<p>So the Liberal Arts course sounds like a great idea and I think I'd really enjoy it, but apparently it's hard to find a job with only an undergraduate Liberal Arts degree, and you basically need to go to a graduate school afterward to be able to find any decent employment. Is this true? Does it depend a lot on what you major in (say Economics/Business rather than Mongolian History)?</p>
<p>Economics Majors would have a much better time finding a job than Mongolian History majors.</p>
<p>I guess it depends on how you define "decent employment". I'm fairly convinced that, at least in the US, any college graduate from any school can get a job. It may not be the job that you want, but you can get a job. </p>
<p>Now, if you define decent employment as being a relatively high-paying, high-prestige job, then I would point out that even going to graduate school doesn't guarantee you such a job. There are plenty of people with PhD's who end up working as low-paid adjunct lecturers. </p>
<p>I would say that while part of your employability depends on what you major in, part of it has to do with your intent is as well. For example, part of the reason why Econ majors make more than Mongolian History majors is the simple fact that a lot of people who intend to later work in Wall Street investment banking tend to major in Economics rather than Mongolian History. </p>
<p>What I would say is that while your job marketability does depend on some extent on what you major in, it depends even more on your work experience. So if you're really worried about getting a good job after graduation, you should be trying to rack up work experience through summer internships, coops, etc.</p>
<p>Oh no, I hate work experience! Damn.. would you recommend going to Oxbridge over Harvard then if I wanted a decent-paying high-prestige job? I thought Harvard was supposed to be the number one place in the world.. surely employers would love me?</p>
<p>While I can't comment on the British employment situation, I can tell you that in the US, work experience is always going to be important no matter where you go to college.</p>
<p>Look, if you just want money and employability, then get a degree in something practical and marketable like engineering or computer science or accounting. Engineers from even no-name schools tend to make more money than many Harvard liberal arts majors. </p>
<p>Harvard refuses to publish its salary data online. But Princeton does. Harvard and Princeton salary data sets are going to be comparable because the 2 schools are peer schools.</p>
<p>Compare that to the average starting salaries nationwide from all schools. You will see that the average chemical engineer makes about $11,000 more than the average Princeton history graduate (and by extension, the average Harvard history graduate). Heck, the average chemical engineer nationwide makes $4000 more than the average Princeton graduate of all majors. </p>
<p>I would further point out that Princeton salaries tend to be somewhat 'inflated' in the sense that a disproportionate number of Princeton grads work in New York City, which is one of the most expensive places to live in the world.</p>
<p>Since this is a Harvard thread, I will say that liberal arts degrees, even in highly esoteric areas, don't limit you at all if they're from a top university and you are not looking for a job that requires a specialized curriculum such as engineering. At Harvard, all sorts of employers come to interview, including big name firms and companies. They care more about how you think than about your major. Of course, you will have to show them that you have not frittered away your time in college but have had valuable experiences (not necessarily in their line of work because they will train you).</p>
<p>ditto to what mom555 says. a lot of companies will be interested in you simply because they know that if u had to what it takes to get into a top school, you have what it takes to be successful at their company/firm/whatever.</p>
<p>case in point: my mother knows a woman who majored in francophone studies at columbia, but was picked up by an investment banking firm and now makes quite a bit of money.</p>
<p>Oh.. I thought Harvard graduates were supposed to make huge amounts even when starting out. Ah well.</p>
<p>Does Harvard have things like the 'Princeton in Asia' but 'Harvard in Asia'?</p>
<p>Whoa sweet, the most lucrative Princeton major happens to be my concentration. :D</p>
<p>I read somewhere that Wall Street banks, markets, etc. are more likely to hire you if you have a philosophy degree than if you have a business, finance, or econ degree.</p>
<p>Well, I'm an English concentrator and have an offer in the engineering department of a well-known software company. Lots of liberal arts majors go into consulting, or journalism, or research, or politics, or marketing, or whatever. I'd recommend talking to people you know who didn't go to law or med school about what they studied in college and how they got into their current fields. You may be surprised.</p>
<p>What about say womens' studies majors or medieval histroy/art?</p>
<p>Liberal arts majors tend to be best at getting jobs as liberal artists.</p>
<p>Haha, I jest (oh, that was bad). Seriously, liberal arts makes you a jack-of-all-trades and a Harvard degree is a Harvard degree, so it can take you a good many places, from law school to science research ;)</p>
<p>Well, this is very anecdotal, but a friend of mine with a women's studies degree from Yale went on to work in politics and became the president of her state chapter of NOW. She then went to law school and is now clerking, I think. This isn't something you can do right out of school, but the professor of an archaeology class I'm taking was a glassblowing major in college. Another friend who's an art history major and was very active in the college paper is planning on going into journalism. Sometimes you have to be a little bit creative if you want to find a relevant job, but there are definitely opportunities out there.</p>
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Haha, I jest (oh, that was bad). Seriously, liberal arts makes you a jack-of-all-trades and a Harvard degree is a Harvard degree, so it can take you a good many places, from law school to science research
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<p>Of course for those people who are really that worried about employability, you could always hedge your bets by going to Harvard and majoring in CS or engineering. Yes, Harvard has engineering. True, it's not as good as engineering at MIT, but it's still better than the vast majority of the hundreds of other engineering programs out there. You would then have the dual benefits of having a practical degree AND a degree from Harvard. </p>
<p>It wouldn't surprise me in the least to find that engineering/CS students at Harvard make the highest average starting salaries of all the Harvard students. After all, the Princeton engineering/CS students make the most of anybody. Like I said, even the average nationwide engineering starting salary exceeds the average Princeton starting salary (from all majors).</p>
<p>There is no way in hell I'm going to even touch either engineering or computer science, so that's out :)</p>
<p>hehe, yeah, that's the kind of thing you can't do just for the money.</p>
<p>Even though engineering or CS students may have the highest starting salaries, don't econ/gov/hist/whatever majors in investment banking or consulting have the propensity to increase in salary at a much higher rate than an engineer or computer scientist?</p>
<p>And then the astronomers who just never make that much :p</p>
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hehe, yeah, that's the kind of thing you can't do just for the money.
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<p>Oh, I don't know. I would argue that engineering/CS can be done by a person just for the money more so than, say, management consulting or banking. If you don't like consulting, and you're just doing it for the money, you're not going to last long. At least with an engineering/CS job, you can find yourself a regular 40-hour a week job such that even if you don't really like it, it's only 40 hours a week. Imagine disliking consulting but still having to do it 60-70 hours a week, or disliking banking, but still having to do it 90 hours a week, which are fairly typical in those lines of work. You ain't gonna last long. </p>
<p>This is why so many people enter consulting/banking and was out after 2-3 years because they find out that they hate it. These are not fields in which you will last very long if you don't like it. </p>
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Even though engineering or CS students may have the highest starting salaries, don't econ/gov/hist/whatever majors in investment banking or consulting have the propensity to increase in salary at a much higher rate than an engineer or computer scientist?
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<p>See above. Yes, salaries increase rapidly in consulting/banking. But only if you last. Most people don't last long enough to get those increased salaries.</p>
<p>The other presumption in what you said is that the econ/gov/hist students somehow have some sort of advantage over engineering/CS students in getting consulting/banking jobs. I don't find that to be true. From what I've seen, the engineering/CS students who want to enter consulting/banking are just as likely to get in as those liberal arts students are. If anything, the banks and consulting firms actually like engineering/CS students because they've proven that they can work extremely hard and are good with numbers. That's why, for example, this year, one of the top, if not the top, employer of MIT engineering students is McKinsey. </p>
<p>You have to keep in mind that a lot of these students study engineering/CS because they don't want to become bankers or consultants. Either that or they don't have the personality for it. Let's face it. Those majors are filled with a bunch of antisocial nerds, and people with that kind of personality won't be hired for consulting/banking jobs. But that's really a function of the personality, not the major. Let's face it. If you're a nerd with no social skills, majoring in Econ or History isn't by itself going to make you any more palatable to the banks or to the consulting firms.</p>