I was looking at Amherst graduates and it seems only few end up working in fields related to their majors. What’s the reason? Do people loose their passion, can’t find jobs or realize they picked wrong major? I understand life can take you to diffrent paths and people change but why an overwhelming majority?
People who are studying humanities typically are in college for the educational benefits, not for vocational training.
Google and Apple do not have pressing staffing needs for Renaissance literature scholars or Gaelic Studies experts.
Not easy to make a living with an undergraduate degree in the humanities. So students shift orientation upon graduation, still using their humanities education to enter graduate school or professional programs.
I am a psychology (not humanities, but not exactly pre-professional) major turned tax CPA. My major is 100% relevant to my career.
Or they get perfectly good post-college jobs without grad school.
And pick up important job-qualifiying skills without the need for formal instruction.
Just proof that a college major doesn’t have to be tied to career outcomes. College can be about a life of the mind and developing critical thinking and other lifelong skills and you can still be readily employable in a range of fields. Many choose a major that interests them not because they tie it to a job.
Liberal arts graduates learn critical thinking, research, communication skills, etc.
My D (history) did college internships in broadcast news. After graduation she ended up working in the finance industry doing corporate communication, including responding to media requests for interviews. Her company is transferring her to their London office - London is where she did her study abroad (focusing on Arabic and Middle Eastern studies) and her responsibilities in London include communication for their middle eastern offices. She is thrilled.
I studied an interdisciplinary major combining Religious Studies, Art History, and History, and have had a successful career in IT as the industry evolved… My clients appreciate the fact that I can clearly communicate technical information in language they can understand. I joke that my background in studying Ancient Greek qualifies me to learn any programming language.
I have no regrets over what I studied in college - I followed my interests and received an excellent education.
When I was at the Amherst info session, the admissions person joked that LACs ‘teach you nothing, but prepare you for everything!’. I think his point was that a pre-professional or vocational type major is not necessary to find gainful employment. LACs teach you how to think, write analyze, which are valued by employers and are not taught on the job. He went on to say that a financial employer was recruiting on campus and they were most interested in students who were good writers. So that is how a Renaissance Lit major ends up in consulting, or a poly sci major ends up in PR, or an Art history major ends up at Google.
There are relatively few jobs that are major-specific to many humanities majors* (and that applies to some other majors as well). Students not in majors with strong major-specific job prospects need to seek jobs in the general bachelor’s degree job market, where the higher level general thinking skills are presumably used and valued. (Unfortunately, there are also many less fulfilling bachelor’s degree jobs where the degree is merely a check box requirement, and neither higher level general thinking skills nor any major-specific skills or knowledge is needed.)
*Teaching the subject is obviously major-specific, but not everyone wants to go in that direction, or can get there in the case of becoming college faculty which is highly competitive.
@calmom I get that but totally abandoning the field that you loved and studied for random vocations doesn’t sound like much fun.
@CupCakeMuffins Well, people do say that college is the time where you get to explore what you think you want to do for a career but it’s not 100% definite.
You can continue to love it (through hobbies, travel, etc.) even if it’s not your career. My kid was an astrophysics major but surprised us all deciding senior year that grad school wasn’t an interest. She took a job loosely related to astrophysics, but mostly software engineering. 3 years later she’s a google software engineer and perfectly happy. It’s not like the degree goes to waste; the rigorous preparation and analytical thinking prepared her well. (She had exactly one CS course in college, but did lots of programming. Not an uncommon situation for STEM people, even today).
if you want a career in the humanities you will need a Ph.D. That will prepare you for an academic life, most likely as an adjunct instructor trying to cobble together a living teaching at several schools at the same time. A lucky few will get a tenure track position and possible ultimately get tenure.
CupCakeMuffins, students don’t always study the humanities to stay in the field. I remember another quote from an Amherst info session, that college is a place to make your mind an interesting and comfortable place for the rest of your life. English, history, or philosophy majors- to pick a few- can continue to read in their field for the rest of their lives.
In the meantime, they have been trained as generalists.
I think that those with narrower vocational training may find a job more quickly directly out of school, but humanities majors often do well in the longer term, ending up in management for instance. The writing, reading, research and analysis skills are valuable in many contexts.
They don’t end up in “random vocations.” Many, even most, end up in jobs that fit them well.
@MrElonMusk Agreed. I just found majority abandoning their majors a bit surprising. I wouldn’t if those weren’t top students getting a degree from prestigious college. I thought it happens mostly to average students from no name colleges as they don’t have many choices so they go where life shoves them.
Or a teaching credential to teach the subject in high school (typically English, foreign languages, history, or art). A small number of other jobs may be associated with specific humanities majors (e.g. art history major working in an art museum).
@TomSrOfBoston Yeah but there are other options , for example a theater major can do a lot of jobs related to theater, even teaching theater at high school sounds more fulfilling for a theater lover than pharmaceutical sales.
I graduated with a BSW and spent 30 years as a commerical lender. Go figure.
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Degrees_that_Pay_you_Back-sort.html suggests that many humanities majors are high-Gini in terms of career financial outcomes. The most financially successful (90th percentile mid-career) from almost all (including humanities) majors do well*, but the least financially successful (10th percentile mid-career) humanities majors tend to cluster at the bottom.
*They do well in a realistic sense, not the inflated “upper middle class who does not get financial aid” standard sometimes found on these forums.