<p>im very interested in the study of politics and i intend to go to law school (or even politics) after undergrad. But i also love Art history and i would really enjoy learning more about it. Im just worried a double major in these two disciplines would be worthless. My STEM friends already laugh at me :p</p>
<p>Learning is never “worthless.” You need new friends. The current ones are anti-intellectual ignoramuses.</p>
<p>BTW, you do not need to major in a subject to take classes in it. I would suggest that you start out by taking a variety of classes freshman year and see where that leads you. </p>
<p>^I agree with Consolation. Our world has grown technologically driven, which means that the importance of STEM majors has increased. BUT that doesn’t mean that the studies of the humanities and social sciences are worthless - if anything, they’ve become more important as we humans try to figure out how to manage the ethical and human concerns over the impact this tech is having on us. I was just reading this morning that a prominent national university (I can’t remember which one - perhaps JHU?) was beginning a joint major between computer science and the humanities. According to the professors behind it, many of the ethical and impact questions raised by the CS field recently are questions that are grounded strongly in the humanities, and the best way to to prepare to answer them is to study the humanities.</p>
<p>Moreover, the idea that people in the humanities don’t get jobs is a pernicious myth. Georgetown [did</a> a study](<a href=“https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/og6p8y9x1yeacejk1ci0]did”>Box) using census data from 2009-2010 (so in the height of the recession) to look at unemployment by college major. The unemployment rate from humanities and liberal arts majors (9.4%) was just about the same, statistically speaking, as the rate for computer science and math majors (8.2%) and not that much higher than the rate for life/physical science majors (7.7%) and engineering majors (7.5%). And once you get a graduate degree, the unemployment rates are about the same, hardly different. Of course, your initial salary will be lower - but there’s no point in pursuing a career field you don’t like just to have a higher salary, because salary is also based on your skills and recommendations from previous employers and if you do poorly, you may not be as competitive anyway.</p>