What is the most worthless college major?

Film studies.

Try and get a job with that major.

Art.

It's not offered anymore, but VCR Repair is probably the most worthless degree.

BA in English.

What do you do with a B.A. in English,

What is my life going to be?

Four years of college and plenty of knowledge,

Have earned me this useless degree.

I can't pay the bills yet,

'Cause I have no skills yet,

The world is a big scary place.

But somehow I can't shake,

The feeling I might make,

A difference,

To the human race.

QQQQ wrote:

BA in English.

What do you do with a B.A. in English,

What is my life going to be?

Four years of college and plenty of knowledge,

Have earned me this useless degree.

I can't pay the bills yet,

'Cause I have no skills yet,

The world is a big scary place.

But somehow I can't shake,

The feeling I might make,

A difference,

To the human race.

You can do plenty with an English degree. It's arguably the broadest of the majors. One of the major complaints by employers now is that kids can't read or write for shit. Companies are eating up English majors because of those as well as the analytical skills they exhibit.

I know someone who majored in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Washington, had a great GPA, had under his belt an internship at NASA, and gave up looking for a related job. Any major where the number of graduates every year far exceeds the number of related job openings every year is one to stay away from. Unfortunately, most people don't look at those variables when they choose a major.

Which brings up another point: not everyone chooses their major. Most people end up in one major because they weren't competitive enough to get in a better one. All the employable majors are competitive. At the University of Washington, the Computer Science program gets 1100 applicants every quarter, for about 30-35 open spots.

Please stop saying English majors are analytical. They aren't.

outplayed stereotype wrote:

You can do plenty with an English degree. It's arguably the broadest of the majors. One of the major complaints by employers now is that kids can't read or write for shit. Companies are eating up English majors because of those as well as the analytical skills they exhibit.

Women's Studies and Black Studies. The only job prospects here are in professional protesting for various liberal causes.

outplayed stereotype wrote:

You can do plenty with an English degree. It's arguably the broadest of the majors. One of the major complaints by employers now is that kids can't read or write for shit. Companies are eating up English majors because of those as well as the analytical skills they exhibit.

I'd like to see your source for this one.

Most large companies have communications departments, but that's not exactly "broad". That being said, I know plenty of English majors (many of whom double-majored I might add) who have landed good or decent jobs, but that's more because of their aptitude than for the major itself. To elaborate, with majors like Communications or English, having the degree is more or less equivalent to not having a degree at all. However, that's not to say that you won't get a job. There are plenty of intelligent English or Communications majors who receive high-paying jobs, but it's almost always because of the fact that they were intelligent and communicated well, both of which were skills that they had long before they left for college. Basically, they just needed ANY degree and it probably would've worked out.

On that note, people in these sorts of situations are largely overshadowed by the "struggling liberal arts major" stereotype, but that's only because a HUGE portion of liberal arts majors are idiots who chose their major solely because they wanted to minimize the amount of work they needed to do in order to receive a passing grade (i.e. the morons who use their parents money to party 24/7 in college). If you factored these people out, you would find that most liberal arts majors would actually be of respectable intelligence and work ethic.

There are 100s of useless majors.

Just start with the "A"s and go down the list

Anthropology

Anatomy

Arts (the 50 different variants)

Economics

History

Linguistics

Literature

Political science

Philosophy

Religious studies

Women studies...

All these programs should only be given in only one University in the US and accept a max of 100 students/year (probably less for some of these programs). Accepting more people than that in these programs is basically an accepted form of theft.

The list of useful majors is much shorter

Hyhvghgvhgvvgu wrote:

There are 100s of useless majors.

Just start with the "A"s and go down the list

Anthropology

Anatomy

Arts (the 50 different variants)

Economics

History

Linguistics

Literature

Political science

Philosophy

Religious studies

Women studies...

All these programs should only be given in only one University in the US and accept a max of 100 students/year (probably less for some of these programs). Accepting more people than that in these programs is basically an accepted form of theft.

The list of useful majors is much shorter

Not all of these are completely useless, some are more useless than others. Art, history, and poly sci can all be useful.

I've asked several philosophy PhDs what the use of their study is and they all say there is none. But in the end, it's not about using their degree, their degree is just sort of proof that they're smart, can think critically, can write persuasively, can speak, etc.

As a D3 college coach, I cringe when people tell me they are spending money to study Criminology or Human Development and Family Studies.

With Criminology you're not making it past $10 an hour to work in a prison, and with HDFS without a masters degree, you'll be stuck at minimum wage as either an aide in a school or in a daycare.

The first two responses (Sociology and Film Studies) made me laugh because my best friend majored in Sociology and his wife has a masters degree in film.

They are the most successful people I know. The wife worked for Microsoft in the days when the stock options were worth a fortune. She retired from MS about 15 years ago and cashed the options out for about $2 million. She did freelance advertising work from home, has served on and off as an executive (CEO or VP) for several startups, and was able to make solid money while staying at home to raise their kids. My sociology major friend has worked for Microsoft for almost 20 years and has been making big bucks for a long time. If they don't have $5 million to $10 million by now I would be surprised. They are in their early to mid 40s.

That being said, it's unlikely you'll make it that far with a Sociology degree, but anything is possible if you are a talented person and take advantage of the opportunities before you.

MBA. What a snow job.

Bhahahahahaha

You kind of have to have an undergraduate degree to get a Masters degree...

Hyhvghgvhgvvgu wrote:

There are 100s of useless majors.

Just start with the "A"s and go down the list

Anthropology

Anatomy

Arts (the 50 different variants)

Economics

History

Linguistics

Literature

Political science

Philosophy

Religious studies

Women studies...

All these programs should only be given in only one University in the US and accept a max of 100 students/year (probably less for some of these programs). Accepting more people than that in these programs is basically an accepted form of theft.

The list of useful majors is much shorter

Economics graduates have one of the highest median salaries of all majors.

Laughtus wrote:

Sociology.

I want to hear your opinions, letsrun.

It sounds like you define worthwhile as a major that leads directly to a good paying job. So what you really want from college is to not be educated, but to be trained to do something.

Training is important. I won't deny that. I hire many well trained people from very good colleges. But the real gems are the ones that are clearly well educated, regardless of major. The ones that have a real aptitude for and love of learning. That might be a physics major, an english major, or a philosophy major. It doesn't really matter. They aren't hung up on the need to 'major' in something.

Liberal Arts majors are not "for" getting jobs and should not be justified, or marketed, in this way.