<p>^^^Very good post. I agree with what you wrote.</p>
<p>100k/yr job for anthro majors - maybe post some of those, probably more than a few takers. “options” in life aren’t just confined to work, but if you don’t solve the issue of livelihood you’ll access fewer “options” in the rest of your life (work = 40 hrs/wk, the rest = ?). as for education not being relevant to job descriptions at an earlier age than college, that’s not a virtue - it’s part of our problem. in europe, even high school grads are way ahead of americans in terms of career preparedness because their system is geared to what happens to them after graduation. of course plato didn’t have to deal with job descriptions, but no worries - that’s the level we’re still educating kids in today’s world. small wonder social security is bankrupt.</p>
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<p>Would most Anthropology majors enjoy working as accountants, though? It seems like quite a leap to go from learning about cultures and history to crunching numbers. I would guess that most people who enjoy crunching numbers are already in number-crunching majors (business, accounting, the sciences.)</p>
<p>^I agree. I am also curious why is it that engineering, business, science cannot analyze and think as well as liberal arts majors ?</p>
<p>It’s not that engineering and science types can’t analyze and think, but I think it’s a different kind of thinking that liberal arts majors get more exposure to as part of their schooling.</p>
<p>My boss once said something that I think is relevant: “At some point you have to decide if you want a job or a career.” </p>
<p>I know people who have jobs that are “just jobs” . . . They work so they can live, not because they love their job. They are not necessarily unhappy with their jobs. Many are perfectly content working “the grind” every day and then spending their off time doing what they love–rock climbing, tennis, marathons, art, or what have you. </p>
<p>On the other hand, some people have careers that they are passionate about and may even devote a lot of their free time to. They are the ones who “pursue their dreams”, so to speak.</p>
<p>There is no wage or status correlation between the categories, incidentally. There are “just jobs” that pay minimum wage and “just jobs” that pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are careers that allow people to afford that huge house and fancy car and careers where you barely scrape by and put in crazy amounts of overtime without receiving anything but personal satisfaction.</p>
<p>I think liberal arts majors have a tough road to hoe because the things they are passionate about generally have a limited number of careers available. Counselors can reassure students that there are “tons of options” for History majors, but how many options are there that focus on HISTORY? I can come up with a few–historian, archivist, archaeologist–but once you start including jobs like “public relations” or “accounting”–well, those are going to be “just jobs” for someone passionate about history.</p>
<p>The fact is the “careers” for many majors in the liberals arts genre are difficult to get into and/or do not pay a lot. My sister is a librarian and had to get a masters degree in order to get a library job that pays little. I’ve known other library science majors and their struggles to find work after graduation have been extended and terrible. There are not that many libraries, (a lot less than insurance companies or bank branches for example), and librarians don’t retire or create new job openings that often. Mind you, the liberal arts aren’t the only ones with this problem. Competition in the field of wildlife biology is so fierce that you need a bachelors degree to qualifty for a lot of the seasonal, minimum wage summer jobs. It is amazing to read ads that offer [$8</a> an hour for a BS applicant](<a href=“http://www.wfsc.tamu.edu/jobboard/display.cfm?Jobno=19677]$8”>Home - Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management), but that wage is not uncommon.</p>
<p>I’m not saying people shouldn’t major in these things . . . or that they should shun low-paying careers . . . or that it’s wrong to get a job you don’t really care about and pursue your interests in your spare time. There is no moral right or wrong here. It’s just something to think about when considering the future and plotting your path.</p>
<p>this thread is dying with everybody set in their views (what else is new). below something we all know anyway, but supports that if your kid majors in something “qualitative”, at least encourage s/he minor in something “quantitative”. think of it as well-rounded…</p>
<p>Most Lucrative College Degrees<br>
Math majors don’t always get much respect on college campuses, but fat post-grad wallets should be enough to give them a boost. </p>
<p>The top 15 highest-earning college degrees all have one thing in common – math skills. That’s according to a recent survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which tracks college graduates’ job offers.</p>
<p>“Math is at the crux of who gets paid,” said Ed Koc, director of research at NACE. “If you have those skills, you are an extremely valuable asset. We don’t generate enough people like that in this country.”</p>
<p>This year Rochester Institute of Technology hosted recruiters from defense-industry firms like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, as well as other big companies like Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson. </p>
<p>“The tech fields are what’s driving salaries and offers, and the top students are faring quite well,” said Emanuel Contomanolis, who runs RIT’s career center. Specifically, engineering diplomas account for 12 of the 15 the top-paying majors. NACE collects its data by surveying 200 college career centers. </p>
<p>Energy is the key.
Petroleum engineering was by far highest-paying degree, with an average starting offer of $83,121, thanks to that resource’s growing scarcity. Graduates with these degrees generally find work locating oil and gas reservoirs, or in developing ways to bring those resources to the Earth’s surface. “Exploration for new energy sources is high,” Koc said. “The oil and gas industry has done relatively well the past year, even though oil prices are off right now.” Other highly-paid engineering majors include chemical engineers, who employ their skills to make everything from plastics to fuel cells and have an average starting offer of $64,902. Mining engineers start at $64,404 on average, while computer engineers, who have an expertise in both coding and electrical engineering, pocket roughly $61,738 their first year out of school.</p>
<p>Left behind.
Of course, not every student with an engineering degree will score a fat paycheck. RIT’s Contomanolis noted that “average” graduates are feeling the pinch of fewer job offers. Still, in a tough job market, graduates with technology degrees have an advantage.
“It’s a tech-driven world, and demand [for engineers] is only going to grow,” said Farnoosh Torabi, employment expert and Quicken blog editor. "You can’t say that about many fields, especially in a recession."Perhaps that’s why more and more college students are picking their majors based on a field’s earning power, ultimately “choosing a major that pays,” Torabi said. </p>
<p>Top non-engineering fields.
Only three of the 15 top paying degrees were outside the field of engineering – but they each still require math skills. For computer science majors, who specialize in programming and software, the average salary was $61,407. Graduates with degrees in actuarial science took home about $56,320; and jobs for students in construction management paid about $53,199. Each of these fields has paid well throughout the years, Koc said.</p>
<p>What happened to well-rounded?
There are far fewer people graduating with math-based majors, compared to their liberal-arts counterparts, which is why they are paid at such a premium. The fields of engineering and computer science each make up about 4% of all college graduates, while social science and history each comprise 16%, Koc noted.</p>
<p>As a result, salaries for graduates who studied fields like social work command tiny paychecks, somewhere in the vicinity of $29,000. English, foreign language and communications majors make about $35,000, Koc said.</p>
<p>“It’s a supply and demand issue,” he added. “So few grads offer math skills, and those who can are rewarded.”</p>
<p>People are going to college for their individual reasons. I did not miss my “whole college experience”. I was very happy working, leaving very comfortably in a nice house with my family instead of dorms and going to school while my various employers paid my salary and my college tuition. I wend to school for two reasons: because it was free for me and because it provided me with job security. Unexpected benefits of going to college for me were learning a lot about how economy works by taking a lot of business classes, meeting interesting people and just having fun and enjoy the whole experience that enriched my life considerably. However, other people experiences, including my children are different and I do not see any reason to argue about it. One point though is that going to college goal should include to be able to support yourself and should be considered while choosing major. I am glad that both of my children did. S pursue of carier of Graphic Designer instead of Art degree and D is a pre-med instead of Marine Biologists. We considered it parents responsibility to make sure to discuss job market situation before spending family resources and many years of life developing skills that might not be in a great demand.</p>
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<p>The “dismal” salaries that people complain about, for the liberal arts, usually top out around $60,000. Clearly we are very different people if we think that $60,000 - or even a starting salary of around $30,000 per year - is not a livelihood. And that’s okay. I’m probably never going to make more than $75,000 per year. My starting salary will probably be $30,000. $30,000 is a crapload of money. My family makes just over $20,000 and we have five people - not just one. It’s a manner of thinking. I’d rather be happy with my job and make $30,000 than hate my job and make $100,000, or be “okay” with my job and make $50,000. Some people want to make a lot of money. Some people would rather enjoy that 25% of their working life. The two aren’t always separate entities, either.</p>
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<p>This is where we will have to agree to disagree. I don’t understand the infatuation with literally wanting to spend the first 22 years of life preparing for work, and then the next 45 years doing that work. To me, there is much more to life and education than preparing for the workforce.</p>
<p>^You do not need to pay college tuition and live in horrible conditions to be engaged in “much more to life and education than preparing for the workforce”. Why to do so? Actually you do not need to go to college even for preparing for the workforce, only if you need more security. Otherwise, there is nothing wrong with flipping hamburgers for the rest of your life or do some illegal activity if you assume that you will never be caught. We are in free country (so far, anyway, cannot assume about tomorrow).</p>
<p>Naturally summed up my thoughts very well. (BTW, the Ivy anthropology grad eventually went onto law school.)</p>
<p>I would add that I think one of my roles as a parent is to make sure my sons understand the consequences of their choice of major. For instance, we live in an affluent area, and my older son is considering teaching high school history as a possible career. My husband and I are absolutely fine with that choice, but we’ve made sure that our son understands that he won’t be able to afford to live in the kind of neighborhood he’s grown up in if he goes that route. </p>
<p>I would never insist that my child study a subject in college that he dislikes, only that he make his plans with his eyes wide open. And I feel that many college students aren’t given the information – by their families or their colleges – to plan properly.</p>
<p>“…many college students aren’t given the information – by their families or their colleges – to plan properly.”</p>
<p>correcto. and as i see it, it’s entirely up to the parents. colleges don’t level with their incoming students as to future employment prospects for certain departments. subjects that have no correspondence to the job market still need bodies to enroll every year, otherwise why have the department? so go ahead…encourage your kid to major in anthro or greek civ or whatever, but prepare them earlier how NOT to live in a style they can never again afford.</p>