t close as many doors as they think.
How much have you thought about finances? If your parents pay for everything, they essentially have the ability to decide your major (whether or not they exercise it). It might be a good idea to look for colleges where you’d get merit scholarships or other aid, so that money wouldn’t be such a big factor.
Don’t buy into the STEM bull. STEM is not for everyone b/c math is very left-brained. Today there are more humanities majors being accepted to med school because they can communicate with empathy. Civilization would be pretty boring w/o the culture of languages, human ecology, anthropology, economics, literature, fine arts, music, etc. A degree is simply a license that shows you can reason.
Money isn’t everything, but there are a few pathways to making decent dollars:
- Law school. The market is oversaturated, but if you graduated from an elite school with a good GPA, you could potentially make bank.
- Business. Business majors do typically require very basic calculus, but are not necessary if you want to go to an MBA program or even just get a job. Obviously internships and work experience are very important, for both this and everything else.
Show your parents some figures on how much money lawyers and (to a lesser extent) businesspeople can make if they’re good at what they do. Also, you should be pretty clear with them: if you try medical school, there is a good chance you won’t make it. You’re competing against people who do have a natural aptitude for and liking of those subjects, so it’s really unrealistic to expect to make it into one of those “elite ivy league” medical schools. If they’re realists, maybe these realist argument will work. And also “I want to develop my social skills and network with people, because that’s going to be even more important in my career”.
(I am an engineering major, so take this all with a healthy dose of skepticism)
Trying to become a doctor for the money is a bad idea. You could put that brain power into business and make cash way quicker.
Liberal Arts majors are really in no worse a situation than any business degree that is not some type of quantitative skill (Accounting/Finance).
Economics is a good degree to have, you should show your parents some statistics in regards to how much Econ majors make. Econ majors typically make more money than most other non engineering degrees. You can also join many different types of industries with an economics degree, and it also prepares you pretty well for the LSAT if you want to go into Law.
With that being said, you should tell your parents that there is no pre med major, any major can get you into med school. Med Schools care about your grades and how you do on the Mcats - sell to your parents that if you take an ‘easier’ degree like Creative Writing, you might be able to get a 4.0 which will get you into a big school like Harvard or something. It seems like you just need to tell your parents something they want to hear so they get off your back.
@teabags722 Since your parents are pushing you to apply to a “fancy Ivy Leage university” perhaps Brown would appease them AND give you what you want. Like Oberlin, it’s a school with a history of progressive activism, and although it’s not a liberal arts college, it’s known for its excellent humanities (which actually get some respect there–a refreshing change in a STEM-obsessed world). Then, even if your parents did coerce you into a STEM major, you could take advantage of the open curriculum to take courses or even double-major in the humanities field of your choice! Just something to consider 
Edit: just noticed the 2015 timestamps on this thread, so my apologies for the out of date comment (CC won’t let me delete). Hope everything worked out well for OP in the end!
while it is possible to get into Med school without going the traditional pre-med track, it is rare and it will be difficult, especially if you aren’t good at math and science. I think your parents just need to accept that you aren’t meant to be a doctor at this point. Majoring in mathematics, computer science, etc. will make it easier to get a job, but a liberal arts major is not wasteful. Teaches you skills to succeed in your career and in grad school. Also you can always go to other types of grad school.
First, a bit of terminology: The M and S parts of STEM actually fall under the liberal arts.
Next: I feel a bit of your pain—I was one of the few smart kids in my high school, and so I was pushed toward engineering, which I hated and flunked out of. I eventually landed in linguistics (whether it’s one of the humanities or one of the social sciences is a good debate), which I’ve learned is where a lot of engineering and math majors who realize they don’t actually like engineering and math end up, probably because it lets us focus on the more human side of things while still being analytical about it all. (Philosophy is a common humanities landing site for such students, too, for I think similar reasons.)
As for whether you can get a job with a humanities degree, well, yes. The thing that confuses people is that if you get an engineering or nursing or other pre-professional degree, you generally end up getting a job as an engineer or a nurse or whatever your degree is named. A humanities degree isn’t like that, though. So yeah, my linguistics degree led to a job as a linguist, but that was only after an extra half-dozen years of grad school—for the most part, those with degrees in linguistics or history or philosophy or English aren’t working precisely in those fields, but rather have been trained in how to learn through their degree programs.
Basically, humanities majors are the generalists of the post-college employment world.