<p>You’d be surprised at the number of STEM majors/aspirants who do their utmost to avoid humanities/social science courses with heavy reading and writing loads or who whine about “heavy” writing assignments of 5-15 pages in length. Witnessed plenty of them at my STEM-centered magnet high school and at various other campuses from undergrad years onwards. The whine only got louder when senior year came around and we had to start working on our 20+ page English literature themed research senior thesis required for graduation on top of other academic requirements/assignments. </p>
<p>Common pattern among many which has been confirmed by engineering/CS colleagues is to take courses where assessments consist mostly of multiple choice/short answer exams and/or humanities/social science courses centered on STEM related topics such as “History of the Aviation Technology” or “The Politics of the Internet”. </p>
<p>History undergrad; history grad degree in southern and African American history. . History teaches you critical analysis and forces you to learn how to write and communicate. It led to a 40 year career as an non-discrimination investigator in the federal government and at a B1G institution. </p>
<p>S1 was a History major - graduated May 2013. He landed a great job soon after graduating which he started in early July 2013. Fast forward 7 months - he has now landed yet another job (his dream job) which he starts February 10. </p>
<p>So…less than a year after graduating he has landed 2 great jobs (very decent salary, full benefits, etc). I would say he has NO regrets about his History degree!!</p>
<p>sorry for the late reply. I talked to an in state school yesterday and they give transfers the privilege to double major and still graduate on time so not only I’ll be majoring in history, but economics as well.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard from Econ majors and moreso grad students, an Econ major isn’t regarded any better than other social science majors like history* unless it’s backed up with enough math courses that one’s can almost add a math major to the lot. This aspect is especially critical if one hopes to later pursue an Econ Masters or PhD at some point. </p>
<ul>
<li>History can be a humanities and a social science depending on approach and one’s interests.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>Yup, economics for grad school = math, but economics to increase job prospects doesn’t. Although math through linear algebra, in addition to the usual statistics classes, is always good. History can be quantitative too, BTW. You can use Big Data for history research, too.</p>
<p>You can, but sometimes those who overemphasize the use of quantitative factors and misuse statistical analysis can really give quants a bad name in the field. </p>
<p>I speak as someone who majored in one and minored in the other. :)</p>
<p>History, like other liberal arts majors, does not directly set you up with a specific career path after college. As such, if you’re a mediocre history major, don’t expect much in the way of employment. That doesn’t mean that if you major in History all is hopeless no matter how smart or hard working you are, far from that. But it’s not as easy to enter a career with a history major as it is with an engineering or business major. </p>
<p>What exactly is a mediocre history major? Unless you are going into academia, hardly any employer even bothers with your GPA. You were either awarded a degree or you were not. Some may care about the school as it can help understanding the pressure the applicant is used to handling. I think business majors are in the same boat as history. Businesses do not hire them generally. Business major is better for setting you up for an MBA, not for any specific job.</p>
<p>Depends on how well you do in your major/minor and other courses. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Depending on the economy cycle with an engineering discipline, there are periods when it’s also not easy to enter the industry with an engineering degree. Happened to some older supervisors who graduated sometime in the '70s who ended up having to do odd jobs, taxi driving, or move into other fields. </p>
<p>Similar thing happened with many engineering/CS majors/grads during and right after the dotcom bust in 2001. </p>
<p>As for business, unless one went to a big name undergrad b-school(ex. Wharton, NYU-Stern, etc) and/or majored in more quant intensive specializations like finance or accounting, those doing hiring don’t seem to treat them very differently from other social science or humanities graduates. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not necessarily. They may not be as anal about it once it exceeds 3.0 or so unless the position is highly competitive. </p>
<p>However, if they find through mandated transcripts or GPA reported honestly on your job application is below 3.0, there may be some concerns by those doing hiring about one’s work ethic and to a limited extent, intellectual ability. </p>
<p>While this can be counteracted with good work experience, that’s no guarantee as an older relative found when his failing to meet that cut-off meant he had to struggle for 6 months after graduation before landing his first engineering job during a boom time in his industry. Although he’s now successful and is now in a senior engineering management position. his experience is one reason why he’s told me back when I was 17 and now his college-bound child to never allow one’s cumulative GPA to fall below 3.0. </p>
<p>A mediocre history (or any other) major would be one who did just well enough to graduate, but whose gain in knowledge and ability to learn new knowledge is only marginally improved, and may therefore not add as much value in employment than a more academically successful graduate with otherwise similar characteristics (people skills and the like).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Undergraduate business majors are intended to prepare students to enter the work force, not go to MBA programs (which typically prefer students with post-bachelor’s work experience anyway). Of course, whether they are more successful at such than other majors can be debated.</p>
<p>Many of the better employers that work with a college/university career services office require a minimum 3.0 - 3.25 gpa in order to interview. So yea, if you want to use your career services, a gpa of at least 3.0 is pretty important.</p>
<p>The career placement data at a typical state research university (Iowa, Minnesota, WI) is clear…business majors start out at a higher average salary than history majors and have more choices of jobs/employers. At my university, the mean starting salary for history majors is $30,000 per year (with the max being $40,000), econ is $40,000(max $60,000), and business (all majors) is $43,000. There are far more employers at my school that will only interview people with a business degree (that almost always includes econ) than those that will look at a liberal arts degree.</p>
<p>I know of quite a few history and political science majors that at the time of graduation wish they had added econ as a second major so they could have more interview/placement choices with career services.</p>
This statistic doesn’t mean much since correlation does not imply causation. Maybe the kinds of kids who choose history majors tend to be slackers; it doesn’t follow that by becoming a history major you are setting yourself up for a 1% employment disadvantage.</p>
<p>snarlatron, I don’t understand what you mean.
The stats only indicate that history is not intrinsically useless, which is the question OP asked.
I’m sure there’s a difference between graduating from Yale or Reed or Pomona or Rutgers or a small comprehensive third tier private or the directional 10 miles out, just as there’s a difference between the 2.4 kid, the 3.1 kid, and the 3.8 kid, but it’s the same for all majors surveyed. I’m not sure anyone argued “if you major in history you have 1% more chance to have a job!” ? Or did I misunderstand your post?</p>