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As a result, this list only covers graduates who either couldn’t pursue advanced degrees or chose not to do so. This is still something worth thinking about before pursuing one of these majors, but but the listing is misleading.</p>
<p>Political science, business, communications, psychology,sociology are all such common majors that finding work specific in those fields without some needed skiil set or certification that finding jobs just with those degrees is not easy. The same with many of the humanities , social sciences area majors. It’s all a matter of supply and demand.</p>
<p>Really, unless a student takes certain courses to gain a skill and some knowledge that is needed in the market, the major doesn’t matter. An English major who took enough accounting courses to be able to work at an accounting firm and soon able to take the CPA exam would be in good shape as would the Philosphy major who could also do regression models. If you have enough programming courses to be useful to a company, they don’t care what your major was.</p>
<p>Oh look, another list that tells me I’m in a useless major. Yippie. It never gets old.</p>
<p>Usually art major is really competitive. If you got commissioned, great. If not, well… I used to be an art major too (not fine arts and some graphic design but mostly specializing in 3D stuff), but after 1 year at college, I started to realized that the classes don’t really teach me much but only teaches me on how to use software mostly, which is something that can be done by buying a book your own, or go online, instead of paying like 40000 a year for it. They sometimes give you some of their idea toward my projects, but those advices still dont worth that much. Besides, the instructor mostly directs us to go online himself. What is the difference between self teaching yourself then ?</p>
<p>Also, design can never really be taught, it is something in you. My art projects’ designs are all from my own concept and none of them came from instructors. Why I change my major is because I think I should major in something practical as a back up, then self teach myself more with cheaper ways and since I have a talent in art.</p>
<p>You have to take it all with a grain of salt too. For example:</p>
<p>My D - the music education major: She chose music education rather than performance to give her more flexibility/diversity. Virtually the same music courses are required for both, but you cannot teach public school without the education portion. Might she have to work in retail until she and fiance find jobs in the same general location? Yep. But it WILL happen eventually. It doesn’t usually pay great - but it’s her passion - so there ya go. You kind of know going in that there’s a reason for the old adage, “starving artist”.</p>
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<p>Agree with you!</p>
<p>When did college become vocational school?</p>
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<p>Not true in all fields.</p>
<p>I’m a science writer. Some science writers have science degrees and have picked up their writing skills on the job. Others have journalism or communications degrees and have picked up their knowledge of science on the job. After a few years, both types of people can do the job equally well.</p>
<p>There are some companies, however, that will only consider people from one of these two backgrounds. If you didn’t have the “right” major, your resume will never get beyond HR.</p>
<p>Proudpatriot - Really? Realistically, I am all for expanding the mind - and there are a million ways to do that, but I am not going to drop $80,000 so that my kid can spend 4 years “expanding her mind” and get out of college and work in retail for the rest of her life.</p>
<p>Of course college is supposed to be a wonderful experience and expose you to new things and teach you how to really think. It’s also supposed to prepare you for entering the job market.</p>
<p>And the hard cold facts are that there are some degrees that are more marketable in the working world than are others.</p>
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<p>“There are some companies, however, that will only consider people from one of these two backgrounds. If you didn’t have the “right” major, your resume will never get beyond HR.”</p>
<p>This has ABSOLUTELY been my experience. Even for part-time, temporary, entry level in my field.</p>
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<p>Perhaps, cro, there are. But there is zero guarantee that the anthro major will work retail while the engineer scores a big bucks job right away. Your education is what you make of it. The anthro major can easily be more successful than the STEM major if that’s his/her passion and they used their undergrad years wisely. </p>
<p>There is NO way of predicting whether or not your anthro child or engineering child will work in retail which is why these lists are really pointless IMO.</p>
<p>The reality is that many parents will be on their knees praying that their kid gets out of college in 4 years or so with any major and in good health and stead. That in itself is an accomplishment on a student’s part and blessing to the parent. Then worry about Part 2, the job with a degree in the pocket. Check mark for college grad.</p>
<p>romanigypsyeyes:</p>
<p>That’s why I said before that you have to take these things with a grain of salt. It’s just statistics, and that’s all. Passion plays a part, tenacity plays a part, etc. Everyone is an individual. ;)</p>
<p>Knowing about these statistics ahead of time, I’m still the one that told my D, “I cannot IMAGINE you majoring in anything but music. And I cannot IMAGINE you working in any vocation other than teaching music.” She has many talents, and she’s extremely bright. She could do ANYTHING she wanted to do. It’s just that this is what she really really wants to do. It’s her passion. She’ll never be rich monetarily, but that doesn’t really seem to matter as much.</p>
<p>All of that being said - I STILL think college is training for a VOCATION. I expect that she will use her degree in just that way.</p>
<p>Personally, I think the answer is a combination of the two. My true passion is the liberal arts, but I plan on going in as a double degree of engineering and art history, and maybe take business courses in the summer. If you want to go into a liberal arts, supplement it with a minor in business or a technology field to make yourself more marketable. Just my two cents.</p>
<p>So you WILL pay $80k knowing that it’s likely that she’ll work in retail? You don’t know if she’ll ever find a teaching job. I’m confused.</p>
<p>My son is a music major. I find myself in the somewhat odd situation of urging him to go to grad school in music, and not to law school. I think he has a gift that he should pursue, even if he ends up making less money.</p>
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<p>However, such skills are not exclusive to students in those majors (and English majors are often students who avoid any kind of quantitative or logical thinking courses, so they may not exercise those thinking skills, unlike philosophy majors).</p>
<p>The English major averages may also be dragged down by students who have not figured out what they want to do, but “backed into” the English major because it was their favorite subject in high school.</p>
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<p>Preparing a student for a the job market is not the same thing as vocational training. A person with training in hair dressing is a hairdresser. The training that person undergoes is vocational training and prepares that person for a job as a hair dresser. </p>
<p>While a college degree should prepare a student for the job market it does not prepare them to do a specific, well defined job, unless the degree path is a career oriented degree. College graduates have to market themselves NOT their degree.</p>
<p>Something else that occurs to me is that there may be majors that provide good job prospects (without advanced degrees) across a wider spectrum of undergrad colleges than others. Thus, an accounting degree from XYZ state may be a lot better than an English degree from the same school, while both degrees may have similar job prospects from more selective schools. One reason I feel (reasonably) confident in urging my son to pursue music is that he’s coming from a very good program, and it looks like doors will open for him. I’d probably feel differently if he were elsewhere.</p>
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<p>Realistically, most people would not pay money and time to go to college if they did not believe that having a college degree improved their job prospects. This has been true for a long time.</p>