The 6 Best College Majors (For Filling You With Regret)
Well, the summer's over and for many of you that means it's time to start thinking about picking a college major! Sure, it might seem like a daunting task, but it's only the first step towards determining how happy and successful you will be for the rest of your life. Until you die.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Perhaps, I've been presumptuous. You don't even need a college major if you're independently wealthy. Are you? Then congratulations. You will have a life free of worry, dedicated to middling self-discovery. But for the rest of you without the foresight to have been born incredibly rich, you can take comfort knowing that it doesn't really matter what you do. Working for a living is a sucker's game, and you're pretty much screwed regardless. Still, you have to put something on that damn administrative form, so LET'S PICK A MAJOR!!!
Pre-Med
Why You Chose It
Sure, it involves at least four more years of schooling, but if you're even considering this as an option, you're probably really good at school. Yeah, the loans will be a bitch for a while, but it will all be worth it because you get to care for the sick and make a lot of money. You will be rich in spirit, and in the way that can buy you a boat!
Why You'll Regret It
Our current medical system makes it really hard for a doctor to be rich in either of those ways. Doctors can't use their full discretion in prescribing treatment; they have to stay within an insurance company's conception of what appropriate care is.
Oh, and physicians are making less and less every year. Isn't that awesome? Even the ones who needed 12 years of training, are on call three nights a week and get woken up in the middle of the night to make life and death decisions. Why would we expect those people to be well paid?
But hey, it's worth it because everyone likes doctors. Or they did 50 years ago. Speaking of which, if you're smart enough to be in the top 10 percent of your organic chemistry class you're probably smart enough to invent a time machine and go to a period where doctors were both respected and compensated. And in the meantime, you get to spend four years undergrad and four years post grad taking incredibly hard exams with a bunch of people who also want to be doctors. And what's more fun than spending all your time with people good at science?
Pre-Law
Why You Chose It
You know the best thing about Pre-Law? It doesn't exist. Yeah, there's no such thing. All you need to get into law school is a decent GPA in anything and a good score on the LSAT which is just like the SATs plus one annoying logic section that you can learn how to do in a two week review course.
Pre-Law is just another way of saying, "I have no illusions that my major will yield a high paying job, and plan to use law school as an escape hatch when staring down life as a college professor."
Why You'll Regret It
Being a lawyer sucks in many of the unique ways that being a doctor sucks these days, only there's less job security and everyone hates you. Massive layoffs have saddled countless lawyers with eight years of higher learning, thousands of dollars in student loan debt and no job. So if you were hoping to major in your true passion of 19th Century Ugandan Sculpture and then make everything OK by running off to law school, thereafter, well, you lose because the catch with law school is, after you graduate, you're supposed to become a lawyer.
Communications
Why You Chose It
Look, you get it. No college career is going to spit you out onto the fast track to being a millionaire. Majoring in Communications allows you to achieve the same degree as all your friends while doing, like, half the work.
Why You'll Regret It
Contrary to popular belief, there's one really difficult aspect of being a Communications major: Convincing everyone you're not functionally retarded after they find out you're a Communications major.
There isn't a more eye-rolling, smirk-inducing major than Communications. And hey, maybe those Communications professors really are good at, uh, communicating because the only people who don't seem to know that they've selected a joke major are the Communications majors themselves. I've met some very earnest ones, who speak emphatically about how their school has "the best Communications program in the country." It's sort of adorable. Like a kindergartner who doesn't realize all their classmate's finger paintings got first prize at the art show too.
English
Why You Chose It
Being an English major means you get to wear scarves and sit in the casements of old dormitory windows, intently studying Wordsworth in the light of a crisp autumn sun!
Why You'll Regret It
Three kinds of people major in English: future lawyers who mistakenly think they need to know how to write to be a lawyer; people who want to be writers; and people who can't do math.
Basically, being an English major involves sitting in a room with lots of people who don't want to be there and a few who want to be there way too much. And forget about having deep conversations with your peers about Canterbury Tales. For the most part you're dealing with frizzy-haired, acne-laden girls who first learned about Oscar Wilde from The Smiths.
Oh, but maybe you can put your degree to good use writing for the Internet? Lord knows I never could have earned the big bucks writing that column about wanting to have sex with Gillian Anderson if I hadn't learned that T.S. Eliot's Sweeney Among the Nightingales was inherently racist due to the juxtaposition of something beautiful like a bird against a common Irish name.
Philosophy
Why You Chose It
Seriously? Yeah? OK.
Why You'll Regret It
Here's a question: What's the sound of no hands clapping? Your folks after you tell them they just spent $60,000 for nothing.
Business
Why You Chose It
You want to get rich, and think that college professors and text books hold the secret to untold wealth? You use words like networking without a trace of irony?
Why You'll Regret It
Yeah, I don't really know a lot about this major, but I'm guessing I don't like you already. And that you have your whole life to be a jackass so why not use these four years to learn something? Because I'm pretty sure when you're assistant general manager for EcuMenicaltro Globo-Industries, you won't even have time to think about how the wigwam in Moby Dick symbolizes Tammany Hall or what Nietzsche was getting at with the whole "superman" thing. Hmm. Does that contradict everything I've said before about the value of higher learning? Probably. But I did warn you. You can't win.
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"International Studies" here which basically boils down to politics and history with a dash of language. I chose majors relating to Asia in general and China in particular since Asia has always felt much more relevant to me than other regions.
ReplyAfter I graduated I moved to China and found out that most of what I was taught was bullshit and I had wasted four years of my life for nothing.
Moral of the story: Politics is rubbish, don't waste your time or money on it.
Philosophy is one of the most important subjects which get completely glossed over in modern America. It literally teaches people how to think, which can then make individuals more effective in any other study they choose. It should be taught in public schools, starting from 6th grade. It is, in my opinion, essential to be a critical thinker and for discerning bullshit from truth. If you don't "get" philosophy, there's a good chance you're probably mentally retarded.
ReplyAs if colleges didn't use liberal arts as a boon for recruitment already. I wouldn't say philosophy was "glossed over".
As for "getting" it, what is there to get? I mean beyond what you general education and major-specific classes don't already teach you about "critical thinking"?
The one area of communications that isn't a joke is communication science and disorders. You know shit's real when you have to have a two year practicum in a clinic just to get your bachelor's.
Replyno political science? iam about to get my degree and iam seeing it was a major mistake. oh i do like the knowledge but there arent really too many jobs that want a PS degree. off to law school i guess.
ReplyPolisci is a good undergrad degree to get into a grad school with; especially if you double major in some more traditional, or "classical".
I just burped.
ReplyI'm fairly certain that this article is completely sarcastic.
ReplyOkay, what is a good major then? I'm honestly asking.
ReplyThrow a rock outside the liberal arts building and pick one.
Hmm...well, I don't plan to major in communications, but Mark Rosewater, the lead designer of Magic the Gathering, studied Communications.
ReplyI thought that Business Studies was about learning things like book-keeping, trade/practice laws and other things you might need if you want to get into management or start your own business.
ReplyAM I WRONG??
Sociology. Don't do it.
ReplyAs a Philosophy major, I can analyze the hel out of s**t. As a Psyhcology major, I can use techniques to influence/manipulate people into certain situations. This may be a good combo for many things, like maybe advertising? Idk...Anyways, as someone mentioned, Phil is a good second major. There are definitely careers that love the analytical skills of a Phil major. That said, if your sole major is Phil, then you had better be looking at being a professor or teacher, teaching and churning out ideas on a schedule the university requires. I do plan on doing a joint program and being a prof (because I can teach, but then do whatever the heck I want with my class,like making sure everyone is paying attention and doing the reading by firing a ball at anyone I want to answer a question. As you can see I gave this some thought) but the combo of the two makes your job hunt a little more flexible. I could theoretically do something other than teach(perhaps teach on the side?). So, yea, it's good to second-major in Phil. In fact, my school offers a "5-credit discount" if you pick it up as your second major.
ReplyAt least you double majored.
Too damn happy to see Chemistry is not listed here. because if that fails, I have no minor to fall back on... little victories. feel slightly vindicated from all those moments where people from social science complained about their 6 hours a week class load, while me and my comrades struggled silently from more than 24 hours of lectures, labs and tutorials, because we were too damn tired to complained about the class loads, courseworks and lab reports you have to hand in every single week.....
ReplyI have a friend who got biology masters with a minor in chem, she now works at a Taco John's in Iowa.
I'm glad you admitted that you don't know much about Business, because it definitely shows. Everyone in Business is not in Business Management. Outsiders often wrongly portray Business as a single major that's more or less a joke, but Business schools host a pretty diverse set of majors that vary in intensity and complexity. I would agree that management is a punk major that's more or less expected to be an elevator into the corporate world (and there are others like it in Business Schools), but there are difficult, math intensive business majors as well. Finance, Operations, and Accounting have some classes that are indeed challenging and require a great deal of learning to reach success. Not every business major becomes the boss that you hate for his faux suave douchebaggery. Many (like me) work for hours crunching numbers in libraries and dorms in school to graduate and work for more hours crunching numbers in little back rooms at some firm. They get paid for it, yes, but not the millions most associate with the relatively small number of big businessmen that seem to form our public perception of "the business major". That said the article was funny pretty funny. I lol'd at communications...
ReplyYou do realize your major, no matter what it is, really doesn't mean s**t in the real world...right?
Meh, I don't need a business degree to run a business.
some commenters seem to be taking this article a bit too seriously, and losing the entertainment value entirely, I myself am returning to higher education after a stint in the Marines and am continuing on my Business program with a focus on supply line management...about 90% of the people I am attending class with are 4-5 years younger than me and growing in their awkward pencil thin moutaches, trading old forbes magazines around like pokemon cards, and generally assaulting me with douchbaggery because I am a warehouse worker(the kind of person many of us will have as subordinates) obviously if your lifelong passion(or monetary goals) requires you attend a certain type of program you should do it, but also know the risks/requirements of doing so...I found all of the writer's asessments to be spot on for the most part, and overall quite entertaining.
ReplyGraduate schools don't rank majors, they rank GPAs. They usually require specific pre-requisite courses that they use to determine GPA for ranking purposes. Decide where you want to be in 15 years, then plan accordingly. Step 1: talk with people who are already there. Ask them for advice on what to do.
ReplyShould I just give up on life now? It feels like English studies were the only thing I was good at so I went with that as a major....I feel depressed now...
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesSwitch your major to English education! Slightly more marketable!
I majored in English (focus on applied linguistics) and have a job doing it, as it were. Everywhere I'd go while in college, people would say, "Oh, what are you going to do? Teach?" until I nearly punched them in the mouth. I'm *not* teaching. I'm an editor. And no, Ms. Career Counselor Person from My University, *not* for a publishing house in New York. The point of my obviously still bitter snark here is that there are a lot of jobs out there that people aren't even aware of or think about that use a lot of degrees and skills. There's more to life than business, accounting, and medicine.
I went into English because it was what I was best at, and my school had a professional & technical writing program. That's actually a quite practical kind of major for those of us who are good at writing but couldn't teach. Your school probably has a more practical English program than literature or rhetoric that you could look into.
In all honesty, your college major means less than you think. Outside of your first attempt at gainful employment with your shiny new degree, chances are 80% of you future jobs will be gained by association with who you know.
And hey, if you work most of your life in the private sector in a literature-related profession, good for you.
I think philosophy, communications, and English make good second majors. They show you can analyze problems and write coherently, skills many graduate programs and businesses find don't apply to their students/workers.
ReplyPhilosophy degrees are ones that are impressive to large companies - you can argue why customers should buy your products, how to effectively get your employees to do their damn jobs by providing arguments they cannot win, and there is that communication piece I mentioned earlier. Analytic philosophy talks about debates in the sciences, many of which are current (evolution, how the brain works, mathematics, etc.). Philosophy has been the source of some pretty important s**t - Copernicus being the one who determined the earth revolves around the sun; Aristotle presenting the term catharsis, which has shaped literature and drama to the point where people expect it as a resolution, as well as the whole point of the majority of mental health therapies; and has shaped several laws we use even to this day. Things that were once philosophical became sciences - psychology, neuroscience, law, and medicine. Philosophy has always been a source of new ideas, which eventually become researched, tested, and and tested again.
That said, I think these are good second majors (or you could do a minor, too). Study something that will help you get a job, and use your second major or minor to study something that will help you get a better understanding of the world around you, teach you to think critically, and teach you how to communicate effectively.
What the hell is wrong with the Business section? It doesn't even sound like this writer tried with that ending. Really? Come on? Also, this person obviously knows nothing about Philosophy. What a terrible article. Do what you want people, don't listen to this bitter old cynic.
ReplyHe was poking fun at how some business majors are nothing more than overgrown kids in suits and ties with a serious Donald Trump complex. And he wouldn't be too far off.
Philosophy is mostly "garbage in garbage out". The author isn't being particular cynical about it, philosophy has been a running joke about liberal arts institutions for decades.
I think you're referring to Communication Studies, but you keep calling it Communications. It isn't plural.
ReplyThat is why, good sir, I can firmly believe you are in that major.
Choose the most difficult major that you are capable of doing really well in. If you are (honestly) gifted in math, major in it - you will stand out (especially a female), as not many people are capable of doing it. But, there's nothing to gain from any major when it's a constant struggle to keep up. Graduate schools do like a high GPA.
ReplyOn the other hand, getting C=s and B-s in a science or Math major is much, much, better than making straight As in a Speech major. Unfortunately I learned the hard way when I dropped my Math major for making some Cs in Calculus (having aced the Math SAT and placed out of some classes going in) and switched to a useless major I got better grades in. In the long run, a C Math major can still say "BS (or BA) Math" on a resume and it is VERY rare for employers to ask for GPAs.
You're correct...employers rarely ask for GPA. Graduate schools, however, expect you to disclose that information. And it really all depends on who you are and who you know, where you live, where you go to school, and where you want to work. Honestly though, I majored in Zoology to avoid the embarrassment of having a lousy major. I had a friend (comm major) who always told me I had it easy because all I did was memorize basic facts. I don't think she really knew what "lab report" meant. Glad I wasn't a comm major.