<p>I'm a senior in high school, and the deadline for early admissions is drawing very near so the pressure has been climbing recently. I'm trying to figure out what i want to do with my college years (and a majority of the rest of my life) or at least get a strong idea. I do have an interest in studying Asian cultures but i don't know what benefits i would be reaping upon graduation. </p>
<p>Can anyone give me some sort of idea as to what i can do with a Major in East Asian Studies?</p>
<p>You’d be qualified for a low-skill, customer service-oriented job, like a Starbucks Barista or Barnes&Noble cashier. </p>
<p>But seriously – you don’t learn any practical skills from an east Asian studies major. You’ll be required to pick up an Asian language, but you’ll never likely become fluent.</p>
<p>You would be better off not going to college than doing an East Asian studies major.</p>
<p>you’ll have the exact same skill set as the majority of china’s 1billion+ population.</p>
<p>what is it that they do? figure that out and then emulate.</p>
<p>is there any other major that i can combine with this to make it somewhat useful and rewarding?</p>
<p>“I’m a senior in high school, and the deadline for early admissions is drawing very near so the pressure has been climbing recently. I’m trying to figure out what i want to do with my college years (and a majority of the rest of my life) or at least get a strong idea.”</p>
<ol>
<li>Many students change their majors once in college and you don’t have to choose a major right away, so you shouldn’t pressure yourself about it. It’s way too early to decide what you want to do for the majority of the rest of your life. Many people will change careers several times within their life times. The important thing is to develop those lifelong learning, writing, thinking, speaking and other skills that apply across a range of careers and that allow you to adapt to changes.</li>
<li>Having said that, if you decide to major in East Asian Studies, it is important that you begin your language courses as early as possible. To attain proficiency in an East Asian language, plan to take more than the minimum that is often required for this major, i.e., take 4 years if possible rather than the minimum 2 years. Plan to study abroad for a year, if possible.</li>
<li>For an interdisciplinary major such as East Asian Studies, it’s valuable to have another major in a traditional discipline. In terms of improving your employability, Economics or Business is good, especially if you are not planning on graduate or professional school.
The language skills are the most important, so you also could major in a traditional discipline and minor in an East Asian language or just take courses in it without a formal minor, if you a double major is unworkable for you. </li>
<li>If you don’t do an additional major in a traditional discipline and keep your primary focus on East Asian Studies, at least take a block of core courses in a field like economics or business. This could include Principles of Economics, possibly Intermediate Economic Theory, Economic Statistics, possibly a basic course in each of the traditional business subfields (Accounting, Marketing, Management, Finance), etc. Don’t forget coursework in quantitative skills, especially if you might decide on graduate or professional school later. </li>
<li>If you’re not too keen on business, consider a block of courses or a minor focused on areas such as International/Cross-Cultural Communication or Teaching English as a Second Language (either as a TESL certificate or coursework in English, especially English Linguistics). </li>
<li>Beyond all the above suggestions, it difficult to make additional recommendations as I don’t know your potential career interests, your abilities, or what type of college you might attend. East Asian Studies is a liberal arts major. As with other liberal arts majors it doesn’t necessarily point to a specific career:While it prepares you for no no specific career, in many ways, it prepares you for everything. In general, you have the same career opportunities and options as any other liberal arts major. You can enhance your opportunities through internships, etc.</li>
</ol>
<p>Thank you zapfino for clarifying some things for me. that was actually a really helpful and encouraging answer. My original intention was to learn a language like chinese or japanese (although i’m more inclined to japanese) if you can remember some of my other posts you commented on. </p>
<p>I considered doing business for a while but it didn’t really interest me. As for economics, i haven’t taken a class on it yet. Could you shed some light on the course for me?</p>
<p>And i definitely wanna study abroad, but it might be an extremely hard push as far are money goes.</p>
<p>Hey OP, study abroad in China is really cheap, really really obscenely cheap. The tuition for Beijing University in China is about 20,000 a year before the Chinese government scholarship and Dept of State critical language grant, which tends to cover everything as long as you can maintain at least a 3.2 GPA. You can work part-time teaching kids English classes, and private tutoring in Tier 1 city usually get you about 120RMB, 18 dollar per hour. You don’t need no working permit. China’s judiciary system is defunct and therefore law nonexistent. If you respect the law, well, sucks for you I guess. </p>
<p>The living expense in Beijing for private apartment costs about 3000 RMB a month, convert to dollar it is about 400 dollar a month. I’m talking about PRIVATE apartment with at least 1 bed room, a living room, a kitchen, and a shower place. But if you like to be one of those snobbish foreign expat and decides to separate yourself from the nasty “Chinese” then you are going to rent one of those expensive apartment which can go up to 1000 dollar, 8000 RMB a month.</p>
<p>If you want to do East Asian stuff, you may consider to become a foreign agent or something for American companies. The key is your willingness to relocate and to keep a nomadic life style. My piece of advice here for traveling to China and other third world countries: if you are not sneaky, then you get sneaked by sneakier people, check expiration date for stuff you buy, always bargain, yell loudly, smile all the time.</p>
<p>See pages 14 and 15 of this link for some actual examples of careers pursued by one university’s EALC alumni:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ealc.uiuc.edu/ealc/alumni/newsletter05.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ealc.uiuc.edu/ealc/alumni/newsletter05.pdf</a></p>
<p>Thanks for the help pharmakeus01 and map! now i have something to reference to. Apart from a combined education of Japanese/ Chinese and business/Economics, are there any other reasonable and useful majors i could consider with a language?</p>
<p>You can combine Japanese/Chinese with almost any other area of interest. It is better for you first to think about what you love studying and what you might eventually enjoy doing, and then to think about how you get from one to the other rather than thinking of your major purely in pre-vocational ways. Majors don’t necessarily directly map onto career paths. Don’t forget that courses outside your major and experiences outside the classroom may also prepare you for whatever career path you choose, so you don’t need to focus exclusively on your choice of major when you think about readying yourself for a profession.</p>
<p>BTW, here’s another link listing what alumni who majored in EALC went on to do (see pp. 32-43): </p>
<p><a href=“East Asian Studies | East Asian Studies | Brown University”>East Asian Studies | East Asian Studies | Brown University;