<p>You could major in philosophy and end up on Wall Street as a banker or hedge fund manager. Major =/= job, and major =/= salary.</p>
<p>I also find it really funny that they have college professor on there, with 23% growth. Many universities are cutting tenure lines and replacing tenure-track faculty with part-time adjuncts who make $2,000 per class and get no benefits. Even if you teach a 4/4 load (4 classes per semester) and we’re talking about $16,000 salary and no benefits - no 401(K), no health insurance, no research support, in some cases you don’t even get an office. Especially with so many universities troubled in this recession, professor jobs are hard to come by! The only fields that are experiencing actual growth in professor positions are business/professional fields like nursing, engineering, accounting and other business fields, etc. That’s because working outside the academy with a PhD in those fields is more lucrative than working inside it. The salaries are also far more attractive for professors in those areas.</p>
<p>But humanities - English, history, philosophy? Forget it. Someone just posted a recent survey of people who finished their English PhDs between 1983 and 1985 and compared it with their tenure lines in 1995. Just over half of them had tenured positions. Those are not good odds, especially considering half of humanities PhD students drop out before they even reach the PhD. They also spend an average of 9 years getting the PhD and an average of 8 years between PhD and tenure, which means that we’re talking about you’re not going to be tenured until you’re 40 at the earliest. Meanwhile even your friend who’s a cardiologist has been working as one for 8 years, and probably makes 4 or 5 times what you make if not more than that.</p>
<p>Not saying that it’s not a viable career choice, but you’ve got to have DEDICATION to try for professing in the humanities.</p>