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

[ucbalumnus]

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@sakky

Let me put it to you this way: which majors are where the ‘money’ athletes - that is, the football and men’s basketball players - known to congregate? It certainly wasn’t Cognitive Sciences, last time I checked.

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<p>Do you have a full list?</p>

<p>Those in the [football</a> Pac-10 All-Academic team](<a href=“http://www.pac-10.org/News/tabid/863/Article/216028/marecic-mohamed-highlight-pac-10-all-academic-football-team.aspx]football”>http://www.pac-10.org/News/tabid/863/Article/216028/marecic-mohamed-highlight-pac-10-all-academic-football-team.aspx) include two Political Economy majors, and one each Business Administration, Media Studies, and Interdisciplinary Studies. [Men’s</a> basketball](<a href=“http://www.pac-10.org/News/tabid/863/Article/223391/pac-10-names-mens-basketball-all-academic-teams.aspx]Men’s”>http://www.pac-10.org/News/tabid/863/Article/223391/pac-10-names-mens-basketball-all-academic-teams.aspx) had one each in American Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies. Women’s basketball had none. We also know that at least [one</a> football player is in civil engineering](<a href=“http://innovations.coe.berkeley.edu/vol4-issue10-dec10/athletes]one”>http://innovations.coe.berkeley.edu/vol4-issue10-dec10/athletes). But this information is only a small subset of the total.</p>

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@sakky

However, as you correctly pointed out, American Studies & Mass Comm/Media-Studies aren’t even true academic ‘departments’ per se, but rather a mishmash of different courses, often times with little underlying theme amongst them. It’s hard to escape the notion that the true, albeit unstated, purpose of those majors is to provide its students with an easy pathway to a degree.

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<p>Would you say the same thing for the following majors, which are not offered from standalone departments or include collections of courses from other departments as major requirements?</p>

<p>Applied Mathematics
Asian Studies
Chemical Biology
Cognitive Science
Computational Engineering Science (may be discontinued)
Development Studies
Engineering Mathematics
Engineering Physics
Environmental Engineering Science
Environmental Science
Latin American Studies
Middle Eastern Studies
Operations Research and Management Science
Peace and Conflict Studies
Physical Science field major (being discontinued, probably due to unpopularity)
Political Economy
Social Welfare</p>

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@sakky

But they’ll still get a degree and still be eligible for a job that prefers somebody with a degree. And apparently, according to the salary figures, that job will actually pay respectably.

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<p>Guess it depends on what you consider “pay respectably”, especially in the context of cost to attend university. Full in-state price for four years is about $116,000; full out-of-state price for four years is about $204,000. Of course, non-loan financial aid, or using the community college transfer route can reduce these costs. But if someone had to take up a lot of student loans, could they be paid off on the typical pay levels reported in the career survey for the majors in question?</p>

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@sakky

I can certainly think of one guy who majored in one of them (which shall remain unnamed) while working fulltime, and hence never showed up to class except for the first day and during exam days, for which he would take time off from work. Nor did he bother to do much of the reading. He nevertheless not only passed the classes, but got quite strong grades to boot.

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<p>One anecdotal example for one semester’s worth of courses (it is certainly possible that a student repeating already completed AP or other transfer credit could float through a semester doing minimal work)? Did the student do that every semester? Did all or most students in that major that you won’t name do that most of the time, more so than students in other majors?</p>