What major at CAL is most successful at its respective purpose?

[ucbalumnus]

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@sakky

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.

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<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>