<p>Funny you mention that list. “English degree” has a terrible reputation. D wants to be an English major. There is a hilarious cartoon-like video on YouTube about a student intending to become a “college professor” in the humanities. We sent it to D and regularly tease her about her it. However, my sister parlayed an English degree into a mighty nice income in the communications department of a large accounting firm. The mother of one of D’s friends used her English degree to become a technical writer. A neighbor’s kid took her English major and used it to snag a job at a bank right out of college where they’re training her up in something (not a teller) and she just moved into her own apartment on her own dime. So if one has no vision, or one’s vision is limited to academia, writing the next Great American Novel or screenplay, or becoming the next Poet Laureate of the United States, I could imagine one ending up in retail with an English degree.</p>
<p>And your job prospects also improve if you’ve had good summer jobs/internships and/or work study during the school year. Even strong ECs can help. </p>
<p>I know English and history majors who rose to leadership positions in ECs who got good jobs out of college, and STEM majors who did diddly-squat in college and are still unemployed. In fact, I know a sociology major who had amazing internships during college who got a great job in NYC – in her field.</p>
<p>Consolation, I’m surprised HR didn’t run their job postings by you. I used to hire copywriters, and we always could change things on the job postings if we wanted to. And although they would pass along a pre-screened group of resumes, if I wanted to see the rejected ones, all I had to do was ask. </p>
<p>And I agree about the degree being irrelevant to the skills needed to be a good writer. One of the best writers I hired only had 2 years of college. But her portfolio was great and she had the tone and style I was looking for. Plus, she seemed like a great fit, personality-wise. Who cares if she went to college? She obviously could do the job.</p>
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I wonder about the sample size.
Hairdressing isn’t a college major. Isn’t that usually taught at hairdressing schools?</p>
<p>Noimagination - yes, hairdressing is vocational training taught at a vocational/technical type school. That’s what he/she was saying. It’s not the same as a degree.</p>
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<p>That’s my point exactly. Hairdressing school is vocational training. College is not.</p>
<p>More funding to the arts wouldn’t help the art jobs… Its just not something people buy into. People pay for clothes and houses and cars and games and phones and apps–but are weary to pay anything over $50 for artwork. I myself would never spend a large amount on art (large being over 250) unless I was making 200,000+ a year. What people need is more appreciation… :</p>
<p>“I know English and history majors who rose to leadership positions in ECs who got good jobs out of college, and STEM majors who did diddly-squat in college and are still unemployed. In fact, I know a sociology major who had amazing internships during college who got a great job in NYC – in her field.”</p>
<p>This may be true, but I think the best is to look for the general rule, not the exceptions.
As a general rule, nowadays the job market rewards some majors more than others… Nowadays, it is more difficult to find college students who graduate with solid quantitative skills than solid soft skills. Because of that, as a general rule, the job market rewards the former types of graduates more than the later types.</p>
<p>Hmm, what if we have an english minor and an engineering major :D</p>
<p>Business and biology should replace two of the ten majors on that list.</p>
<p>Few things can generate more pages of threads on CC than attacking the liberal arts. If I had a $1 for every “I know English and history majors who rose to leadership positions in ECs who got good jobs out of college, and STEM majors who did diddly-squat in college and are still unemployed” I probably could have majored in English and still been OK.</p>
<p>straightshooter - LOL</p>
<p>I must know 25 or 30 English majors between the ages of 25 and 70. Not one of them is working retail and only a couple of them worked retail after graduating from college. All are (or are retired from) rewarding careers that provided comfortable salaries. Maybe if their idea of “comfortable” required an income in excess of $250,000 a year most of them would have been dissatisfied. But not that many people who aspire to membership in the 1% major in English anyway.</p>
<p>I think there should be a distinction made between job prospects right out of college and one’s career. Those who are successful that I know have had such a mix and variety of majors. Those who worked hard, knew their stuff and had the right combinations for success, got their despite their majors in college, and even without college. Those qualities take over in time. </p>
<p>But when you are wet behind the ears college grad looking for a job along with the ranks of all of the other newly graduated kids and others trying to join the workforce, looking for another job, and you don’t have a track record or experience, if you don’t have a skill that is desired, your resume joins the stack with the “others” and it is toughter to find that job. If you are interviewing at a consulting firm that does a lot of derivatives analysis, they are going to be more interested in those who have a major that tells them that you are likely to have had experience in this. If you are an English major who does have some knowledge and took courses covering those areas, make note of it. It’s the specific skill the employer wants, not the major. That’s why kids with certain technical degrees find it a lot easier to get good paying jobs at the onset. THere is a need for those skills and having that degree lets an employer know that the propeleona helmsleyct has a certain knowledge set. Twenty years later, the gung ho, intrepid English majors may well be working a better jobs, more select jobs with more choices, and more pay, but those first few years are rough when your resume looks just like so many others also seeking work.</p>
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Maybe music majors can’t even get the retail jobs.</p>
<p>There aren’t that many music majors. The most common majors at a large arts and sciences university graduation I attended, were hands down, the 3 P’s. Psychology, Philosophy and Political Science. After that came English and some of the other majors so mentioned here. So after graduation the number of newly graduated kids with those majors is going to be a lot. A whole lot. So those majors get mentioned more. </p>
<p>Hunt, love your remark. Hits the mark for my son. He does get the retail jobs as an auditioning artist but he is fired and quits them often as opportunities arise in his field. They have all been unfortunately short lived, but he keeps hoping ot get something in acting. I am waiting for him to run out of all of the retail jobs as he abuses them over the years.</p>
<p>Fine Arts is on the list. Music is one of the Fine Arts.</p>
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<p>About as long as a college degree has been common. This isn’t necessarily bad or good, and certainly not cause for hand-wringing in my view. It’s perfectly natural that college would mean one thing a few generations ago when only a subset of the upper class attended college, and another thing nowadays when college degrees are as common as high-school diplomas were then. Most people have an eye toward earning a living simply because they need to.</p>
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<p>Hmmm, psychology is a common major generally, but is philosophy really that popular? What about the popularity of biology at that university?</p>
<p>Payscale data is very interesting…thanks for the link. Almost all of the top 30 or so paying jobs (for having only a BS degree) are STEM majors. Reading other CC threads, one would be led to believe that there are poor career prospects for Science & Technology majors… I see Chemistry, BioChem, Molecular Bio, Information systems, Geology are listed with decent wages starting and mid-career wages. </p>
<p>I think some collective CC wisdom is questionable!</p>