<p>humanties maors can’t make any money? You guys ever heard of this thing called “law school”?</p>
<p>Good post CCCpremed. That is exactly why my son will be majoring in History or Political Science. He wants to be a great critical thinker, clear and creative writer and wonderful speaker and then go on to law school. =)</p>
<p>Gahh. I hate to be a buzz kill, but there’s an ever-present myth in society that getting a law degree will help you earn big buck$.</p>
<p>There’s an interesting thread over at the law school forum about whether or not it’s worth it to go to a law school ranked under T14, especially in this economy. The main issues are that law salaries are extremely bimodal and that school rankings are very important. Many lawyers fresh out of school will make about 35-50k a year. Fewer lawyers will make over 120k. In both cases your hypothetical lawyer will have about 140k in law school debt.</p>
<p>[Empirical</a> Legal Studies: Distribution of 2006 Starting Salaries: Best Graphic Chart of the Year](<a href=“http://www.elsblog.org/the_empirical_legal_studi/2007/09/distribution-of.html]Empirical”>http://www.elsblog.org/the_empirical_legal_studi/2007/09/distribution-of.html)
[Cemented</a> | MetaFilter](<a href=“http://www.metafilter.com/84497/Cemented]Cemented”>Cemented | MetaFilter)</p>
<p>I’m not trying to discourage anyone from studying law, but unless you get into Yale/Harvard/NYU/Berkeley/UChicago/the like, you’ll need a better motivation for going into law than money. For the record, I am a humanities major, and there are plenty of reasons that are obvious to me for studying literature/philosophy besides immediate pecuniary benefits. But going into those reasons would take way too long… :)</p>
<p>“Gahh. I hate to be a buzz kill, but there’s an ever-present myth in society that getting a law degree will help you earn big buck$.”</p>
<p>My son is not going into law for the money but…</p>
<p>The last time I checked my three friends who are all lawyers and in their forties, who by the way none of them went to the top 15 law schools were all making over 250K per year. One of the three is making over 350K per year. Not bad eh???</p>
<p>“…and in their forties…”</p>
<p>You just hit it right on the head. I don’t know what the climate was like for law school grads ~20 years ago, but I’m pretty sure it was a lot less competitive and overcrowded than it is now.</p>
<p>And if your friends have their own private practices, their salaries can depend greatly on their salesmanship abilities in attracting/maintaining clients (which seem to be great by the way). Big firms have significantly cut back on hiring. Graduates of top schools and toppers-of-their-class elsewhere are taking up government and P.D jobs that they otherwise wouldn’t have, pushing out the rest into contractual or paralegal type work…</p>
<p>[I’m studying for the LSAT, and I’m watching these trends with a sense of dread].</p>
<p>Just looked up starting, mid and late salary’s and lawyers who do not work in the public sector have some of the highest salary’s and the forecast is that will continue. There will always be market as long as we keep populating. There may be a little turn down right now due to the economy, but it’s like that in all markets and that will turn.</p>
<p>You are correct about private practice and salesmanship, but that isn’t a problem for most lawyers due to the fact that (not all) are very savvy and make excellent sales men/women. Especially the ones that go into private practice and own their own practice.</p>
<p>I do agree also, that many who do not have the outgoing, suave, salesmanship personality should be careful thinking they will make millions in law. They will need to be happy in the public sector making less.(perhaps those should think twice, but great lawyers make excellent money). It’s like all jobs, the cream of the crop get paid the most.</p>
<p>Good luck kevercho you can do it!!!</p>
<p>It has been mentioned on cc several times that math, science, engineering and other quantitative majors actually are some of the best scorers on the LSAT. Law school is not the domain of history and english majors only!</p>
<p>[Average</a> LSAT Scores for 29 Majors with over 400 Students Taking the Exam](<a href=“http://www.uic.edu/cba/cba-depts/economics/undergrad/table.htm]Average”>Business | University of Illinois Chicago)</p>
<p>The perception that students of quantitative majors lack communicative skills is just wrong. I have seen four years of engineering students compiling papers that were so large as to require binding and making oral presentations lasting upwards of an hour. Just doing my part to refute the “nerdy, antisocial” perception of these people. :)</p>
<p>lfk,</p>
<p>That is a very good point. I think that there are many different majors that one can enter into and then go on to law, but one must admit that the LSAT only gets your foot in the door to law school. There is much more that goes into making a good lawyer. Social skills tend to be very important in many of the jobs that relate to law.</p>
<p>As an English major, I definitely have to reply to this thread. Honestly, the more I progress in my classes the more I realize how much English really is a useful degree. Don’t believe me? Just read Smart Moves for Liberal Arts Grads…</p>
<p>but anyways. English/humanities is valuable for a number of reasons. We learn how to think critically and analytically. We learn different ways of reading a text…reading for comprehension, analysis, or even for style. We learn how to write clearly, a skill which is invaluable in almost all job settings. Generally, we learn how to communicate effectively, a necessary skill for any job. </p>
<p>Also, I would say aspects of studying literature are truly interdisciplinary. We learn cultural context, history, and philosophy when we read literature. We also talk about psychology, sociology, anthropology. Essentially all aspects of humanities and social sciences are explored in the English major. </p>
<p>Sure, humanities majors don’t come away from college with a definite, finite career path. Instead, we have loads of options. Remember that many entry level positions simply require a college degree. Personally, I’d hate to go through college as an accounting major, and then realize I hate accounting outside of the academy.</p>
<p>Ok, so a science major may make more money than me. But I have a passion for English, I really enjoy what I do, and I know it’s a very valuable degree to have in the long run.</p>
<p>The Princeton Review:
“We can’t overestimate the value of a Classics major. Check this out: according to Association of American Medical Colleges, students who major or double-major in Classics have a better success rate getting into medical school than do students who concentrate solely in biology, microbiology, and other branches of science. Crazy, huh? Furthermore, according to Harvard Magazine, Classics majors (and math majors) have the highest success rates of any majors in law school. Believe it or not: political science, economics, and pre-law majors lag fairly far behind. Even furthermore, Classics majors consistently have some of the highest scores on GREs of all undergraduates.” </p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://puffin.creighton.edu/clc/Student_page/careers.html]Careers[/url”>http://puffin.creighton.edu/clc/Student_page/careers.html]Careers[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Not to attack any humanities majors (I have utmost respect for english and history), however, it’s been mentioned that a humanities major teaches critical thinking, while this may be true, I think this also applies to science and math majors. Think about it a second, what good would a physicist or engineer or chemist etc. be if they could not think critically? Science relies on being able to isolate problems and solve them; if this isn’t critical thinking, what is?
Secondly, math teaches communication and creativity; last semester I had an analysis professor who would ask us to prove each statement in at least two different nontrivial ways; this relies on being able to identify the inner workings of the problem and being able to think in two opposing ways. Then to write a clear proof requires a good amount of writing skill, as a confusing proof is as good as none at all.
Critical thinking is a staple of pretty much every college major; who would go to college if they only learned facts which they could teach themselves?</p>
<p>Hello all. I graduated Harvard in 05 with a English b.a. During that time, I received a lot of opinions about my future and how I wasn’t going to have a “lucrative” career. However, two years after graduation, I was scouted by a top educational institution outside of the States. I currently sit as the chair of the English department at that very institution. I make a combined income of 300 grand. Now, Bill Gates still makes more, but I would consider that lucrative, considering that I have weekends off and work six hours a day. Don’t be discouraged is my advice for all. This site is MOST helpful with stats PERIOD(.)</p>
<p>You graduated with a degree in English from Harvard, yet your grammar is atrocious. Lovely.</p>
<p>in the short run humanitites majors do often get a lot of crap of the you’llnever be able to get a good job with that major type thing, or zthe idea athat you have to be so much brainier to study theoretical physics or or organic chemistry than anthropology or french. </p>
<p>But in the long term? humanities rule. STEM people are brilliant in their way, no doubt about it. but the decisions that shape how their discoveries are made and used in society are not thiers. its all those anthropoligists and poli sci majors and english students and writers and artists (the antennae of the race james joyce called them) that pull the strings. its usually everybody EXCEPT scientists who put their brilliant discoveries at the service (or disservice) of mankind. einstein may have come up with the theory of relativity, but it was a button salesman from missouri that decided to drop the atom bomb. ok, maybe not the nicest example, but you get my point.</p>
<p>And what major, may I ask, are you in? Your spelling certainly does not lend credibility to your argument.
Also, there is definitely a distinction even among humanities about which fields require the most talent: the purest first. English and History certainly rank first among the humanities, just as Mathematics and Physics (theoretical) are the harder of the sciences. Although Mathematics isn’t exactly a science, since the purer side has no base in empirical data.</p>
<p>“English and History certainly rank first among the humanities”</p>
<p>That’s debatable. I’d say Philosophy and Classics, although personally I prefer studying English.</p>
<p>Let me say this: On college campuses, there is a pervasive view that liberal arts are a great prep. for the real world, and that majoring in liberal arts will make you employable in a fast changing economy by giving you transferable, life skills. (If you’ve never heard this, you haven’t visited your career center/ advisement center too much). Check out these sites:</p>
<p>[Liberal</a> Arts](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>Career Search - BigFuture | College Board)
[Liberal</a> Arts: What Can I Do with a Liberal Arts Degree](<a href=“thehighschoolgraduate.com - This website is for sale! - thehighschoolgraduate Resources and Information.”>thehighschoolgraduate.com - This website is for sale! - thehighschoolgraduate Resources and Information.)</p>
<p>There’s much more on the internet if you’re willing to look. BUT… I don’t believe that these people are in touch with reality. I believe only in primary research, so bear with me now:
Take a look at monster.com, one of the internet’s best job search sites. Read the job postings. Almost every job for entry level college grads specifies a major, or group of majors. I have not yet seen one asking for a liberal arts major. So stop saying that only passion counts, or that what you major in as an undergrad doesn’t matter. It does, if you care about having more than bread and butter. And, I have to say, most people on this forum do care. And so that’s why we look upon career-oriented majors with more respect.</p>
<p><a href=“%5Burl=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063523759-post37.html]#37[/url]”>quote</a> BUT… I don’t believe that these people are in touch with reality. I believe only in primary research, so bear with me now:
Take a look at monster.com, one of the internet’s best job search sites…
[/quote]
Be careful…abscence of evidence is not evidence.</p>
<p>Occupational Outlook Quarterly (Winter 2007–08): [What</a> can I do with my liberal arts degree?](<a href=“http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2007/winter/art01.pdf]What”>http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2007/winter/art01.pdf):</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
I can’t resist…
<a href=“http://content.spencerstuart.com/sswebsite/pdf/lib/2005_CEO_Study_JS.pdf#nameddest=edu[/url]”>http://content.spencerstuart.com/sswebsite/pdf/lib/2005_CEO_Study_JS.pdf#nameddest=edu</a>
Leading CEOs: A Statistical Snapshot of S&P 500 Leaders
February 2006
For the past nine years, Spencer Stuart has conducted research on the developmental background and professional experience of the CEOs of leading companies in the U.S. This year our research was conducted among CEOs of S&P 500 companies.
Most Common Undergraduate Degrees Received
TOP 100:
Engineering - 22%
Business Administration - 21%
Liberal Arts - 8%
Economics - 9%
Accounting - 3%</p>
<p>TOP 500:
Engineering - 20%
Business Administration - 15%
Liberal Arts - 9%
Economics - 11%
Accounting - 7%</p>
<p>To noimagination: Thanx for the link. Very interesting.</p>
<p>To StitchInTime: Your link does provide interesting information. And you make a good point, that absence of evidence is not evidence. I stand corrected. I should not say with certainty that majoring in liberal arts is not as good as the hard sciences/professional majors. </p>
<p>All I can say is that given the uncertainty involved, I feel more comfortable doing something that provides a more stable situation. Indeed, anything is possible, and surely one can succeed in the most unlikely ways, with the right amount of luck and determination. And it’s not like the sciences, etc. provides any guarantees.
It is very difficult to measure these things correctly. Studies often conflict, and all to often raise correlation/causation and self-selection questions. Sterile environments in which to test the outcomes of different degree holders do not exist. Thus, the poor college student is left to measure every unreliable study out there, and then take a leap of faith. </p>
<p>With this in mind, maybe it all comes down to “investment styles.” Some of us are more conservative investors (of our college tuition, foregone earnings, and best years), and some are risk takers. To each his/her own. I do not know what the best course of action is. And I do not know if it’s possible to know. Maybe if I was a liberal arts major I’d know how to think through such thorny life-decisions! (LOL)</p>