<p>According to the Career Center surveys from</a> here...</p>
<p>Haas kids regularly manage to break into Investment Banking and Big 4 Accounting.</p>
<p>Political Science kids have a good track record of getting into solid law schools.</p>
<p>EECS majors are getting some of the best / highest paid jobs in their field.</p>
<p>MCB majors getting into lots of good medical schools.</p>
<p>Which majors do you think are, on average, the most successful in their respective fields? IMO, I would say the heaviest-hitting majors which "feed" into CC-defined success are Econ, Haas, MCB, Poli Sci, EECS/CS, Chem (engineering or not). Size, and the nature of the majors themselves are probably the main reasons why this is the case. In addition, kids with different motivations will pursue different fields.</p>
<p>But you can argue that forestry is the most successful, because everyone ends up in the Harvard position of their field (you get the idea).</p>
<p>Since there is absolutely no credible evidence/survey which we can go by, I'm just curious based on what you've seen/experienced. The Career Center survey, while telling, is not entirely credible because of the response rates. In addition, "success" itself is vague so I'm just looking for opinions. Disclaimer: I'm actually considering many outright "useless" majors, and I'm just curious.</p>
<p>Chemistry and Chemical Biology majors have a much worse time in the job market than Chemical Engineering majors.</p>
<p>The career surveys indicate that the ratio of job finders to those still seeking employment is much better for Chemical Engineering majors than either Chemistry or Chemical Biology majors.</p>
<p>While 2009 and 2010 do not have pay rate data for Chemistry and Chemical Biology, the pay rate data in the 2003-2006, 2007, and 2008 career surveys show that these two majors getting pay rates comparable to biology and humanities majors.</p>
<p>Why are MCB and Political Science majors “successful” overall? While they have a large number of medical and law school matriculants listed, remember that both of these majors are huge. Only 27% of MCB graduates are going to graduate school; the rest face a job market where the job finders found average pay of $40,398. Yes, those going to medical school are successful, but only 27 out of the 217 survey respondents reported going on to study toward an MD degree (plus 4 each in dentistry, optometry, and pharmacy).</p>
<p>While the Berkeley career survey has its limitations, it provides far more data than the complete absence of career surveys found at most other universities.</p>
<p>Ucbalumnus, when you compare chemistry and chemical biology with chemical engineering, you have to keep in mind the enormous mindset difference between chemists and chemical engineers. </p>
<p>The goals of the two departments are completely different. The chemistry department does not care AT ALL about producing graduates that immediately find lucrative industry jobs with high-paying salaries; the whole point of the chem/chembio program is to produce students that are ready to perform world class research at the TOP PhD programs (with insanely low starting salaries). By contrast, a large part of the chemE program is preparation for industrial work, so it’s no real surprise that chemE grads have more success in the job market and have higher starting salaries. </p>
<p>Anyways, my point is that caltanner’s question is “What major at CAL is most successful at its RESPECTIVE PURPOSE?” Since Berkeley chemistry undergrads regularly go to the top PhD programs in the country, I believe that the chemistry department wholeheartedly deserves its place alongside the chemical engineering department as one of the most successful programs at Cal.</p>
<p>It depends how you depend a successful major. One way to define is the median/average salary and rate of employment after graduating and it’s hard to argue against EECS. If it’s about grad school admission rate, well…</p>
<p>The 2010 career survey had 55% of Chemistry graduates going to graduate school. But it also had 40% of Chemical Engineering graduates going to graduate school, mostly to study toward a PhD in Chemical Engineering.</p>
<p>So it seems that Chemical Engineering graduates have the option of either going to graduate school in the subject, or going to work in a well paying job in industry, and a substantial number choose the former despite opportunities in the latter. The Chemistry percentage to graduate school may be higher simply because job and career prospects are so poor at the bachelor’s degree level (one can observe this in Civil Engineering for 2010 – many graduates, seeing the dismal job and career prospects in 2009, applied to graduate school and ended up going to graduate school in greater numbers than in previous classes).</p>
<p>I don’t know about you guys, but when I (and most of the people I know) think of the best and most successful programs at Berkeley, it’s gotta be Haas/Business and Chemical Engineering (but generally engineering in general). This is coming from an intended Poli Sci major.</p>
<p>I think EECS because they revolutionized computers. Most of the advances in technology have some sort of connection back to EECS. A lot of references in academic papers to berkeely eccs since that is where the theory began.</p>
<p>I don’t think poli sci is that successful since I don’t see many people in powerful positions in politics that came from berkeley. No presidents. </p>
<p>I don’t keep track of ChemE but they make bank right out of grad.</p>
<p>I propose that majors such as American Studies, Mass Comm, and Legal Studies are some of the most ‘successful’ majors in terms of accomplishing their ‘true’ goals - which seems to be having its students obtain easy degrees that require very little work, while still obtaining respectable starting salaries and grad school placements. In other words, success for those majors could be measured in terms of efficiency - the ratio of payoff vs. effort required to complete the major, with that ratio apparently being very high, chiefly because the denominator is so small. </p>
<p>For example, Legal Studies majors during the past years have been admitted to such law schools as Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Berkeley, Columbia, NYU, and Duke. Even those Legal Studies majors who don’t go to law school but instead head straight to the workforce still make starting salaries that are significantly higher than that of the MCB majors, which is surely one of the least efficient majors.</p>
<p>Not sure why you picked Mass Communications or Media Studies as “efficient”, since the graduate school rate has been 11% or less in all years of the career survey since 2003. And not that many report a top 14 law school as the graduate school destination. American Studies is similar in that respect.</p>
<p>Legal Studies’ graduate school rate ranges from 8% to 29%, with a lot going to law school, but many of the law school matriculants are heading to lesser known law schools (law graduate employment prospects are very dependent on the prestige of the law school – “top 14 or bust”).</p>
<p>Molecular and Cell Biology is probably one of the “least efficient” majors by your measure. That other majors have pay rates higher than Molecular and Cell Biology says less about those majors than it says about the job and career prospects of the majority of Molecular and Cell Biology graduates who do not go to professional school.</p>
<p>But why didn’t you mention Business Administration as being an “efficient” major by your measure? In Business Week’s ranking of undergraduate business schools, they mention that [url=<a href=“http://images.businessweek.com/slideshows/20110227/best-undergraduate-business-schools-2011/slides/14]Haas”>http://images.businessweek.com/slideshows/20110227/best-undergraduate-business-schools-2011/slides/14]Haas</a> students study only 12.8 hours per week<a href=“presumably%20outside%20of%20class,%20so%20a%20total%20of%2027.8%20hours%20per%20week%20if%20you%20add%2015%20hours%20per%20week%20of%20class%20time%20for%20a%2015%20unit%20course%20load”>/url</a>. Since a 1 unit is supposed to indicate 3 hours of work per week of time spent including class time and outside of class work (i.e. 45 hours per week for a 15 unit course load), that would indicate that Business Administration students are getting away with a light workload while getting significantly better job and career prospects than other social studies majors (few go to graduate school, but the few does include some going to law school, including top 14 law schools). Perhaps that is why it is so popular.</p>
<p>For those who like math and are good at it, Applied Mathematics is likely to be “efficient” by your measure. Relatively light major requirements, usually without time consuming lab courses (though that depends on which applied area), but pretty good placement and pay rates.</p>
<p>If anyone can get into Harvard, Yale, Stanford, or Columbia Law School, that’s impressive, regardless if he/she majored in an “easy” subject. All those schools require astronomical LSAT scores, so clearly those Legal Studies majors put in A LOT of work to get those scores (unless they were URMs). </p>
<p>In fact majoring in an “easy” studies major may be a smart idea. Since the workload isn’t that heavy, you can volunteer, do a multitude of internships, use your GPA as leverage for applying to jobs, and most importantly, you have much more time to devote to the LSAT.</p>
<p>Most people have a very skewed image of Berkeley. They think that Berkeley undergrad across all majors is very difficult, so having a 4.0 in Legal Studies will create the facade to an employer that you’re some kind of genius/hard worker.</p>
<p>Because those majors require very little work to complete, yet nevertheless apparently exhibit reasonable salaries, and even the opportunity for grad school for some of its students. These majors are therefore highly ‘efficient’, and - although the administrators will never admit it - I suspect efficiency is the true goal of those majors. </p>
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<p>Haas is indeed highly efficient…presuming that you can get into the major in the first place. Many people however will not. Mass Comm is also an impacted major, but is surely easier to get into than is Haas, and American Studies and Legal Studies exhibit no impaction problems. For the efficiency construct to be meaningful, it should include the work and risk associated with getting into the major in the first place, and should also incorporate what happens to those students who spend time to complete the work necessary to enter the major, but still don’t make it in. </p>
<p>I also strongly suspect that much of the ‘success’ of Haas graduates stems from the selection effect of simply being allowed to cherry-pick the most capable and most talented students into the major - it’s unclear exactly how much additional value the major provides. {Note, I’m sure that it provides some value, but exactly how much it provides vs. how much stems from the selection process is difficult to determine.} All of the benefit from Legal Studies and American Studies and much of the benefit of Mass Comm can be traced to the majors themselves.</p>
<p>Did they? I have always felt that the LSAT score was far more of a function of pure talent combined with general reading and literary knowledge, which is difficult to change. {Let’s face it - if you haven’t developed extensive reading comprehension skills by the time you finish high school, you still probably aren’t going to have them by the time you finish college.} That is why I can think of quite a few people who scored high practice LSAT scores while still college freshmen or even while still in high school. The LSAT is not akin to the MCAT; flipping through the LSAT practice materials, I find little that would be quickly learned and improved through college studies. {In contrast, the MCAT tests specific topics that you are supposed to learn in your premed coursework.}</p>
<p>“Better than Molecular and Cell Biology” does not mean that good a pay rate for bachelor’s degree graduates in Legal Studies, Media Studies, or American Studies.</p>
<p>Based on your measure, it would appear the Cognitive Science, History, Interdisciplinary Studies, Linguistics, Political Economy, and Political Science all do as well as or better than your three example majors, based on the 2010 career survey. Or do you suggest that workload is significantly greater for these majors?</p>
<p>But Applied Mathematics still appears to be the “most efficient” by your measure for any student good at math.</p>
<p>I am. None of them - perhaps with the exception of interdisciplinary studies - has a reputation of being a creampuff major. Granted, they may be relatively easy majors, but the ‘Studies’ majors (and Mass Comm) surely are the most egregious examples of creampuff majors, where you truly can do next to nothing and still graduate. </p>
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<p>Sure, but how many people are actually ‘good at math’? By that argument, any major is easy to anybody who happens to be good at it. A software superstar would probably find the CS major to be highly efficient. </p>
<p>Ease of a major is most salient when you examine students who are not naturally gifted in that major. Let’s face it - even somebody who is not naturally inclined towards American Studies is still surely going to pass the major.</p>
<p>And I think that highlights one of the main reasons why I don’t consider Haas to be a highly efficient major. While bus-ad courses may not require extensive work outside of the classroom, many of them nevertheless place heavy weighting upon class participation and even attendance, hence requiring that you actually show up. In contrast, you can skip courses in the creampuff majors for weeks at a time, and can still get decent grades anyway.</p>
<p>From where do you get these reputations, besides your own claims? I do not recall hearing of any majors within the humanities or social studies (including business) areas having a particularly easy reputation compared to others in the same area, although the general reputation was that they were generally less work and less difficult than science or engineering majors (though not for everyone, since some engineering majors got worse grades in their humanities and social studies courses than in their engineering courses).</p>
<p>Also, the American Studies major is mostly composed of courses in other departments, while Media Studies / Mass Communications and Legal Studies have significant requirements of courses in other departments for their majors. So if they are considered “creampuff” majors, wouldn’t the other departments whose courses are used by these majors also be considered equally “creampuff” majors?</p>
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<p>That doesn’t mean that they will graduate with a GPA high enough to get into a top 14 law school, or be looked at favorably by a university considering an application for a second bachelor’s degree if the student decides that some other subject is a better fit.</p>