<p>There are real mixed messages coming from the administration, job market, parents, etc. Their lips say "college is for exploring and stretching your limits, study what you love, blah, blah, blah", but the checkbook says "major in finance and go to Wall St. or go to med school and become a surgeon". Truthfully, the market demand for poets has always been quite low in relation to bankers/surgeons so thank goodness most people are sensible and listen to their wallets and not their inner poets. The idea that college is a bunch of scholars in robes debating the meaning of life and that you should do what you love regardless of whether it is in demand by society or not stems from another age when rich men sent their sons to college to become clergymen or inherit the family business. Most other young people were out earning a living long before they were 18 - everyone assumed that "doing what you love" was for leisure time, if any. Work was not what you loved, it was what kept you from starving. In today's society the idea that you should spend the 1st 4 years of your adult life learning nothing of any practical value is STILL an unaffordable luxury for most people. Should you take some courses outside your major? - of course. Should you major in some obscure field that does not put you on a career track - no unless you have inherited wealth and don't plan on working or you are prepared to live a life of poverty as an eternal grad student or waiting on tables.</p>