<p>Why is practicality even important? I would seriously consider taking Medieval and Renaissance Studies, just because I love studying it anyways. And then I’d go off into a tangentially-related career and have a lot of fun. People with ‘useless’ majors just have less clear-cut career paths than engineers, but I’d honestly prefer that to people who choose to become actuaries because they’ve heard it pays well.</p>
<p>I don’t think people become successful despite frittering their college years on useless pursuits. Maybe they become successful because they are the type of people that pursue their passions. Employers end up hiring people, not degrees.</p>
<p>Probably because it’s not a single major. There’s Linguistics and French, Linguistics and Spanish and Linguistics and Italian, and there are 9 other separate Linguistics majors, so it’s essentially a specialization. These are not the same thing as majoring in just French or just Italian. I’m not sure why they singled out the Romance Languages as opposed to the Scandinavian or Asian majors.</p>
<p>If by practical- you are referring to something pragmatic that can be applied to build things, to treat diseases, or any application of the scientific method for advancement of so called knowledge- then yeah, those lists suffice. I have to admit I just wanted to rant that those majors aren’t useless and those majors can certainly aid some students in finding something personal and interesting.</p>
<p>I love this thread…my son, the history fanatic, would love to graduate in Medieval or Peace and Conflict…he plans on working for the State Department. Currently he is looking into languages and International Affairs programs and is waiting to hear from the last remaining colleges he applied to. It seems the only one hiring is our government.</p>
<p>george eliot: That’s exactly what I thought! I’ve gone back to school to complete my degree – in Comparative Religious Studies. I’m hoping to go to grad school and get an MTS (Master of Theological Studies) with a focus on gender and dialogical issues in pluralistic religious contexts. But all those other majors sound <em>really</em> good to me! </p>
<p>When people ask me what I’m going to do with those degrees, you know what I tell them? “I’m going to be a Corporate Theologian at Google.”</p>
<p>ah the classic debate of practical vs interesting majors, but you have given us a list of the “least practical” then what majors should we consider practical?</p>
<p>Any major that teaches you a practical specialty skill(s).*</p>
<p>Not necessarily either of these - they teach you the foundations to a practical specialty skill, but on the surface, they teach you foundational skills and ideas. To really make them practical, you have to learn how they can be applied.</p>
<p>Now, they are very hard pursuits, and very amenable to application, but that doesn’t make the disciplines practical - fundamentally, science and math are meant to be about knowledge, not fundamentally about being useful to immediate needs.</p>
<p>If you are interested in Auditing, look into some Forensic Auditing/Accounting programs (not majors or degrees, just certificates and continued education stuff, courses, seminars).</p>
<p>Accounting is not really considered a mathematical based major.</p>
<p>Pure Math, Applied Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, all Engineering, Actuarial Science, Statistics, and some Mathematical Economics degrees are where all of the math is at. These are the degrees in a “Quantitative Field”.</p>
<p>*Though with mathematics and many sciences, you can get into just about any field you want to. Employers love math majors. *</p>
<p>Really? I hear this many times, but why is that? I will admit that I firmly believe it takes some good intelligence to do a math major, but is all that intelligence really necessary in most jobs? </p>
<p>I feel like you could get into just about any field if you really wanted to.</p>
Heyyyy… I like that one. Anyway, it’s just a secondary concentration (like a minor), so it’s not an actual degree. Plus, for someone of Irish/Scottish/Welsh descent, learning the language stolen from their ancestors by the English is worthwhile. Anyway, how “practical” the degree is matters for the major. Though a background in Celtic is good for academia.</p>
<p>“Though a background in Celtic is good for academia.”
Hardly. Unless you’re like one of two Celtic historians or something…there are much better options (i.e. Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, etc.).</p>
Oh, unpractical degrees, how I adore thee…</p>