What is the most worthless college major?

I'd rephrase this question as which degree has the least value added. All the humanities probably don't add very much in earning potential - the people who succeed with english degrees were probably destined to succeed no matter what i.e. high ability learners are just signaling that no matter what they take.

But on the flip side, education is typically thought of as an easy major, but it's not like the ed majors could suddenly become engineers and make a ton more money. Th majors sort by intelligence/ability, so it's not apples to apples to look at income.

I'd bet once you controlled for SAT score, the wage differences by major would be miniscule.

math and physics are safe no matter what. Indeed you learn

analytical skills etc and you become flexible.

Problem is that you need an IQ>120 to major.

Probably English. People will always make up crap like that guy who said he's making 125k at 25.

I don't know a single English major that got a well paying job (50k+) right out of undergrad with just an English degree. The only ones I know that did well either double majored in something useful, had parents with connections, or were physically attractive.

Communications

I got my CPA license (certified public accountant) and many firms are handing me offers even though no one has heard of the college(s) I attended.

ethnic or gender studies

Communications by far.

lkwmflkewmfew wrote:

I got my CPA license (certified public accountant) and many firms are handing me offers even though no one has heard of the college(s) I attended.

Very interesting, considering the abundance of CPAs are slowly depressing wages. I have a feeling these firms are seeking your work experience and intelligence much more than your degree.

Also for some reason you have to prove you are able to keep the CPA by taking CPE exams (which again are a waste of money)... but I degress.

African American studies, sociology, education, psychology. The majors that graduate the bulk of mediocre people who probably should not have gone to college.

what does Letsrun think about the short / long term potential of a business vs. computer science major? (not at an elite school)

Medieval Studies

Math and physics will always be around, for sure, but always in low demand by employers. That's because companies want people who can design, build, and produce things, and math and physical science degrees aren't about that. So....

There are 5 times as many computer science jobs as math.

There are 10 times as many engineering jobs as physics.

There are more Art jobs than math and physics combined.

There are a LOT more jobs for english majors than physical science majors, but english might be the only liberal arts major like that.

Companies want people who can do the math (all of the top jobs involve that) but more than just doing math an physics.

You can't predict the future opportunities, because if you could predict the future, you would invent it now. There are two developments in technology that promise to revolutionize things in ways we can't even predict now: quantum computing and quantum transistors.

Now consider that when I took computer science many years ago, we wrote PASCAL compilers. My programming language class studied FORTRAN, ALGOL 60, PL/I, and LISP (no kidding). I can remember in the 1980's when what we know these days as object oriented computing was being invented and discussed in ACM Proceedings and IEEE Transactions on Programming Languages. None of Java, Unix, Linux, C or the web existed. NOTHING that we have today in modern web development or corporate IT existed back then.

Adapt or Die.

You will not be doing in your 60's what you know at 21. But you gain knowledge and tools that will allow you to adapt your knowledge to changing conditions, and that's what you go to a good university for. But keeping that knowledge up-to-date after you leave the university is up to you, and that depends on whether you will be out of a job in 20-40 years far more than your degree.

To the Ancient Persian and Ancient Kenyan civilizations math and physics were the same field of study.

xenonscreams wrote:

I've never understood how you can legitimately get a degree in religion. Might as well start offering Greek Mythology degrees. Sorry in advance to anyone I offend.

LOL -- I have a history degree with an emphasis in Classics (Greek Mythology, Greek history, Roman history, etc). I worked in IT for about 20 years with that, made well into six figures, got a little bored with it, now doing that part time as a consultant and running a small plumbing company doing ditch digging and drainage.

I'm always amused when these threads come up.

Masters a must wrote:

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.

Criminology, really? I manage to pull abou $140K a year.

Any major that fools a person into another two years of brainwashing while "pursuing" a masters in social work.

They've even made it into an abbreviation ("MSW") to make them think it's a worthwhile credential.

Anatomy is certainly useful but how the hell do schools offer it as a major? You can become an expert in the area by taking about 8 credits worth of it.

Political Science and Economics. Ask Hingle, he is still looking for work.

econ major here, started @ 65k

degree paid off in no time