Is there a good source out there that spells out what careers certain majors/requisites can lead to? I know this seems kind of dumb but I just wanted to look at all options (being an undecided person). I know a lot of it is obvious like pharmacists take chemistry and accountants take business/finance but I just want to see where everything can lead to. I hope you understand what I’m trying to ask 
Thank you.
<p>take physics. It leads to EVERYTHING.</p>
<p>hardee harr harr beramod. funny. yes it does lead to "everything"</p>
<p>I'm serious... You have to know EVERYTHING, including religion, to become a research physicist.</p>
<p>accountants take accounting not finance</p>
<p>If you're interested in medical career, an undergraduate major in biology or chemistry works out nicely. The classes required by medical schools are often core requirements for those majors.</p>
<p>If you're interested in a law career, an undergraduate major in economics, history, or english does the job quite well.</p>
<p>But, don't major in something like Greek or Latin. It's not useful.</p>
<p>Fabrizio,
You don't -need- a bio or chem major to do medical school, you also don't need econ, polysci, etc. for a law career. </p>
<p>Classics are not useful, yes. They have no practical application besides educating you, and that's what college is all about, isn't it? If you wanted something practical that led straight into a profession, you would go to a vocational or professional school. Nursing school --> nurse. </p>
<p>You can major in anything in college and often get a job totally unrelated to your field.<br>
Employers on, say, Wall Street won't be only recruiting people that major in economics. They're looking for a broad education and well-conditioned mind, not specialized knowledge.</p>
<p>No major really locks you into or out of any career track (except the ones that are specific to that major, of course.. an english major can't become a theoretical physicist without further education in that field, as far as I know).</p>
<p>Personally I'm a fan of engineering. The major gives you very strong background in technical and scientific fields, plus gives you the analytical skills that are very valued in all other fields, especially finance. You can go almost anywhere with it.</p>
<p>For professional schools (med, law, etc) you just need to fulfill the prerequisites to be ready for it.</p>
<p>I second engineering. If you are willing to deal with the hard classes, engineering can prepare you excellently for future jobs.</p>
<p>I agree, Econ is also a very good subject to take, especially if you want to go into business. This is a very crude analogy, but it works: Taking econ is like learning how a car works, going to business school is learning how to drive it. In other words, if you do Econ now, you will know all the theory behind the business decisions you are going to make and how they affect things, its a good subject to take.</p>
<p>I have to agree that engineering is a a good all-around major to have, because it does prepare you for a wide variety careers. </p>
<p>But I say that with 1 major caveat. Engineering is probably an undesirable major if you want to be a doctor or a lawyer. Why? Because med-school and law-school admissions are tremendously grade-driven, and if you study engineering, your GPA will most likely be significantly lower than it would be if you studied something easy. You would think that med-school and law-school adcoms would know how difficult it is to get top grades in engineering and compensate engineering students accordingly. However, the available evidence strongly suggest that they do not do that. </p>
<p>Case in point, consider MIT, a school where the majority of students major in engineering, and I think we can all agree that MIT is one of the most difficult schools in the country. The average GPA of MIT students who apply to med-school and who are accepted to at least one med-school is a 3.7/4, a suspiciously high number. If med-schools really were compensating applicants for taking difficult classes at a difficult school, then it would stand to reason that the average GPA of admitted MIT students would be a low lower than it is. It is extremely difficult to pull a 3.7/4 at MIT - far more difficult than at practically any other school in the country, but med-schools don't really seem to care that it's difficult. Med-schools want to see high grades, without much regard for how difficult it is to get those grades. Law-schools are the same way.</p>
<p>That's not to say that you can't get into med or law school by studying engineering. Many people do. But the point is that it makes it more difficult. You have to work far harder and undergo an increased chance of getting rejected everywhere, or if you do get admitted, then admitted to a lower-prestige place than you would have had you chosen to study something easy. This is one of those cases where you are punished for doing difficult coursework. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, I still think engineering is a useful and versatile major to do. Just bear in mind that if you are gung-ho about being a lawyer or a doctor, it's probably a bad choice. Arguably the most difficult step in becoming a lawyer or a doctor is simply getting admitted to law/med-school in the first place. In 2004, more than 1/4 of MIT premeds who applied to med-school got rejected at every single med-school they applied to. That's right, every single one. I strongly suspect that of all those guys who did get rejected at every med-school, many (not all, but many) would have gotten in had they chosen an easy major at an easy school. You don't want to be one of those guys who wants to be a doctor only to find out that you can't get into med-school. Your career will be over before it ever started.</p>
<p>To answer the question about where to find what careers majors can lead to, try The Collegeboard Book of Majors or the Princeton Review's Most Popular Majors. Like everyone's said, most majors don't lock you to a specific career, but these books give a few examples of careers that a lot of people choose after majoring in a certain field. They have a lot of additional useful info too, like what skills are important for different majors, what kind of courses you'll actually be taking,etc - it helped me a lot when I was undecided.</p>
<p>yeah I think that while there are a lot of engineers out there today, they are still highly prized. An engineer from a good school can think logically, be a good problem solver, and work hard. I realize that i'm making a big generalization here, but most engineers are good all-around problem solvers. Its also a combo involving lots of math and science. I'm not shutting down MBA's or anything, but the dean of stanford came out a couple of months ago and said that MBA's are not as valuable as solid science backgrounds. conclusion: engineering can only help you.</p>
<p>Lots of classics majors go to law school.</p>
<p>Greek and Latin may not be useful at first glance, but the skills you get from translating for years help you write and interpret documents and make arguments (since you're translating the original masters of persuasion). So maybe being able to translate Harry Potter into ancient greek isn't that useful, but classics majors are smart people, and can do almost anything.</p>
<p>To build on needhelp06's point, I agree that the US does not produce enough engineering and science graduates, and too many MBA's (or business types in general), but I think the real issue is that the US economy simply does not reward those engineers or scientists enough. Yes, I am well aware that starting salaries for engineers and scientists are higher than of liberal arts majors, but I dont think they are high enough to justify all the additional work you have to do. Engineering and science majors are, on average, significantly harder than lib-arts majors, and that added boost to your starting salary is, I don't think, sufficient compensation for the extra difficulty. Couple that with the fact that while engineers might make more money to start, their salaries don't tend to increase very quickly, so they often times lose their salary lead. I can't tell you how ****ed off a lot of engineers are to watch former lib-arts majors who basically were lazy during college (they didn't want to study hard, so they chose to major in lib-arts) end up with jobs in sales or bus-dev and then quickly surpass those engineers in salary. Those engineers would then bitterly ask themselves why did they work so hard in college only to end up making less money than those guys who partied all day long? </p>
<p>So to build on the point that needhelp06 made that the dean of Stanford said that MBA's are not as valuable as people with science and engineering backgrounds, the problem is that as long as the market rewards people with MBA's much more than it does people with science/engineering backgrounds, then you are always going to have the problem of people neglecting science/engineering in favor of MBA's. Now, I am well aware that lots of MBA's also have science/engineering backgrounds, but let's ignore that point for the time being. The fact is, people are following the easy money. People want the most money possible while doing the least work possible. And if an MBA is a better way to make more money with less work than is getting a background in science/engineering, then people are going to do that. It's a simple response to market forces. Engineers might make twice the starting salary, but have to work more than twice as hard, and a lot of people simply see that as a bad deal. </p>
<p>Hence, the point is, if the dean of Stanford, or anybody else for that matter, wants more people to get into science/engineering, then they have to increase the market incentives for people to do so. Otherwise, people are always going to conclude that it's too much additional work for not enough additional money</p>
<p>my parents think "Econ/business" majors are BS degrees that are easy to get and one can learn it all as a gradute . They want me to do a "Core" degree, because any1 can learn econ for MBA and other graduate work. Also, everybody and their mom wants to do econ, thinking it leads to lots of money or is a BOOST.....but the fact is econ majors are fired everyday and have nothing to fall upon.....Those who are best off are people with technical backgrounds with MBA's. Business isn't hard to learn, not worth 4 years.</p>
<p>Economics is not ******** at all as an undergrad...</p>
<p>so what about women's studies and east asian studies? Will they help at law school and lead to a wide variety of careers?</p>
<p>A. You're right, but I did not say need. I said "works out nicely" and "does the job well."</p>
<p>B. You can major in anything and get a job totally unrelated to your field. It's very, and I mean very, common to see economics professors with undergraduate degrees in math. Flip open textbooks and read the biographies of the authors.</p>
<p>C. This brings me back to point A. For professional schools, you DO just need to fill the prerequisites to be ready. If you're seriously considering a professional school, there are certain majors that correspond almost directly to the professional school.</p>
<p>English grammar and basic math can be readily taught to someone who's been exposed to those areas for years. A couple of weeks and you're set. But, biology, chemistry, and physics at a university level takes much longer to assimilate.</p>
<p>fabizio, you are correct when you say that many econ professors have undergraduate degrees in math. Not only that, many econ professors have PhDs in math and not economics. The reason you see this is because economics at the PhD and research level is extremely technical. </p>
<p>Regarding job prospects, it is my opinion that a degree in economics or math would open many doors. Keep in mind that many people hate economics and even more hate math so perhaps they would not be good choices for a lot of students.</p>