People who majored in fields that "doesn't guarantee employment", how are you doing now?

Wow! They have sign-in bonus that high? Hmm I should tell my friend about it.

Oh tell your friend's wife to go move somewhere else. They will pay her higher especially if she has experience. Then keep her current job as a per diem or part time, that way if she doesnt like her new job, she can still come back. Plus with per diem or part time, they will increase her salary too at her current one.

 

I have a BA in Psychology - I work in procurement.
After I graduated college I looked for work in the mental health field. Only received 1 job offer to work as a social worker at a 1/2 way house out of a Mental Institution. Salary was $15k a year in 1997. Those with Masters Degree were paid $30k per year. $15k per year was crap money then and there was no way I'd be able to survive on it. I turned the job the down.

My 1st job was a material control clerk at a Japanese Capacitor company making $21K per year. The job involved moving materials from overseas to the US. Next job, and jobs since, have been in Purchasing.

Hindsight being 20/20 I think I would've enjoyed trade school more than college. I've met 21 year old kids making $100k+ a year working in Union trades.

Edited to add: Another vote for Nursing. Good friend of mine went back to college at age 35 and received his Nursing degrees. He was hired on by the Hospital he interned with. Makes good money from what I understand + can work just about anywhere in the US.

 

My sister got a degree in graphic design, and she now works for a design company. At the moment she currently earns about £10 per hour working Monday to Friday at a 9-5 rate. (Or similar, I'm not entirely sure when her work day starts).

Personally, I'm still in University. Currently studying digital media production, which in the eyes of the more judgemental of STEM students is probably considered a useless pursuit. Unfortunately, I don't have much choice in what I am able to do. Various degrees that are considered useful by these groups are often times heavily dependent on maths, and my mathematical ability is considerably impaired and below that of what you would expect of someone my age. This limits my options.

It is interesting that we often judge people who work lower-income jobs, and claim a sense of superiority over them yet despite this still use their goods and services they provide.

We wonder why art students feel bad about themselves, and at the same time we tell them that what they do is useless and by extension that they are useless. But we still consume media made by those students, so in the end all we have is a bunch of mixed messages.

Sometimes I worry about my future, and my job prospects. I wonder if anyone would willingly hire me for part-time work without a maths GCSE, and how many times (plus how much it is going to cost me to do so) it will take me to finally pass that exam.

During moments where my mind goes to more darker places, I do wonder if I am simply a waste of space.

Teachers in the past have suggested such, including a school counsellor that yelled at me. "You stupid, stupid child! Have you learnt nothing from our sessions together? Are you even capable of doing anything right?" she exclaimed before physically having a breakdown in front of me. The counsellor told me she'd come back but instead she speedily walked out the building and drove off and showed up a month later looking sick and sleep-deprived. I used to blame myself at first, but over the years I realised that it wasn't my fault but rather the counsellor was projecting whatever was going on in her life towards me. At the time I was about 8 or 9 years old.

I think as a society we can sometimes put too much value on academic achievement and overly judge people for the job that they do. Frequently the assumption is that they are in that job because they didn't try in school, however it should be noted that isn't always the case. I used to work myself to exhaustion constantly trying to improve myself but it often felt like despite this I was taking one step forward and two steps back.

The most infuriating aspect of this was that some people didn't believe that I was actually struggling, they would look at me and say "Oh don't be ridiculous, you're clearly a smart girl who just needs to work harder" failing to understand just how much effort I was already putting in.

Next year I will be working on a wide variety of things such as; VR design, film, animation, 3D modelling, app and web design, possibly some CGI, etc. It would be a shame if I don't get a job after all this, and hopefully I'll be able to get part-time work somewhere to help fund my time at University.

 

I think that if you don't have a safety net (family who is economically secure and willing to help out) or connections (no one if your family has graduated from college and you don't know anyone in a "professional" career) then I would highly suggest that you go into a major that leads to a job.

I'm with OGS in that its sad that people think about jobs when it comes to education (that's not the point of going to college), but if you don't have a safety net and you don't have connections then you HAVE to go into a major that leads into a job. Seriously, the numbers will be against you if you don't. Possible, yes. Incredibly hard and many more people fail at it than you think? Also yes.

I would go into jobs like nursing, engineering, accounting, (do not get a BA unless you plan to get an MBA), public administration, etc.

I have a bachelors in Psychology so its one of the more vague majors to get. Amazingly useful for your life and I enjoyed the hell out of it, but its hard to land a job right out of college with just that degree. Because of that I also got a minor in non-profit management and I did 3 internships at different nonprofits before I graduated. Because of my experience and degree, I had a job offer lined up way more I graduated. But I was one of the lucky ones. I had parents who paid for my degree and supported me in many way, who allowed me to not have to work so I could cram as many internships as possible, and who I knew would be there in case things went south. Now I work as a fundraiser, make okay money, but the earning potential is there after some years and I love what I do. It is nonprofit after all.

But my cousin who became an engineer went into sales and got a job right out of college. She is making easily 3 times as I do and still more earning potential. I'm okay with this because I intentionally chose my path and knew what I wanted from my life, but if I were struggling, with student debt and a job outside of what I wanted, then I would be incredibly frustrated.

 

Based on experience, I think you should first go for what you want to do or what your dream goal is. If that doesn’t work out, have a “plan B” so that you can still be successful.

I majored in Communication Studies & Media. I studied journalism, radio, magazine production, audio production, broadcasting, and electronic communication arts. At the time, I wanted to be a journalist, writer, work in radio/audio production, become a foley artist, work for a magazine or publishing company, and the list goes on. Of course, that pathway didn’t work out for me, and I discovered that I actually wasn’t happy with it anymore. I grew out of my dream jobs basically.

I ended up deciding to go back to school (after earning my Bachelors and almost my masters), and I earned my teaching credential. Now I’m a high school ebglish teacher (at my old high school ironically haha), and I’m enjoying it quite a bit. So to answer your question, I’m personally doing fine with what I went to school for because I ended up with a career. It’s not the career I wanted, but I discovered that I enjoy teaching as well. Also, considering I teach English, I’m able to use some of what I’ve learned to transfer to my students. Personally, I don’t mind that I don’t use my specific degree...but it’s because of my degree that I can be a teacher at all (specifically an English teacher). You might not always land a job in the same field that you studied, but having that degree is still beneficial regardless. It’s something that can never be taken from you.

It’s not always easy to choose to follow a dream or interest because sometimes it doesn’t work out. However, it might lead you to a career path that you never thought about previously, and that might turn into a good thing. If I hadn’t been a graduate assistant to a professor and worked with undergrad students, tutored them, and graded their work, I wouldn’t have realized how much I enjoyed working with, teaching, and helping younger kiddos.

Sometimes risks are worth taking when it comes to your educational and career path, and after some struggles, you might end up somewhere amazing Just always make sure you have a back-up plan to lean on when your initial plan doesn’t work out.

 

I went to school for fine arts. I ended up creating my own major focusing on animation, film, and digital media, with a secondary focus in Art history. After many years of very hard work, I am a studio artist specializing in illustration. I am very fortunate to be able to do this. It makes pretty much no money, and I go broke a lot, but it's the best job in the world.

 

I just graduated last month with a double-major in creative writing and English/Literature from the University of Evansville. So I'm just now in the state of purgatory called the job-hunt. Not to mention that my majors aren't exactly the most-promising job prospects. However, I do have the end-goal of professor-dom. So right now, it's whatever jobs I can get until I end up going for my masters (and later my doctorate).

As for academia, I know it won't be the most profitable endeavor. But I don't care as long as it makes enough money for me to live. Anything else is extra.

 

I'm a psychology major, not doing quite well, i think i chose this major because i thought i was interested in Hot topics like, depression, social anxiety, sexual orientation, multiple intelligence, personality types...etc
but now i realized i was interested in that area because i wanted to know everything so that i can fix parts of my life on my own, like knowing who i'm and what is wrong with me, why am I different..etc, I know, I'm so stupid, now i'm thinking of dropping off or going back to school

 

Whether or not it leads to a job also heavily depends on if you're any good at it and what other experience you have. If you're an average student at a mid-ranked institution, that is absolutely the best strategy. But it's not the only one to take. You have to balance your performance, the reputation of your institution as well as the labour market for the respective degrees.

If you're mediocre in a degree with enormous labour demand, you're likely to get employed. However, if you're capable of being near the top in any degree with a labour oversupply, your employment chances are still relatively rosy. Getting first class honours in a BA, majoring in philosophy at a good university, is probably going to get you employed somewhere. If you graduate with a visual arts degree with good grades and have worked in an office during your degree, you're probably not going to have your resume thrown away out of hand.

A clear example (this is in the Australian context where professional degrees like law exist at an undergraduate level and are therefore more directly comparable) is of law versus nursing. The average nursing graduate will probably earn more at an entry level than the average law graduate because of the employment market for each set of graduates (nursing is undersaturated, law is massively oversaturated). However, the top 20% of nursing graduates will earn a considerably smaller starting salary than the top 20% of law graduates (in part because of public sector dominance in the nursing employment market).

Over the course of their careers, that income difference among the top fifth will become more pronounced. If you have strong reason to be comfortable in your skills, you should probably risk the oversupplied field in the hopes of getting that high-achievment premium. That's also really important if you think your interest level with be tied closely to your work ethic. If you were shit at science at school but can scrape into an computer science degree, knowing that you're likely to be a mediocre computer scientist, you might still want to take the risk of studying an arts degree if your skill in literature or languages will push you ahead in that.

Consider also the flexibilty of the less secure degree. If you study law or arts, it is likely more types of employer will be interested in you than would be the case if you did nursing. Security of emplyoment can have a huge opportunity cost in terms of flexibility and long-term income potential. That shouldn't be discounted. It is harder for the nursing graduate to get a job outside of nursing than it is for a law graduate to get a job outside of law, or for a bachelor of arts to go into virtually any field (admittedly a clear professional market outside of academia is hard to identify for many arts majors).

That matters a lot for long-term job security. Flexible skills, in a field in which you excel, are far more resistant to automation or increases in labour competition years or decades down the track than mediocrity in a presently safe field.

 

A friend of mine recently questioned why her son wasn't getting a break, even though he has a fantastic degree from a very good university. I didn't have the heart to tell her that her son's interpersonal skills are lousy and will forever hold him back. Yes, he is academically gifted, but his whole demeanour is wrong. Sad to say that his time at university only served to make him more arrogant, entitled and superior.

By all means, work hard, excel in your subject and get your degree, but don't neglect "soft skills". When it comes to interviewing for jobs and building a career these skills may count for more than your degree ever will.

 

I couldn't agree more. Back in the day I used to run a book store. To be honest I've never been a real career-oriented person. I mean I take whatever my current position is seriously and have frankly always been grateful to anyone who would employ me because, well, I enjoy being able to pay my mortgage (although I'm certainly looking forward to not having to) and I've always been very aware that whatever life I'm currently enjoying is made possible in no small part by my current employer. But I've never been one of those people who identifies with a job. When someone says tell me about yourself I can go on and on and half the time what I do for a living doesn't even come up--so I've done a lot of different things professionally. I've always sort of gravitated towards whatever seemed interesting at the time. So at this particular point I ran a bookstore. It's the only position I've ever had where I hired people.

When I conducted interviews one of the things I would most often think when we concluded was "OMG, if I hire this person I'm going to have to work with them..." I'd always kind of try to dial that back because, well, it can't just be about me, but the fact of the matter is the next stop on that particular mental train is "OMG, if I hire this person my other employees are going to have to work with them." Get your degree, study hard, if your field requires specialized training get that--but the fact of the matter is that in all but a very few circumstances whatever you learn in the classroom is going to be largely irrelevant or outdated within a few years and employers know that. What won't ever go away is being a good employee, being a good coworker, being confident and eager to learn, being able to learn, and of course the ability to sit in an office with a stranger and seem like a good person for 40 minutes. It was astonishing to me the number of people who can't do that last one--and I tend to think I have a generally rather rosy vision of people, but, man, a job interview is not a setting where most people thrive.

I was actually managing that bookstore when I "broke into" my current field. Apparently I helped someone find a book, we chatted for a while and I recommended other books, because it was my job and because I enjoy discussing books. Apparently this person saw a couple interactions with my employees. Unbeknownst to me this person was also a fairly high muckety muck with one of the largest brokerage houses in the country. And he sicced a recruiter on me. Honestly, I spent the first half hour on the phone with the recruiter trying to talk them out of hiring me. Surely there was some sort of education you were supposed to have, surely there were things you were supposed to know---I mean, rather coincidentally I happened to be a client of theirs but that was about the extent of my knowledge. But none of that seemed to matter to them, they could teach me all that--and, in fact, when I took the job (they eventually wore me down and I like to do different things and this was really different)--they trained me full time for four months and sponsored all my licensing and exams.

So, as to Destin's point earlier in the thread, yeah I don't think of myself as "average" and I do have a fair amount of confidence in my own abilities but as far as connections, mine was some guy in a bookstore who never even saw my resume, who spent a while with me doing my job to the best of my ability and decided "I want my people to get to work with this guy".

As to my current position, well I'd been in my previous position for a while and it was starting to get sort of stale. I enjoyed it but it was time for something else. That came up in a conversation with my regional, who promptly offered me a job. It was a position reporting directly to him, it was different enough to be challenging and interesting but in the same industry which seemed comfortable and he seemed like a nice guy who would be good to work for so I accepted. I'll never forget the call I got after sending over my resume (he had to submit it to HR): "Steve, you went to Harvard? How did that never come up?" And then the job was eliminated. The firm eliminated the position nationwide while my paperwork was with HR. My regional was devastated and vowed he'd find me something just as good or better. I thought that was sweet, but wasn't exactly going to hold my breath. Then a couple months later he called me up at work one morning and said: OK I need you to call this person at this number this afternoon and ask about this job. He knows you'll be calling and I think you're going to be really interested. I did. I was and that's what I do now.

So don't get too caught up in the credentials and the connections. Be a good person, an interesting person. Be a good employee and a good coworker. Whatever it is do it well--when I waited tables I like to think I was a really good waiter (despite the fact that amongst my many jobs I really do think that one was the most difficult). Enjoy yourself and do a good job at an interesting job. I'm convinced good stuff will happen.

Again, as to Destin's point, I am over 35 (although coincidentally I was exactly 35 when I fell into my current career path) and I guess I do have a somewhat established career (when I accepted my current position I told my manager that, as long as I like the position, they could reasonably expect me to stay for five years). You got me--I have a certain amount of perspective and a certain amount of confidence in my own abilities--but when I look around for whose advice to follow, those are two of the things I look for to be honest...

 

That's the thing. Most people are an average student at a mid-ranked institution. My advice is centered knowing that most of us are average which is not an insult its just a statistical reality.

Very true, but you are comparing two careers that lead directly to a job. My advice is merely to choose something that does just that. Now if you were comparing nursing and an English degree then maybe it would get more interesting.

Now this gets interesting and I think this is where most people get into trouble for pursuing careers that they think they are good at or will make it happen. If you don't have a safety net then this is a crazy bet that most people will lose. If you come from a poor background then its a much safer bet to be a mediocre computer scientist, safe money and create a life for yourself, create art in your spare time and if you are good at it then transition after you create your own safety net.

Yeah, what? I'm so curious about this story. So, if I understand the story correctly, you graduated from Harvard and then landed working at a bookstore for a while after that? Did you get a full-ride scholarship or how did you pay for it?

 

Smurf, like I said I've never been particularly career-minded. After college I travelled through India for a year, went to grad school, worked at the U of C for a while, ran a bookstore for a while and several other things. The latest thing is investment banking--that's been about ten years at this point, which is a lot for me. As far as paying for school I had a lot of financial aid, (my family is lower middle class) some scholarships, some loans and I worked.

 

I did a degree in philosophy. I'm now working doing maintenance on welfare units and have done since finishing units (although I was heading into management but that got put back). so I do feel as if I'm wasting my potential although I'm not sure what I want to do. That said I loved the course so whatever happens I'm not sorry I did it.

 

I went to high school with one of those "prodigy" kids, crazy smart had a dozen college level credits before he got out of high school. He graduated top of his class at MIT, but had a hard time finding a job because his people skills were poor.

You have to have good people skills and be confident in your knowledge and ability. Like one of our designers at work, dude is legit smart, he can do trig in his head and does not need the computer to figure out loading and stress on structural components. But he is a liar and a dick; nearly cost us some huge contracts, multi million dollar stuff. The contractor told our head boss he will only do business with us if that single designer never handled his projects again. You can't be blaming your mistakes on everyone else, cause someone like me does not get thrown under the bus.

If a customer asks me if I can drop their order someplace I know it won't go, I never just tell them 'no'; unless there is a really clear reason as to why or if I do not think it safe to do so. I always say "I can try" or I explain why I am unable to do what they are asking.

I've had to train guys to do some really odd stuff hauling garbage or now hauling oversized loads. I'd rather train someone who asks lots of question before trying than train someone who already knows it all. Like the new guy we have stacking loads, he will try something once or twice and if he hasn't figured it out, he asks. What blows me away is he actually thanks us if we explain how to do something. On the flip side, one of the old guys I worked with at a trash company left a new guy he was trying to train at a gas station and told him to call a ride, was so mad he couldn't stand to give the guy a ride back to the shop.

Book learning will get you so far, but your attitude and how you treat people will get you a lot farther.

 

I got a degree in German with minors in History and Environmental Studies. But I kind of dodged the "what now" question by getting a library degree afterwards, so I probably don't qualify for the question.

 

Ugh yes, interviews are so nerve-wracking. I also dislike the questionnaires that some positions give out just before the interview stage. One time I applied for a work experience internship and they made me fill out this form that asked questions such as "Do you consider yourself a risk-taker?" "Are you usually cheerful?" "Have you ever experienced depression or otherwise long periods of sadness?" "Are you a people-person?" and "Would you say that you are an optimist?".

Real answers: No, I do not like to take major risks, as I like to put more thought into things which is why I have a habit of over-thinking almost everything. Sometimes I am cheerful, but most of the time I am either neutral or annoyed. Yes, I have experienced some long periods of negative emotion in my life before but I am doing much better now. I enjoy hanging out with small groups of people, but get a bit freaked out around large ones and need my own personal space now and then otherwise I'll lose my mind. Cats and computers usually make more sense to me than people do. Personally I try to remain realistic, but have a habit of swaying towards more pessimistic behaviour and thoughts.

But if I answered honestly, then I probably wouldn't have got a response back. That's what I hate it about it, since the test says that there are absolutely no incorrect answers even though there clearly are.

When they give you those tests they usually want you to put strongly agree to anything that makes you sound outgoing, extroverted, risk-taking, and just generally cheerful about life, and strongly disagree to questions which perhaps suggest that isn't always the case. (Granted, there are some exceptions to this).

Maybe the real test isn't to see if you are those things, but if you are capable of lying and putting on an act for the sake of agreeability. Since I have to wonder how many people are actually that extroverted and pumped about everything. Perhaps that's overly cynical of me though.

It can be easy to fall into the habit of overthinking everything you do in an interview, because you desperately want to appear in positive light. What if I make too much/too little eye contact? Am I coming across as though I don't care about this role? How can I sound a bit more enthusiastic without sounding sarcastic or fake? There are a lot of questions which come up in my head when I am in that position so it can make me nervous. Plus, what's worse is when they throw a surprise/random question in there such as "If you were a biscuit, what kind would you be?" or "Tell me, what would you say your biggest sacrifice or risk in life has been?".

A part of me wishes I could reply "Why, are you planning to throw me in a shark pool/ make me juggle knives whilst I organise files and deal with customers?" or "Preferably the worst kind of flavour in the tin/ box because I don't particularly desire to be eaten alive, although if I were a biscuit I'd probably lack the sentience needed to make that kind of decision, plus it's up to the baker who makes the biscuit rather than the biscuit itself rendering this question redundant".

But if I replied that then they might think I was rude, so instead it's the same old cliche' "Oh I'd be an Oreo because I'm tough on the outside but soft on the inside".

 

My undergrad degree was in psychology and sociology. Went to grad school for psych but escaped. Now I work as a recruiter helping people find jobs. My psychology experience definitely helps.

Also if anyone is looking for ways to make their major sound relevant for a job, I can help with that.

 

Because they are.

For one thing, you have too many people chiming in who are from different countries--pretty much none of them being your country, if you're in Asia. What country you're talking about matters; the worth of education, the importance of personality, being good at what you do/know and job prospects upon graduation...these things are not the same in every single country. You can't really just ask a question like this on an international forum and get a universal answer or an answer that applies to where you live/want to work.

For another thing, you have everything from current college students to Ph.D candidates to 30-somethings to 40-somethings chiming in. My experience is--and I'm in my upper 30s--older people and people who haven't been in school for decades or who haven't had to hunt for their first post-grad job in decades really have no idea what it's like today in school or looking for that first job. I graduated from graduate school 10 years ago, and from what I read online not much has changed in terms of what you need to major in for job prospects and establishing a career or getting that first job after graduation. But for people who haven't been in school or looked for their first job in 20 years or more, a lot has changed. Of course, my perspective is only about what it's like in the US, so it might not apply to you at all--that's what you need to understand about what people are saying in this thread. And even in the US, we have a lot of disagreement about these things.
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For me in the US, I graduated from college 15 years ago with a psychology degree and minors in English/philosophy, and it was ridiculously hard after that to get a job--and I graduated from one of the best universities in the US. For about two years, all I got was rejection letters basically telling me I didn't have the work experience they were looking for. I got not even one interview. Some employers would even write me and tell me my background was impressive, in terms of the university I attended and that kind of thing, and that they were sure I'd find something. It was always about work experience.

I think the same thing is true today, with one tweak--that's what PatrickUK mentioned about personality. Personality is so huge here in opening doors, to the point where I'd say the three most important factors in getting a good job in the US are 1) personality, 2) knowing the right people/connections and 3) what your previous work experience consists of. After that, I don't care what field you're talking about--really, nothing else matters. There are some fields where a degree is a requirement, but the degree is merely necessary but not sufficient--you have to have the right personality or the right connections if you have no real work experience, and you have to have the right work history otherwise.

Other than that, degrees really don't matter--that has been my experience, and that is also what I've seen a bunch of people experience, unfortunately. I think the idea of education for the sake of knowledge, growth and all of that is how we all should think in this country...but, unfortunately, this is not how most American universities think--education is a business to them. Unfortunately, it just costs too much money to attend college now if you can't afford it out of your own pocket, in large part because we're being taken advantage of with this idea that degrees open doors career-wise and everyone "needs" a degree to get a good job and to make more money. Truthfully, I owe a ridiculous amount of money because of all this (and all of this talk about only certain majors/fields paying off started after I graduated from school--it's common for people to push that idea nowadays, but back when I was attending college the idea was more about going to the best schools, which I did), and being in debt in the US affects you in so many negative and unimaginable ways, including your dating life and romantic prospects. So...

And my graduate degree is in one of those fields everyone thinks earns everyone 6 figures, and when I graduated--from another prestigious university--it was basically just like after I graduated from college, i.e. tons of rejection letters, very few interview requests, people telling me "you're definitely going to get something" because of the university I attended. It was one of those cases where the degree was necessary but not sufficient. I'm far from the only person to come from a graduate program like this and end up struggling to find work and swimming in debt. My parents have helped me a lot.

Anyway, what I ended up doing that got my career off the ground is...lying on my resume about my work experience. I never got caught. I knew I wanted to work in the technology field (which I never studied in school, i.e. no IT, no Comp. Sci, etc) and that I knew enough to do a good job in that field. So I made up fake work experience, applied for some jobs, got one that got my foot in the door. It really hasn't been that hard for me to get jobs since. I do great in job interviews personality-wise, and now I have a resume with the kind of work experience employers want to see. In fact, I have recruiters and employers contacting me on a regular basis through LinkedIn about jobs--just had a phone conversation with one yesterday. If I wanted to move to another city, I could get a job making really good money in my current role or being a full time programmer, but I'm not ready to move again yet. It took a long time to get to this point, though, and it probably never would have happened if I hadn't lied. I also believe I could have gotten to this point without ever going to college, and probably sooner, and if that were the case I would be in a great spot right now financially. Instead, it's still a bit of a struggle financially.

In psych and English, yeah, the professors were into it. Those class environments--particularly the small ones--were great, and I loved going to those classes in college. The first English class I took in college--the professor, the environment and the books we read are how I ended up minoring in English, because it initially was just philosophy as a minor. I loved that class so much that I ended up wanting to double major in psych and English, but it really was too late to add a new major because I was about to be a junior in college and only had that one English class. I think the philosophy professors were into their subjects, too, but I just hated most of those class environments. In most of those classes, I think the environment of the class grated on the professors, too. It just seemed like there were always 4-5 know-it-all students who completely took over the class and never actually understood the works we were reading, and it was just a complete waste of an hour dealing with their pseudo-intellectual babbling (and, sometimes, their arguing).

Just my experience and perspective based on my experiences.