<p>It is unfortunate that passion is always revolves around art and music. Never in my life once heard that someone is passionate about engineering, medicine, business or law. They go in for the $$$.</p>
<p>Re: #39</p>
<p>That is probably why, as college selectivity and prestige go down, more overtly pre-professional degrees tend to get more common.</p>
<p>Yet another reason why I tell folks not to incur debt in pursuing a degree in the arts. If you are good enough to succeed in these fields, you are good enough to get merit scholarships. D has her BM and MM, is debt free and happily making a good living in music alone. (teaching and performing)
Keep passionate about your art, but realistic about your finances and you will do just fine in any of the fields listed. (AND work harder than anyone else you have ever met)</p>
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<p>The best engineers, physicians, businesspeople, and lawyers are passionate about their work.</p>
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<p>College should improve your job prospects. That is not what vocational training is. Learning to be a plumber or electrician is vocational training. A non vocational college degree does not prepare students for a specific job. Students must be prepared to market themselves to employers NOT their degrees. </p>
<p>The reason so many liberal arts degrees are on the list above may be related to students being unwilling, or unable to market themselves to employers because they think that getting a degree as an English major requires their job to be related to what they studied in college. English majors can excel in advertising, technical writing, online help desks, etcā¦However, they have to be willing to see their job prospects broadly.</p>
<p>A friend of mine is 25 years old. She is a theater major. She continues to audition for shows but she also obtained a good job working for a bank in their fraud prevention department. Being a theater major is not the limiting factor. The limiting factor is the person. As long as people are willing to market themselves they can get a job. It just might not be a job directly related to their major.</p>
<p>I agree UCBAlumnus^ NONE of the successful engineers, physicians, businesspeople, and lawyers that I know went in it for the money.</p>
<p>^Yes!! Comment #41 is very cynical. You need passion and creativity to succeed in whatever youāre doing. I work in a medical field and absolutely these people are passionate about what they do.</p>
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<p>Well, I very definitely know businesspeople, physicians and lawyers who went in for the money. (Although not all. Some actually love medicine or the law.)</p>
<p>The engineers have tended to be more uniformly passionate. :)</p>
<p>"I agree UCBAlumnus^ NONE of the successful engineers, physicians, businesspeople, and lawyers that I know went in it for the money. "</p>
<p>engineers, physicians, businesspeople, and lawyers that you know, but not those that I know.</p>
<p>I know ---- but the handful TRULY successful** businesspeople, physicians and lawyers I know are uniformly passionate about what they do and the money is secondary. Not much different from the truly successful artists and performers I know. I am a busineessperson in it for the money. I have always felt that I would have a lot more of it if I was passionate about it.</p>
<p>**Successful being the operative word.</p>
<p>romanigypsyeyes:</p>
<p>āSo you WILL pay $80k knowing that itās likely that sheāll work in retail? You donāt know if sheāll ever find a teaching job. Iām confused.ā</p>
<p>No, I will pay $80K for a major thatās on this list because while I know that itās possible that she will work retail for a while - eventually she WILL land a job in music education.</p>
<p>If you read through my posts you will see that I was addressing the question about college being vocational training. I believe it IS vocational training - otherwise, I would not invest in it. āJust to have a good time and expand your mind and learn a lotā is not a good enough reason to drop $80,000. To have a good time, expand your mind and learn a lot towards a high risk field - but actually TOWARDS a high risk field that is your PASSION is a good reason to invest, IMO. College IS vocational training. Thatās where the $80,000 statement came in.</p>
<p>Sorry if itās difficult to follow - but the comment I made was directed specifically at someone elseās post about college being vocational training.</p>
<p>I support going into the arts (obviously - given my D is a music major), as long as you understand the risks, and temper them in whatever way is comfortable for you (Music EDUCATION major). Studying the arts, and then suddenly being surprised when the pay is low - thatās a different matter. Itās a risk.</p>
<p>Hunt: āMy 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.ā</p>
<p>I understand COMPLETELY. ;)</p>
<p>I fully expect my D will go to grad school in music.</p>
<p>Proudparent: āWhile 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.ā</p>
<p>Ahhhh, I see what youāre saying. Thanks for the distinction. And I wish it were that simple. As someone else has posted - a lot of HR departments have become VERY exclusive. Our HR department looks for TWO degrees. If you donāt have one of the two, your resume goes in the trash, and you never even get an interview. That practice is more common than you might think.</p>
<p>āIt is unfortunate that passion is always revolves around art and music. Never in my life once heard that someone is passionate about engineering, medicine, business or law. They go in for the $$$.ā</p>
<p>Absolutely untrue - there are MANY people who are very passionate about ALL of the above.</p>
<p>I know a lot of doctors and medical researchers that go into their field because they are VERY passionate about their cause.</p>
<p>There are engineers that are EXTREMELY passionate about making things bigger (or often smaller), faster, stronger, new and improved. They get very excited about innovation.</p>
<p>I know lawyers that have a ācauseā that fires them up. Many are advocates for children, etc.</p>
<p>Cāmon - there are passionate people in every degree plan and every profession.</p>
<p>Hunt: āOne reason I feel (reasonably) confident in urging my son to pursue music is that heās coming from a very good program, and it looks like doors will open for him. Iād probably feel differently if he were elsewhere.ā</p>
<p>This is especially true in music performance degrees!</p>
<p>In my experience, most HR departments are filled with people who donāt really understand what is needed to do the job in question. If a company is unfortunate enough to have an HR department serve as filter between the hiring manager and the candidate, it becomes much more difficult for the hiring manager to see the kind of people s/he wants to hire.</p>
<p>I used to be in technical communications. I hired a lot of technical writers. The most important skills and characteristics were the ability to write well, the ability to analyze a problem or process and think clearly and logically, the ability to establish relationships with and earn the respect of developers, the ability to understand the needs of the user (which are frequently of little concern to the developers), the ability to extract information from recalcitrant programmers with marginal communication skills, and a love of and aptitude for ongoing learning. I cannot tell you how often Iāve seen ads for technical writers that specify an undergraduate degree that at a stroke eliminates from consideration MOST of the people possessing all of these things in abundance. The other thing that made me want to pound my head on the wall were the ads specifying which word-processing programs the writer had to know. Get this, HR drones: if the writer is too dumb to quickly master another publishing package, s/he is ALSO too dumb to quickly master the software that our company writes!</p>
<p>I have never experienced HR as anything other than an impediment.</p>
<p>Surprised that journalism was not in the list. Journalist was the lowest paid career in a list I read.</p>
<p>tigerdad, the criterion for getting on the list was majors where you ended up working in retail and not even using your degree</p>
<p>Lots of talk about music majors, but I didnāt see music on the list?? Or is it lumped under something else?</p>
<p>My advice to my kids was to follow their interests. Dās BA degree is one few would even understand (and HR extraction software would pass over). And yes, she did work retail for 9 months. When she got a job, it was a darn good one ā¦ she earns more than I do. S is studying biology, and that is just fine. He doesnāt even know what he wants to do when he grows up (well, he really wants to play in a metal band, but he also knows he canāt live in our basement when heās 30!). Iām not worried. He will figure it all out.</p>
<p>I work at a graduate-only, studio-based art/architecture college now. Guess what? Our grads DO earn a living, and our loan default rate is miniscule.</p>
<p>Of course, I advocate prudent borrowing for college, regardless of major.</p>