Majors To Avoid?

sigh These discussions always make me tired.

Ruling out all of the humanities, social sciences, arts, and life sciences as unsuitable for work post-college is just silly. The vast majority of recent graduates in those fields find work after college, and the majority of them aren’t underemployed as Starbucks baristas or burger-flippers, either. There’s ample research out there showing this. Besides, ruling them all out would only leave business, engineering, math and the physical sciences as majors - and that’s just silly, too. We can’t have a society of all engineers, software developers and middle managers with no technical writers, social workers, teachers, museum directors, biologists, lobbyists, animal rescue workers, think tank research associates, etc. At the very least, who’s going to manage the engineers’ payroll? :smiley:

Social science and humanities majors, and some life sciences majors, do need to be aware that they probably won’t make the post-college salaries their physical science, math and engineering major friends will make (assuming that they stay relatively close to field). This is where the disparity is the biggest, not with employment. But then again, most people who want to be social workers, teachers, and museum directors already know that and don’t care - because salaries are not the only metric by which to measure career satisfaction and success (although they can be a big part).

The other thing is that as was already stated, your major and what you study don’t nail you down to one thing for the rest of your life. I majored in psychology; my PhD is in psychology + public health. I work for a tech company. I definitely use psychology in my every day work (but not public health), but I make more than the average for graduate degree holders in my field - that’s why it’s an average. My high school math teacher was a mechanical engineer from GT; I’m sure he made less than the average for mechanical engineers. I know a philosophy major who’s the COO of a company now. He worked with them part-time in college and worked his way up. I know an English major who works at a major F500 company, and a psych major who’s in banking; a history major who’s a Naval officer. I know LOTS of pre-med students who changed their minds and did something else. I know a couple of engineering students who decided to do TFA after college.

The point is, there’s no one major that will guarantee a lifetime of riches, just like there’s no one major (or set of major) that guarantees poverty and joblessness. Learn marketable skills, work part-time during college, do some internships, and network.