What is the most worthless college major?

ask yourself why you think that it is worthless to know about human society and culture. or, ask yourself why you think that the leaders of our society, including many, many in finance and the like, have liberal arts degrees. or again, ask yourself why you think that a vocational degree is particularly useful in a society where people change jobs five to ten times in their career.

That Ultra Guy wrote:

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

Yes, these majors are far too limiting and suggest the person could be difficult to get along with quite honestly.

Computer science is a completely worthless major if you want to be a sociologist.

The pursuit of knowledge and understanding and the pursuit of money are two different things. The notion of going to college to get a good job and start a family is a fallacy.

Econ Grad wrote:

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.

No, petroleum engineering definitely has the highest paying average of any college major. There are very limited opportunities as well, as it is only available at around 20 universities in the country.

note *one of the highest* not THE highest...

Logic Man wrote:

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.

It's pretty common for philosophy undergrads to go to law school, too. Not that the degree itself helps them with that, but the reasoning skills certainly do. The two major paths for the philosophy graduates I know seem to be academia and law.

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.

anapaix wrote:

Econ Grad wrote:

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

No, petroleum engineering definitely has the highest paying average of any college major. There are very limited opportunities as well, as it is only available at around 20 universities in the country.

I have no idea what you are trying to say. If petroleum engineering does in fact have the highest average of any major, how does this contradict the statement that "economics graduates have one of the highest median salaries of all majors"?

Women's studies?

Any sort of ethnic studies.

Laughtus wrote:

Sociology.

Sometimes.

Some sociology programs offer quantitative analysis tracks which allow for a number of well-paid jobs working for research groups.

That goes for pretty much any social science major (econ, polisci, geography, etc.)

Computer Science.-- you can pick it up on your own

In America it depends a lot on who is getting the degree. As an asian or caucasian male good luck getting a good job in many competitive fields if you aren't sporting top of your class type statistics. Whereas in many of the same fields you simply need to graduate from a top-50ish if you can fulfill their gender/diversity quota. A female women's studies major with a 3.5 who can write a bit of code is probably equally as employable (in America) as a non-sought after demographic graduating with a 3.5 in a serious engineering discipline with full knowledge of multiple programming languages to boot. Sad world we live in

I was one of those worthless English Majors. I'm three years out of school, started my own business and I make $125k a year. Wasn't so worthless after all. A ton of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies were English majors. It's a skill set like anything else, one just needs to know how to put it to use.

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.

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

Oh, so you think Political Science is useless? Well you sir happen to be wrong in this sense. Many job opportunities and connections can be created by this versatile degree.

I grew up a honkey white trash pale faced minority in a Jewish trailer park in New Jersey. I got 4.0 in high school, graduated ay 16 years of age. I joined the Army Airborne Rangers, got a Silver Star and 4 Purple Hearts. A local fraternal organization blessed me with a full ride for college. I was Art major, and marijauna minor at an Ivy League school. I now make $750,000 on Wall St as a commodities broker and arbitrager. I could not have done it without the universal outlook I learned at Art School.

Buubagumper wrote:

Computer Science.-- you can pick it up on your own

This is very true in most practical cases. People who know what they are doing, when hiring programmers, are more interested in your Github portfolio. The best programmers never went to university, and many did not finish high school.

This merely puts a fine point on the dichotomy of skills vs connections. If the goal of schooling is skill acquisition, you really can learn on your own and in apprenticeship programs. 7 US states still allow people to, "read" the law - spend 7yrs working for a firm and then take the bar - rather than going to law school.

University attendance is more about branding now. A hiring manager - who has no idea about you - will not get fired for hiring a Harvard grad, no matter how incompetent s/he might be.

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

Anatomy is definitely not a useless major. That's a major for graduates who either go onto professional school or can pursue any number of science/medical allied health professions. There's actually an overabundance of science and medical jobs right now, with the growing/aged population. Anatomy is actually a very useful degree if you work in the medical/research field (I use my anatomy knowledge almost daily). You shouldn't have difficulties right now finding a job if you have even just a Bachelors in ~Chemistry/Biology/Anatomy etc..

Running Studies. Unless you can get an internship - then its gold.

outplayed stereotype wrote:

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.

Actually, you're not wrong. And there is always a high school teaching job waiting for you. Sometimes I envy the high school English teacher who also gets to coach track or cross country. No money, but probably a lot of satisfaction and a LOT of influence on the future.