I have no idea what I'm going to major in. I'm really in the dark right now, but luckily this is only my first semester of college. Right now I feel like I'd enjoy majoring in geography, but what can you use it for? Of course every major I think about declaring I always think it will end up being 'useless'.
I majored in Neuroscience (aka Clinical Psyche). My job? I trade energy.....for now Just get the degree, experience as many things as possible in your 4-5 years of college, and go to class when possible.
I'm currently in Neuroscience third year. It's like psych with the really hard science GEs tacked onto it. All I can wonder in my spare time is what kind of job I can do without being in a lab...
It was a cool degree and I worked in a rat lab at Vandy for a year after graduation, but I got burned out shooting up mice with drugs and then slicing their brains to see what sort of effects were occuring... Wasnt saying Neuroscience is useless, just saying that the degree you have doesn't necessarily lead you to your career. Neuroscience degree got me a bunch of sales interviews with pharm companies also. They love the science geeks, esp if you have any sales instincts. So you dont have to be in a lab.
People are trying to say business degrees aren't good?? All I know is that when companies recruit, they go to the business school. When people get internships, they all are business majors. Now I DID work with a couple of people who did not have business majors, but they were rare. Most people I worked with had a business major in accounting, management, or finance, with a couple MIS and marketing majors. Also, phsyc isn't a real good substitute for marketing...marketing is not equal to advertising, advertising is a small part of marketing. Most marketing is actually a ton of research and statistics...quite quanitative actually. The one major that I can really think of that actually teaches you what job you will have is accounting. My finace is an accounting major and she is specializing in tax. When she gets out her job will have a lot to do with what she learned. My major is Management, and it actually is pretty good in the fact that it gives you an overview of a little bit of everything...and landed me a job. Now I understand that not all people go to college to get a job, but most do. I'm not sure that the argument that college did not used to be about getting a job holds water. Most college educated people 40 years ago (when it was a lot rarer) ended up with better jobs...that's why they went. Anyways...as far as useless...how about English majors? Anybody know an English major that isn't a teacher?
I agree. It's a fascinating major to work with. But on the flipside, I really hate Organic chemistry (plus labs), and I realize that research isn't made for me. It's funny. My parents suggested pharmacy because of my apathy for any kind of hard work. It's not a cake walk, but they know I probably won't pull in the effort needed to be a doctor, which I've told them. Pharmacy sounds like a solid goal. Maybe their jobs have internet access...
Yes. I did a double major in English and History. I am not, and will never be, a teacher. My friend Siobhan did the same thing: she is a researcher for an investment bank in London (although she did continue and get an MA in History). My manager at the library I work at also did a BA in English. She is not a teacher. (Aside: another manager at the library has an MA in *Middle High German*. Now even *I* think that's obscure, but she did pretty well with it...)
Well, I basically said they weren't real degrees. They are too limited and don't really teach how to think, etc. Sorry, that is wrong. Read some of the business statements above - they go all over. Also wrong. Internships go accross the board. Do you really believe the stuff you are writing? Your experience must be limited. Just in my wife's company there is a broad range. She was a liberal arts manager and now makes six figures as a software architect/programmer for a major company. Most of the higher ups in her department - those who have been promoted most...do not have business/technical degrees. There have been all sorts of things written by CEO's, etc, lamenting the state of college education. One guy described it pretty well when he said something along the lines of business degrees are great for getting a job early, but usually others (liberal arts, etc) do better once in the job because they are more well rounded - better communicators, critical thinkers, etc. I tend to think exec people in the business world know better, so I defer to them. Plenty - a few work with my wife, I know another who used to work in the IT department for Continental and now is some kind of consultant, etc.
I didn't say it was the same, I said psych could traslate well to marketing because there is a common base of dealing with human behavior, at least in part. (And, for the record, psychology actually has a ton of researh and statistics, too. I was thinking about it in a Marketing Research context, not an advertising context). I was basing that on my experience in marketing and advertising (I was a business major in my first run through college, and I'm taking advertising classes this time around. Plus, I've worked in Marketing Communications in the past). It was Psychology that I was guessing on (I only took one Psych class, and I hated it. Makes me wonder how my Mom could not only get her BA in Psych, but also an MA and most of a PhD before switching to get a Masters of Library Science degree in order to get a job she wanted).
My advice is do both. Study liberal arts or whatever you most like. If you've got the time and or money view college as a 5 or 6 year deal. Do extra liberal arts with the engineering or business degree if those fields interest you. From personal experience I can tell you that getting an engineering degree that doesn't particularly interest you is not the road to riches if by the time you finish you can't get yourself to actually work in the field. If it is one of the less marketable degrees like history, sociology, philosophy etc, that turns you on, study it, but you need to be realistic. If you're not an ivy league PhD,a total workaholic with great pr skills that allow you to beat out the hundreds of other applicants don't put all your eggs in the college teaching basket. Consider law school, a masters in social work, public school teaching, a career in library science or something that will pay the bills. Relax you can still be "intellectual" even if you don't teach in college. I have watched several friends ( and their spouses!!) have real struggles into their mid 40's trying to make a living from part time college teaching of these fields, when they couldn't get a full time college teaching job due to the glut. Some of them after eventually getting a full-time job at Extreme Podunk U. out in the middle of nowhere have gotten tired of the low pay and the frustrated office politics played by embittered types with chips on their shoulders who never thought they would have to wind up stuck at Extreme Podunk U. for their entire careers.
With a psyche-based major, I have held the following jobs: Lab rat in rat lab by day, bartender by night - one year hiatus to wander Asia and Europe- Sales manager for computer reseller Marketing and advertising manager of same reseller IT manager for scanning project (I bs-ed my way into this one) Finanical Analyst Scheduler and Trader of Natural Gas its not a worthless degree. you just gotta sell yourself in the interview process...
I have a Kinesiology major with an English minor. I teach English, P.E. team sports, and coach basketball (afterschool schedule conflicts do not allow for any other sports, although before my divorce, I had coached football, golf, and softball as well). I used to have a minor is computer science, but I dropped it when I saw the job market, especially in the Rio Grande Valley. Worst degree??? I would say sociology.
2 scenes from PCU jump out at me after reading this thread... DROZ: Major? STUDENT #1: Sanskrit. DROZ: Sanskrit? You're majoring in a 10,000 year old dead language? ... All right. Here's Latin. It's the best I can do... [to student #2] Major? STUDENT #2: Phys ed. DROZ: Phys Ed... All right, get out. Right now. DROZ: PIGMAN! TOM: What's he doing? DROZ: He's finishing his senior thesis. Pigman is trying to prove the "Caine-Hackman Theory". No matter what time it is, 24 hours a day, you can find a Michael Caine or Gene Hackman movie playing on TV. Tom: That's his thesis? Droz: Yes! That's the beauty of college these days, Tommy! You can major in GameBoy if you know how to bulls**t!
I guess you could say that my experience is limited, I have worked for only one company so far, and I guess there are some people who don't have business degrees that work there, but the majority do. Plus when colleges recriut they usually do recruit from the business school of a University. A MAJORITY of people that go into business come out of business school. Not all however. I'm just saying you would have a better chance. Plus I don't think business degrees are too limited, most colleges require all sorts of humanities and international classes along with them...I've had everything from Biology to Peoples and Cultures of the World, only about half my classes have actually been business classes. If you want to go into business, why would a business degree be limiting...if you were to get an English degree, most of your classes would be English classes...thats pretty limiting. If you majored in Art, most classes would be in Art, not all, but most. If you majored in Chemistry, most of your classes are in chemistry... I don't see how majoring in business would be more limiting than that... And just because you have a few quotes from some people saying that liberal arts is good, they aren't saying liberal arts is the only thing that's good. One of the guys is from Anderson...first, I would bet that 90% of the people that Anderson hired had accounting degrees...they're a darn accounting firm. Or where...if you had a guy from PWC or D&T, they might say the same thing, but in practice they would hire accountants or MIS majors for their consulting and accounting.
Considering that one needs 30 hours of accounting (and 150 hours overall these days) to become a CPA, I would venture to guess that you are right in that Andersen hired a lot of accounting majors. I have found, though, that business degrees can be more limiting in terms of the breadth of classes available. I know several business schools require a larger number of hours in business (a business core, plus the requirements of the major) than the same school would require History classes for a history major. For example, the University of Texas at Arlington (I use them as an example because I happen to have thier catalog handy since that's where I'm taking my Ad classes) requires a 45 hour business core, 30 hours of a Concentration from one of the business disciplines and Advanced College of Business Electives (not to mention they have their own Business Social Science class), so out of a 128 credit hour degree, 75 of the hours (really 78) are in the College of Business. Since 50 hours make up the University core, the entire degree plan (aside from picking a major and getting to decide on a few business electives) is decided for the business major. There isn't much opportunity to explore For an Advertising major, only 39 hours are taken in the Communications department. For a Political Science degree, only 36 hours of Poli Sci are required (including the 6 hours that everybody has to take). An English major has to take 42 hours (including the 9 hours that everybody at the University has to take). So, if I'm an advertising major, I have only 99 hours total decided for me (between the major requirements and the University core), so I could go and explore some other areas which interest me in order to accumulate the other 29 hours I need to graduate. I'm not saying it's a bad thing or a good thing, but there can be less freedom to experiment and take classes outside the College of Business when one is a business major.. depending on one's school (and how long one wishes to stay there, since there is no rule that says you can't take more hours than is required). Yes, the University core does give some exposure to non-business areas (such as literature, history, fine arts, etc.), so a person getting a business degree isn't completely business focused. It's just that the business major often doesn't leave room to explore beyond those Freshman/Soph-level requirements. If that makes any sense at all. Speaking of jobs with majors other than the one that would seem most relevant to the position, I would like to relate a story: When I was younger, I wanted to be a newspaper reporter. I took some journalism classes in college and worked on the school newspaper and magazine, but I majored in accounting. During one of my journalism classes, Pulitzer Prize Winning Cartoonist Ben Sargent came and spoke to our class. He told us that newspaper editors specifically didn't want journalism majors for their newspapers. They wanted people who studied other areas because a wide-range of knowledge is apparently nice to have for a reporter and perhaps the thinking is that a person can be taught AP Style and the inverted pyramid after they are hired if need be. Of course, when I later went out looking for jobs as a reporter, I got several letters back noting that those papers (like the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, The Wichita Falls Times-Record, the Amarillo Globe-News, etc) hired journalism majors almost exclusively. Granted, perhaps those papers were the exeception rather than the rule (I got discouraged about the whole thing after getting so many rejections and gave up looking), but my experience was that trying to get a job in that industry without a journalism degree was a bigger uphill climb than it would've been with a journalism degree. So, while I'm sure that many people with degrees in history or English or some other liberal arts discipline have good jobs in the business world, I would think that having the business degree just makes it that much easier to break in. But I'm no expert on the matter. I'm not out there in the business world or out there hiring people.
That wasn't the point. It was to dispel the myth that many (including you) have promoted in this thread about L.A. majors not doing anything after but teach, etc. What I posted is about 1% of all I have read on the subject - it is a growing concern in the business world, it seems.
I think it should be a growing concern. I think a lot of people get a degree without actually learning anything, especially in the realm of creative and critical thinking. I also think a lot of colleges don't do enough to teach writing skills (I know many college graduates who can't write a coherent report to save their lives, even though part of their job is communication). I think too much of college is regurgitating facts rather than applying knowledge. Of course, I don't know that hiring liberal arts grads is going to change that. I'm currently taking courses in a creative, liberal arts field that is filled with people who not only aren't all that creative (and by "creative" I also mean being creative in terms of problem-solving abilities, etc), but who aren't independent thinkers, either (something you would think would be necessary in a creative field). Like I said before (I think in this thread), there are many people who panic unless they are told exactly what to do and how to do it. These people will be liberal arts college graduates, but I don't think they are any better prepared to be great thinkers than your average business school grad. If that makes any sense at all. I guess my point is that I don't think it's a problem of hiring the person with a certain college major, I think it's a problem with people in general.
