<p>I've just about ended my first year in college. Right now I'm attending a top 15 lac and I've noticed that many of my peers, upperclassmen, and faculty don't seem to be as concerned with the job prospects in the near future. I'm just not sure why this is and I'm wondering if I shouldn't be as worried about getting a job down the road once I graduate. A lot of people I've spoken with plan on majoring in some humanities-related or non-science field (although there's a good amount of people within the science field, too), and I don't mean to come off as offensive but I can't really see those fields as secure routes, economically, even if they end up doing exceptionally well academically or go off to a top law school (which most plan to do). I guess what I'm trying to get at is why exactly is this the case. I understand college isn't all about how much you make and you should be content and satisfied with the field you chose but I've always been worried about my well-being after college, I know I can't rely on my parents to take care of me because we're very poor and I don't want to be part of the whole "under/un-employed" statistic because I chose the wrong major. Right now I'm thinking of majoring in Economics, because I find the subject interesting and I know if I could do well it may lead to me to a better job outlook in the future if I'm lucky, but I'm not naturally good at quantitative things so I struggle often and have to spend quite a bit of time understanding material. Academically, I think I do much better in a field like Rhetoric, Foreign Languages, Politics, History, etc. and I enjoy these fields equally (maybe slightly more than Econ), but I'm worried about finding a job with these fields and I'm not exactly sure what career I might take, perhaps foreign service or international relations, but I end up with the same issues because jobs in those fields are difficult to come by.</p>
<p>Jobs in EVERY field are hard to come by. Engineers are getting out of school, and not getting jobs. Nursing isn’t safe like everyone thinks it is - THOUSANDS of nurses are passing the NCLEX all the time, and there just aren’t the openings. I know two MDs who have quit their jobs to work in a university because of ObamaCare. There are no safe jobs. The job market isn’t really getting better, and it won’t. This isn’t a recession or depression; no civilized society has ever experienced the crash and burn our world is on the verge on. Call me cynical, but start investigating what the experts are saying - the ones who don’t dare get on Fox or CNN - and you will see what I am talking about.</p>
<p>More people are getting the idea, and just majoring in what they want. A degree is better than no degree, and if they would rather learn about da Vinci than the sliding filament theory, they are going to do it. I think education is going to slowly starting to become more of a privledge than a right again, which means humanities will become more popular again, but that’s just me.</p>
<p>Because many students have never worked a day in their lives (especially in the “real world”) so they have no idea what it’ll be like when they graduate.</p>
<p>I’m majoring in TWO of those majors that supposedly won’t get you jobs. I had plenty of offers from contacts I’ve made from working and interning over the last 4+ years. (I’ve chosen grad school instead though)</p>
<p>The economy has changed so much over the past few years that one really can’t plan for what it’s going to be like when they graduate. When I graduated high school in 2007, the economy was in decent shape and I had no thoughts about whether I’d have trouble finding a job when I graduated because everyone else was finding jobs just fine. Flash forward to when I graduated college in 2011, and things weren’t the same.</p>
<p>A lot of top students are little more than professional students, experts at the SAT and midterms, but ignorant as to the economy and the job market. You’re smart to be concerned. Experience not grades will eventually win the day with employers.</p>
<p>I would encourage you to start working with your career center on your resume, be on their mailing list for career fairs and on campus recruiting. Reach out to your school’s alumni to see if you could get some mentoring. To be competitive for jobs after graduation, you will need some good summer internship sophomore and junior years.</p>
<p>OP, is this a post where you try to make the best case you can for an Economics major, while you wait for somebody to tell you to major in something you love because you go to a T15?</p>
<p>Congratulations. You are in luck.</p>
<p>I AM THAT PERSON.</p>
<p>Newsflash: Economics isn’t getting you ****. It certainly has its benefits (aside from being an intrinsically interesting subject), the strongest among which is that it provides you with basic numeracy skills, and that it signals to “employers” and other egregiously misinformed parties that you are practical and thinking seriously about your future. Aside from that, you might as well major in Hamsterology.</p>
<p>Undergrad Econ in the US is hardly different from soc or any other social science. To become a bona fide economist, you need to go to grad school - to go to grad school, you might as well major in math, because to be competitive, you’ll take enough math classes to declare one anyway. To do grad school in a para-economic field, you don’t need to major in economics. Employers legitimately do not care what you majored in. It would therefore follow that, ceteris paribus, an Economics major leaves you no better and no worse off than anything else. Even, you know, STEM majors need to network and intern and get out of the library to get a job - which is overwhelmingly not a STEM job. An engineer that graduated last year is now working in consulting. A physicist I know is singing opera. A math major on my fbook feed is a crew coach. Nobody but you cares what you major in. Of course, if you have aspirations of quantum physics research, don’t major in Medieval Studies. If you hate lab work, don’t major in Physics.</p>
<p>I love my Economics major because it’s easy and the professors are lax about class attendance, so that leaves me a lot of time to look for internship and research opportunities, network, and just, you know, observe life and try to see where the wind is headed. But I have no illusions about “Economics BA” getting me a job. </p>
<p>I would wager that the other students at your university are unconcerned because they’re not snotty freshmen and they have an inkling of what’s up.</p>
<p>Because they are all special snowflakes who were born and bred for success and achievement.</p>
<p>At least that’s what their parents told them.</p>
<p>At most “top N” schools, most of the students come from upper class families. Even if their undergraduate major does not help them in job prospects (and they are not going to graduate or professional school afterward), it is likely that their upper class families can provide a “soft landing” if they graduate unemployed, find only low paying jobs, or need to play the unpaid internship game for some time to get into entry level jobs that they want. Or their upper class families are well connected and can get them on inside tracks to better jobs.</p>
<p>Contrary to what some say above, your choice of major can affect your job prospects at graduation (and not necessarily in the way that people assume – for example, the most popular STEM major has poor job prospects). See the <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys-4.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys-4.html</a> .</p>
<p>If you are majoring as an engineer and have no job offers, that’s your own fault. </p>
<p>Not all majors are created equally when it comes to finding a job.</p>
<p>The most popular STEM major is biology, not some kind of engineering.</p>