Which U.S. College Major is the Worst for Finding a Job?

[daftandbarmy]

Arts Major's Motto: Would you like fries with that?


Which U.S. College Major is the Worst for Finding a Job?


Which U.S. College Major is the Worst for Finding a Job? (visualcapitalist.com)

 

[lenaitch]

Arts Major's Motto: Would you like fries with that?


Which U.S. College Major is the Worst for Finding a Job?


Which U.S. College Major is the Worst for Finding a Job? (visualcapitalist.com)

Not that a lot of high schoolers think a lot about it, but I wonder what students think they could do with a degree in art history. Get that dream job at the Louvre?

I guess our daughter beat the odds. Parlayed a degree in history into a job as a museum curator.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Not that a lot of high schoolers think a lot about it, but I wonder what students think they could do with a degree in art history. Get that dream job at the Louvre?

I guess our daughter beat the odds. Parlayed a degree in history into a job as a museum curator.

I might know a guy, who's a history major, that runs a successful consulting business

 

[rmc_wannabe]

Remember that degree=job is a relatively new phenomenon historically... like 60 years new.

Unless you were becoming an Engineer, Doctor, Lawyer, or getting into Finance...you didn't need to go to post secondary. You had the option of going to school. You also didnt have to go 35 years into debt to attend post secondary. There were a lot of women who attended university strictly to meet a husband.

Fast forward to the 2000s and we see the massive scale of the education industry that has saturated the job market with degrees for anything and everything (its not just Arts that are guilty of this). Its no longer about going to scho to learn or become enlightened, but merely going to obtain a credential.

If we didn't have to treat education as an investment in obtaining a job, perhaps we wouldn't scoff so hard at Fine Arts or BBAs or B Comm degrees so hard.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Nothing wrong with fine arts, art history, history, philosophy, economics, sociology, languages, literature, commerce, etc. What's changed is the demand for softer programs with less analytical thinking and more rote dogma regurgitation ("grievance studies"). Enrollment in some of the traditional humanities has dropped off in favour of the latter.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Fast forward to the 2000s and we see the massive scale of the education industry that has saturated the job market with degrees for anything and everything (its not just Arts that are guilty of this). Its no longer about going to school to learn or become enlightened, but merely going to obtain a credential.

Wait, have we transitioned to talking about the Military Colleges again?

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Wait, have we transitioned to talking about the Military Colleges again?

Degreed Officer Corps.

Pah-tay-toe, Pah-taa-toe…

 

[dapaterson]

The highlight of the misunderstanding of the intent of education vs training was the Log Branch imposing significant degree restrictions for becoming a Log O. Those restrictions meant that the senior serving Logistician, the LGen Chief of Military Personnel, would no longer meet the entry standard.

In a Canadian context, where Universities provide education and Colleges provide training, it's telling that we have military colleges, but not a military university...

 

[Brad Sallows]

Back when BC started paying teachers more for advanced education credentials (eg. MEd), degree mills in the US started doing a brisk business. I gather that didn't last for many years, but the obvious point was established: if you provide incentives/requirements for credentials rather than education, you get credentials rather than education.

 

[ModlrMike]

I was at a hockey game recently with one of our college presidents and we discussed this very point. Where colleges use market forces to help determine what programmes are on offer, universities apply no such lens. I would submit that any educational institute that takes public funding has an obligation to try and maximize value for tax payer money, and not graduate folks who are going to be in need of public assistance.

 

[Navy_Pete]

I was at a hockey game recently with one of our college presidents and we discussed this very point. Where colleges use market forces to help determine what programmes are on offer, universities apply no such lens. I would submit that any educational institute that takes public funding has an obligation to try and maximize value for tax payer money, and not graduate folks who are going to be in need of public assistance.

From what I saw a lot of the programs are self licking ice cream cones, where the only real hope of working in the field for a lot of the PhDs is teaching at the university.

I think if students went into it eyes wide open, and accepted that they likely wouldn't be working in the field, and whatever they were doing was for their own interest that would be fine, but there was a fair bit of whinging from some of them that they had a hard time finding something relevant. While I'm sure it was interesting to them, weirdly there was pretty limited employment for someone who specialized in English tapestry between 1475 and 1523 (years made up but it was something extremely specific like that they spent 4 years doing a doctorate on). Really lacked sympathy for their complaints about their debt load though.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

I was at a hockey game recently with one of our college presidents and we discussed this very point. Where colleges use market forces to help determine what programmes are on offer, universities apply no such lens. I would submit that any educational institute that takes public funding has an obligation to try and maximize value for tax payer money, and not graduate folks who are going to be in need of public assistance.

Some of those programs are also an absolute waste of money. I'm thinking Police Foundations or even in my own Industry where certain Colleges advertise progams for aspiring applicants:

Railway Conductor - RAIL

Are you a hands-on learner? Would you like a rewarding and well-paying career in the growing railway industry?

www.lambtoncollege.ca

The railroads run their own training programs and we psy people good money to undertake our training. I have no idea why someone would to go to school for this when it means nothing and we will give you all the training ourselves?

 

[Furniture]

Some of those programs are also an absolute waste of money. I'm thinking Police Foundations or even in my own Industry where certain Colleges advertise progams for aspiring applicants:

Railway Conductor - RAIL

Are you a hands-on learner? Would you like a rewarding and well-paying career in the growing railway industry?

www.lambtoncollege.ca

The railroads run their own training programs and we psy people good money to undertake our training. I have no idea why someone would to go to school for this when it means nothing and we will give you all the training ourselves?

I suspect because the entire educational system insists that if you don't go to some form of post secondary education you'll be a failure. When I graduated high school in 2000 that was already the prevailing wisdom, and I have heard nothing to indicate it has changed.

I think if students went into it eyes wide open, and accepted that they likely wouldn't be working in the field, and whatever they were doing was for their own interest that would be fine, but there was a fair bit of whinging from some of them that they had a hard time finding something relevant.

I don't blame 17 year old kids for following the advice their parents and educational leaders have given, I feel sorry for most of them. Kids are constantly told to "follow their dreams", "make your passion your career", and other useless fluff like that. Following you dreams/passion works for some people, but not for most.

If people gave honest advice to kids, maybe they'd make better choices. Maybe not, but at least then they'd be entering the real world somewhat prepared for what's ahead.

 

[Navy_Pete]

I don't blame 17 year old kids for following the advice their parents and educational leaders have given, I feel sorry for most of them. Kids are constantly told to "follow their dreams", "make your passion your career", and other useless fluff like that. Following you dreams/passion works for some people, but not for most.

If people gave honest advice to kids, maybe they'd make better choices. Maybe not, but at least then they'd be entering the real world somewhat prepared for what's ahead.

I get that for kids trying to figure out what they want to do (my 16 year old is in that spot), was thinking more the folks that are professional students that rolled from a 4 year degree into a 2 year masters then a 4 year PhD + postdoc time, who are in their late 20s/early 30s and stuck in the ivory tower academic sunk cost fallacy. Depending on the topic they've taken, they can end up as a SME on something no one cares about with extremely limited job options if they don't land a teaching gig.

Even on the engineering and science side of things, it can be a challenge, unless their work was on a growing field that actually took off (which can be a crap shoot) and they get hired by a company for R&D. Lots of technologies that look promising but then don't go anywhere, so usually have to pivot.

Telling my kid to try and find something she likes well enough that pays the bills, and encouraging her to look at trades as well, and keep doing the art and music (for pleasure or a side hustle). Tough choice when you are just old enough to get a beginner's license, but that's around when they need to pick courses for grade 11 and 12 so they can eventually apply for programs. That seems to push kids to do the advanced classes so that uni is still open to them, but probably means some kinds are really frustrated in some courses like math doing things they won't need for college, so they learn a lot less then in they had taken the general courses aimed at college.

 

[foresterab]

Some of the best advice I got was a follows:
1) what does the job actually pay if you go to X school? I might have work but if I'm earning less than minimum wage why waste the tuition

2) What does the salary actually mean for purchasing power. It was a very humbling experience just before we graduated when the prof made us calculate mortgages and truck payments to figure out what our starting salary had to be to make it work in different towns. A few folks turned down jobs because they would be broke if they went there. Take your salary, subtract taxes, and then see what 45% leaves you to work with.

3) What is the value in advanced education. Yes...I went to university but we were also cautioned against taking Masters or PhD's by the same university professors as it would hurt our employment options. The recommendation was to take a Bachelors, get some experience and then go back for a finance or business degree for when we were ready to stop doing field work and become supervising/budget managers. Complementary skill sets are more powerful sometimes than specializing in a single topic.

 

[Brad Sallows]

some courses like math doing things they won't need for college, so they learn a lot less then in they had taken the general courses aimed at college.

Always stick with math if you want the path to sciences and engineering open, as well as the one to economics and sociology (real sociology, not the customary one with dumbed-down math courses for humanities students).

 

[Colin Parkinson]

We set aside money from early on for our kids education. My oldest would not be a good fit for trades. She wanted early childhood education, but dropped that when we looked at pay scales. She then looked at teaching, but decided a Degree in Communication will open more doors, but still allow teaching, which she is good at. My youngest, might go either to sea as a deck officer or mechanical engineering. she could be a car mechanic as well, but she is a total extrovert and good at connecting to people. I want her to get a government job as her diabetic stuff is roughly $10,000 a year and she needs a good long term healthcare plan.

 

[foresterab]

We set aside money from early on for our kids education. My oldest would not be a good fit for trades. She wanted early childhood education, but dropped that when we looked at pay scales. She then looked at teaching, but decided a Degree in Communication will open more doors, but still allow teaching, which she is good at. My youngest, might go either to sea as a deck officer or mechanical engineering. she could be a car mechanic as well, but she is a total extrovert and good at connecting to people. I want her to get a government job as her diabetic stuff is roughly $10,000 a year and she needs a good long term healthcare plan.

Wife does the early childhood care gig. Once she gets her upgraded qualification....after two years of work and 16+ courses....she figured the pay raise would have taken over 10 years of work just recoup tuition. Only reason she's doing it is due to the Feds picking up the extra training costs and her employer repaying her. Just an illustration of what a job is vs. a long term career. She can only due to it due to the combined family income and frankly her working a second job part time to offset the partial hours/school year schedule.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Always stick with math if you want the path to sciences and engineering open, as well as the one to economics and sociology (real sociology, not the customary one with dumbed-down math courses for humanities students).

I think back to a good friend that was planning on going to college but was pushed into the advanced stream which made him miserable. He eventually switched over to the general course for math, went from barely passing to an A, and actually learned what he needed for the trade he wanted. He's doing a lot better financially than a lot of uni grads that couldn't find work in their field.

I'm all about keeping options open, but I think pushing everyone to university is a huge mistake. I finished an engineering degree but still can't wrap my head around some of the calculus or integrals, which hasn't actually held me back. Taking the advanced classes in high school wouldn't have stopped me from choosing to do a trade, but it would have for some people who struggled with some of the concepts, as they would have tanked their grade and would have had a harder time to get into that college program with a D in grade 12 advanced math. Not everyone needs to keep that option open.

I don't think english is much different between the levels, but there is a lot more applied maths that you don't touch much on the advanced classes that are really useful like stats which they did more of. It's a lot easier to wrap your head around concrete things like that, and frankly what I've used far more of in engineering. Being able to put together an invoice, balance spreadsheet budgets, and do basic stat trending etc is a lot more useful for most people, and having confidence that you can do it is huge. I think a lot of people get pushed into STEM, get turned off by the theoretical bits, and miss out on the actual useful and fun things you can actually do with it, like all the experiments you do in chemistry and physics.

 

[Eaglelord17]

Remember that degree=job is a relatively new phenomenon historically... like 60 years new.

Unless you were becoming an Engineer, Doctor, Lawyer, or getting into Finance...you didn't need to go to post secondary. You had the option of going to school. You also didnt have to go 35 years into debt to attend post secondary. There were a lot of women who attended university strictly to meet a husband.

Fast forward to the 2000s and we see the massive scale of the education industry that has saturated the job market with degrees for anything and everything (its not just Arts that are guilty of this). Its no longer about going to scho to learn or become enlightened, but merely going to obtain a credential.

If we didn't have to treat education as an investment in obtaining a job, perhaps we wouldn't scoff so hard at Fine Arts or BBAs or B Comm degrees so hard.

Historically degrees didn’t get jobs, connections were what got jobs. What a lot of people are missing is formal education in society is a recent thing and beforehand it was a formality the rich and aristocratic members of society sent their children to as they were the only ones who could afford it.

They didn’t get jobs because of the schooling, generally those rich and aristocratic people had jobs lined up either way. This is why they could pursuit degrees in all sorts of ‘classic’ degrees (arts, literature, poetry, greek classics, latin, etc.) and still end up well off. It was more about building connections than it was about the schooling.

It is also becoming more of a ‘go to school to get jobs’ because of them usurping the traditional methods of training (apprenticeships/apprenticeship like training for most things) and instead using degrees and diplomas for gatekeeping.