I’m a current high school senior, finished applying to all of my colleges. I am applying undeclared, but I’m always stressing about majors. Constantly I have heard that STEM is the best way to go, but recently that has been less and less appealing to me. I’ve never done amazing in math or science, and I don’t like the detail in a lot of these sciences, it goes over my head. However, I love the humanities- arts, history, government, policy, etc. I’ve always excelled in it and find it very interesting. But I want to give myself a good chance at a financially stable and good future, but is that possible without a STEM degree?
Do what you love. This is from the perspective of a parent who has more mileage behind than ahead of me. And yes, it is absolutely true that you can have an interesting and financially stable career without being a STEM major.
Government (political science) and policy are typically considered social sciences, not humanities. History has some of both humanities and social sciences.
“STEM” is not necessarily a ticket to a highly paid career, since the largest STEM major is biology, which tends not to have well paid career prospects (because of the surplus of unsuccessful pre-meds).
Do what you like, but keep an eye on career prospects associated with each major so that you can make informed choices. Note that some knowledge of statistics and computing will be valuable to those who study social science and humanities.
About 75% of college graduates don’t go into the field that they majored in. This is true for STEM as well. So, major in what you will enjoy studying for the next four years, and think about what careers you’d be interested in. The two don’t need to directly connect.
Get a technical minor so that you can put that in your CV. For public policy and governance, a background in social sciences is plenty technical enough and you’ll get an introduction to using basic analysis tools.
Engineers make a lot right out of the gate but not everyone can be an engineer. Yes someone has to design the bridge but who will figure out that we need a bridge in the first place? Who will determine whether that’s a good use of money and who will figure out how much it will cost in 10 years? Those are real jobs. They make a bit less because of supply and demand but if you can do them well, there are decent salaries in the future.
People do well if they love what they’re doing, especially when there are many people coming out of school with the same major, it’s the one who loves the field that will probably be more likely to be successful. And I have to ask: if you become a STEM major and get a job in your field, even if you were getting paid extremely well, would you truly be happy?
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If you were a current senior when you started this thread, then by now you’ve probably decided on a college, and possibly a major.
What did you decide?
You will spend upwards of 40 years working. Please don’t major in something you’ll hate for 40 years. Life’s too short to hate what you do every day.
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