<p>One of my teachers told us that his kids have to get a marketable before he would pay for a none science degree. </p>
<p>As for me, I myself love the arts. I love art history and I deeply regret not taking any studio art classes in high school. However, I am also a huge STEM person and I want my child to be so as well. One of my plans is to get my child hooked on the sciences early on through Magic School Bus or Bill Nye as well as taking him/her on nature walks to study the world around her. Hopefully with my encouragement at an early age, I could increase the chances of her going to a STEM major due to free choice. But if I fail, I would like to do the same as my teacher.</p>
<p>Canāt say that our āmarketable majorā list is set in stone, but in paying for any education (in this initial case an Ivy / very expensive one), weāre not looking to have our house fill up again with college grads who canāt find a job. </p>
<p>As parents, we all realize that our children want to follow their dreams, but I think that itās our responsibility to make sure that they choose a reasonable path to reach those dreams. I also realize that what kids want upon graduating high school isnāt often what they want 2,3,4 years later, so we should realize that and try to help them āstack the oddsā in their favor.</p>
<p>For example, āI want to major in film-makingā would be unacceptable, but double majoring in business / film-making, or major in business + minor in film-making, would be reasonable. A bachelors in film-making or equivalent would get most grads a low pay or unpaid internship somewhere (or a Starbucks job), whereas a business degree (with film-making minor) would more likely get them into the field they want or a related fieldā¦if they still even want it then.</p>
<p>Basically if my child wants to pick an āunmarketableā major %-wise, then team it with a marketable one so he/she doesnāt end up unemployed or underemployed as so many recent grads are currently (ie, who were the bulk of the Occupy Wall Street protesters in NYC appx 18 months ago?). </p>
<p>Not that DS is choosing film-making as a major, but if he was Iād try to stack the deck in his favor against all the other like graduates by him having a marketable major in addition.</p>
<p>To answer (partially) poster #220ās question, hereās a quick google of marketable and unmarketable majors:</p>
<p>Poster #222 wrote: āIf enough people say āNo English Lit, no Art History, no Russian Studiesā, weāll certainly be an even dumber country than we are now!ā</p>
<p>Iām not saying a lack of these majors will or wonāt dumb down the country. Iām saying that the bulk of these kids in the above majors wonāt find a job in their field. Theyāll end up Asst Manager in a Dicks Sporting Goods and not using that English Lit knowledge.</p>
<p>Students need to at least try and stack the deck in their favor if theyāre going to choose a major thatās got a very high unemployment rate.</p>
<p>My niece just graduated from a top 20 public university last month with a double major in English Lit and Art Historyā¦no job. So sheās taking LSAT, planning a gap year, and wants to spend more $ and take out more loans to go to law school in another year (yet another field that has too many graduates and not enough jobs). Aarrrrgh!</p>
<p>My cousins son graduated with a degree in film making. Heās in LA gainfully employed creating content for a web site. Heās actually been hired away from the first company he worked at so he seems pretty marketable at this point, notwithstanding his lack of a business minor. As mythmom says, itās not the major that lands the job, itās the kid.</p>
<p>āJobā and ājob in their fieldā are very different things. If the student would rather major in English Lit knowing full well that post-graduation heās going to be Assistant Manager at Dickās Sporting Goods, and thatās a job that can support him, and he consciously chooses this over majoring in business with its attendant benefits - what then?</p>
<p>A question that in my mind is related - suppose the choice is something like this. Student has a choice between great film school and great business school. Full ride (tuition, room, board) merit at film school (substitute your choice of useless major) or full pay at business school (substitute your choice of marketable major). Assume both admissions are to the major, and the award is lost if the student changes majors. What then?</p>
<p>"If enough people say āNo English Lit, no Art History, no Russian Studiesā, weāll certainly be an even dumber country than we are now! "</p>
<p>I donāt think ādumberā is the right word. Sadder, maybe. Less enriched. Less well-rounded. Less entertained. Less challenged to see things as others do. Lessā¦many things.</p>
<p>Most of my daughterās dance teachers also dance professionally and Iāve seen them in productions. I canāt dance a step, and itās a real thrill to see a gifted dancer perform with the passion that drives them. Some of them teach dance as their only other source of income, others work other jobs in other fields. But what a terrible loss if we discouraged all such performers from even trying!</p>
<p>The same goes for the great musicians I know, like my Hās nephew. Yes, he waits tables to make ends meet. But thatās because he prefers to put his real effort into writing and performing his music, which was his major. He has not lived at home for quite some time now.</p>
<p>And my BIL was a āstarving actorā for awhile, after majoring in drama in college. And he certainly had lean times. But heās won awards and makes far more than my H with his āunmarketableā major. </p>
<p>And then thereās art. My grandmother was an artist-studied with some of the best of her time. While I didnāt inherit her talent, I appreciate a beautiful painting vs. a blank wall any day. </p>
<p>We canāt ALL be STEM or business majors and the world certainly needs more than those narrow career paths. Any effort, well done, is worthy. Maybe artsy kids donāt WANT to live back home and WANT to make their own way, even if it IS waiting tables! FWIW, my nephewās people skills have him fighting off job offers in anything related to dealing with the public. He waits tables because itās compatible with his ārealā job.</p>
<p>And of course, the kid who is forced to become a business major and hates it and is terrible at it is going to get a great job because JP Morgan is just dying to hire a kid with a 2.6 GPA who was miserable with his major.</p>
<p>I guess kids at 17 are not supposed to dream? Iām referring to the implication that majoring in film is useless. Tell that to JJ Abrams ("Star Trek "among many huge money makers), who studied film at Sarah Lawrence. Who DOES get to pursue those very competitive and highly lucrative careers? Just the independently wealthy?</p>
<p>What bothers me is the implication that you must major in something that will immediately set you up for a good living straight out of college, thus any major that doesnāt ensure that is a forbidden choice. The implication goes further to paint jobs such as barista at Starbucks, waiting tables, working retail as equivalent to āunemployedā. </p>
<p>But they ARENāT. My sister waited tables and made enough money to help with the down payment on a house. My niece worked retail for several years after college until her marketing career took off, and SHE just bought a house. The assistant pastor at the church where I work is a barista, while he works towards his own congregation. These jobs may not be cool or popular, but they ARENāT useless can pay a living wage while working towards a higher goal.</p>
<p>re post # 230: I didnāt say that a film-making career was an impossibility, nor is any other high-chance-of-unemployment or high-chance-of-not-getting-decent-job-in-that-field major.</p>
<p>I pointed out that as a parent I (we all) should help stack the deck in our childās favor by influencing toward a double major or other combination that includes a more marketable field of study (too) in this tough economy.</p>
<p>Every parent thinks their kid is special, and that he/she will be that 1 in 100 kid that makes it big in film-making or art or poetry or? I hope that happens, but itās my job as a parent to help stack that deck to make them (1) more marketable in one of those fields than the next person, and/or (2) give them an alternative (via dual degree with 2nd one being more ātraditionally marketableā beyond a Starbucks job) if that dream field doesnāt work out for them.</p>
<p>Hereās an interesting tidbit from an online article posted today, and I donāt want my child being one of these statistics (only 58.6% of US adult population has a job as of today): [Recession</a> ended 4 years ago: How far have we come? - Economy](<a href=āhttp://economy.money.cnn.com/2013/06/04/recession-ended-4-years-ago/?iid=HP_LN]Recessionā>http://economy.money.cnn.com/2013/06/04/recession-ended-4-years-ago/?iid=HP_LN) ā¦ key point in it is āThe jobs recovery has not been as robust. Rather, itās been a slow, long haul. As the chart above shows, the U.S. economy lost nearly 8.8 million jobs between January 2008 and February 2010, but has since gained back only about 6.2 million jobs.
Meanwhile, the population has grown, and some jobseekers have given up. As of April, 58.6% of the adult U.S. population had a job. The rate has barely budged in the last three years, and the last time it was that low was in 1983.ā</p>
<p>What does that 58.6 percent mean and where does that statistic come from? None of my retired friends have jobs, neither does my wife for that matter (other than in the home) but she isnāt looking either. So sort of a strange stat without clarification.</p>
<p>Film is a huge industry. Iām pretty sure folks can find gainful employment.</p>
<p>The truth is that with outsourcing and a decline in manufacturing we just have fewer jobs. Period. Many entry level jobs are sent overseas.</p>
<p>My kids both had AP sciences and calc and very accretive grades in science/math courses in college, but I couldnāt get them to pursue this. As for business? Their dad owned a business and they spent a lot of time working for him. They saw that this is a difficult was of life. Corporate life seems like itās just making money for rich people. </p>
<p>Like me, each of them wants to spend his/her days doing something to contribute to human life on our planet. If life here becomes mere serfdom to rich people and they have to be part of that Iām confident that their intelligence, manners and competence will eventually land them a job in the corporate sector.</p>
<p>However, since I am a happy academic at work at my trade for 32 years, I canāt blame them for wanting to do the same thing. Of course I want them to try.</p>
<p>We did agree on no unfounded PhDās.</p>
<p>As for Art History, beyond academics there are lucrative careers at auction houses and doing appraisals. Makes money for rich people. There are less lucrative careers at galleries ( unless one gets to own one) and museums. It is not a dead end major, but the kid does have to have the push to get involved.</p>
<p>Bovertine - Not sure where the 58.6% adultās employed stat comes from, I just linked to the cnn.money article above as theyāre usually pretty legit. </p>
<p>Summarizing, and even accounting for retirees (if theyāre inadvertently included in that calculation), I think the point is that (1) this economy is still so-so at best job-wise, and (2) having a marketable degree is definitely helpful versus the alternative.</p>
<p>" but itās my job as a parent to help stack that deck to make them (1) more marketable in one of those fields than the next person, "</p>
<p>But what if they have no interest or ability in those stacked fields? Or they just donāt WANT to do what you say? My D is a great dancer but sheās not great enough to make it a career. I know that-I DONāT think sheās that special. But-my BIL WAS, and his parents allowed him to pursue acting. Iāve seen him act. The world is a better place for it. Interestingly enough, he has to manage some business components of his union. And heās managed to do so without having his MBA.</p>
<p>As others have said, itās the PERSON, not the MAJOR that will get a creative type ahead.</p>
<p>Ivy, if you are smart enough to predict what will be āmarketableā four years hence, you should be working at a hedge fund.</p>
<p>Nobody can see ābustsā ahead of time. Who knew that skilled contractors and architects and anyone else in the building trades, and real estate development companies, and bankers who lend money to large commercial projects, etc. would face a stretch of long unemployment after 2008? Certainly not the parents encouraging their kids to get degrees in construction management and real estate development and architecture and what-not. Who knew that the e-commerce degrees that were so popular in the late 1990ās would become toxic after the 2001 tech bust? </p>
<p>The only thing not going way is the need for new grads who can write and think. Preferably at the same time. Give me the top History major at Princeton over a mediocre finance major (anywhere) and I will find that kid a job.</p>
<p>Yes, the denominator includes retirees and others not in the labor force (e.g. home makers, students). It does not mean that the unemployment rate is 41.4%. The denominator is the civilian noninstitutional population (i.e. not in the military, and not in institutions like prison).</p>
<p>Civilian noninstitutional population = 245,175
Civilian labor force = 155,238 = 63.3% of civilian noninstitutional population
Employed = 143,579 = 58.6% of civilian noninstitutional population = 92.5% of civilian labor force (meaning 7.5% U3 unemployment)
Not in labor force = 89,936</p>
<p>Of course, variations in economic conditions can cause some people to enter or leave the labor force. [Bureau</a> of Labor Statistics Data](<a href=āhttp://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000]Bureauā>http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000) indicates that the labor force participation rate has fallen from 66.4% in January 2007 to 63.3% in April 2013.</p>
<p>It is also important to figure out how to classify folks who are employed part-time or not employed. Some are CHOOSING to be working part-time while others have given up the job hunt and others canāt find any job that they are qualified for and can get hired to do. I am working part-time by choice. </p>
<p>I know many young adults (and many not so young) who would MUCH prefer to work full-time and get benefits but their employers prefer to only hire them part-time and not pay any benefits. I admit that I only hire part-time with no benefits because our organization has very few resources.</p>
<p>I think that we live in a world where many people have more than one career and we certainly live in a world where new technology can quickly make what we learn in a college classroom obsolete. Just think about what my peers who were computer science majors learned in school 35 + years ago! </p>
<p>So in the end, much of what remains important in what we are learn in college are the strategies and skills we learn to help us problem solve, plan, analyze and apply knoweldge in an ever-changing world. Adaptablility, working in groups, gaining confidence and becoming a leader are all skills that can be honed in college, as well.</p>
<p>And those skills can be learned with just about any major. As many have said, it is the person who gets the job, not the major.</p>
<p>I worked doing marketing for many years and never took a marketing class as an undergrad. What I learned on the job was immeasurably valuable. When I began to take MBA classes later in my career, I ultimately dropped out, because the text book cases I was learning were nothing like the reality of my job. It was more productive for me to remain at my job, than to leave early to attend classes. I am not saying there isnāt a value to an MBA, but I did get to be good at marketing with my English degree, good writing skills and a willingness to learn on the job.</p>