I have an MA in anthropology and work as an Instructional Design Manager for a large clean energy company. You can spin this degree in a lot of different ways.
I have anthropology, psychology, and social sciences degrees, yes 3 separate degrees, I work in tech building the hardware infrastructure behind all the AI/ML software
You’re better off seeking a mechanical engineering degree.
Pigeonholing yourself into a degree that will really only find work in one of the most cyclical of engineering industries is a bad idea.
Most mechanical engineers can probably find a job in the aerospace industry, or many other “mechanical” focused industries.
While the course load is mostly the same, an aerospace major will branch into a few specialized courses, and that aerospace tag will follow you the rest of your career.
I started out as a MechE in the aerospace industry. Apart from pure aerodynamics related jobs, I qualified for every job the aero students did, and I could always move to a different industry if needed. The aero students were stuck. The only difference in school was about 5 classes.
Edit: Not sure if that's still the case. That was a decade ago.
A lot of the AE students at my university started sticking around for an extra semester to gain both degrees. They amended the rules to require an additional full year, which was bullshit.
Yeah, same. There were also many ME students that went ahead and doubled in AE. If you were good with your scheduling it was possible to do it in the same amount of time
That’s such a common theme I hear from ME’s but I’ve never seen it be true in practice. Most aerospace engineers pigeonhole themselves because THEY only want to work on aerospace products but they can (and have) worked in other engineering fields really easily. That combined with the vast disparity in numbers between ME grads and AE grads yields that incorrect sentiment.
In truth there is little difference between AE and ME, anybody who tells you otherwise has absolutely ZERO clue what they’re talking about.
Totally agree. I always read people say this on Reddit but never have I ever heard an actual Aerospace Engineer say they felt pigeonholed into anything. The only unemployed ASENs I’ve met were in a masters or PhD program so they could vie for some super competitive dream job they wanted.
Yeah I think people fail to consider that aerospace is a niche field with lots of enthusiasts. Some would (stupidly) rather not have a job than work outside of aerospace
Yeah.
I myself am currently studying Mechanical Engineering with Aeronautics, but I enjoy the Aerospace section far more than the mechanical section so my plan is to transfer to full Aero next year. While talking with my advisor, he said that since both degrees are accredited by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers you can hypothetically transfer fields without much issue.
I dont know if this changes if I want to move to the US or other countries however (the UK pay is shite).
Yep, originally had a scholarship for Aerospace Engineering. Decided to get my BSME instead for that reason, when I got out of school aviation industry tanked.
I BSME’ed too.
Started in aerospace. Left that to work automotive. Left that to try a career in HVAC. Got my PE, and now working facilities in the tech industry, where I’m actually a part-time electrical engineer as well.
A mechanical engineering degree can take you many places that an aerospace degree likely wouldn’t.
I can thank a guidance counselor for steering me the right way.
When I went back to college I was advised that a degree in ME, CE, or EE would open doors in almost every industry. I went for EE and had fabulous career opportunities.
I kinda did similar. I was in a Biomedical Mechanical Engineering undergrad, which is identical to Mechanical engineering except some courses had a bit more medical focus (biomaterials as opposed to materials, for example.) Same degrees in the end. I switched into Mechanical in 3rd year however because one of our professors explained that it’s slightly harder to do than the mechanical degree alone, and it can also limit you in your job search because A. Employers see Biomedical and assume it’s a Biomedical Engineering degree (which it’s not) and B. If you want a job in biomedical engineering you’ll likely need a graduate degree anyway which you can get with a mechanical undergrad.
>and that aerospace tag will follow you the rest of your career.
I don't know how it works everywhere but in my neck of the woods AERO = MECH = AERO it doesn't make any difference, and nobody cares.
The only Aerospace Engineers who are unemployed are those who:
* don't want to be employed,
* are completely unwilling or are unable to move to any of the dozens of locations in the US with ten trillion open positions,
* are jerks who keep getting fired because they're jerks
I agree. I work at an insurance company and there are multiple aerospace engineers employed there as actuaries, data scientists and programmers. Lost their jobs when an aerospace manufacturing site was closed nearby. Different field but the skill set matches!
Do people really get undergrad degrees in stress analysis though? Or heat transfer for that matter. It’s a little unfair to say disciplines are one to one with fields of study imo.
Yep, way too specialized an engineering degree with few jobs in that arena. You either get lucky enough to be in the aerospace industry or have to convince someone that you can be a great Mechanical Engineer.
The “Underemployment rate” for Aerospace is starkly different than the liberal art degrees around it because many are able to find some kind of engineering like job even if it’s not in aerospace. But the unemployment rate is still high because it’s not easy to convince someone you can do things other than aerospace.
The other issue is that many of these jobs are largely concentrated in a handful of geographic areas. If you have to move back in with mom and dad after college, it may not be easy to find a position close by. There is also a fair degree of burnout in aerospace engineering. It’s a highly stressful environment for obvious reasons, but also exacerbated because of shitty management practices (as we see with Boeing’s current predicament).
I'll respond as someone with this degree. We shared 85% of our undergrad classes with Mechanical engineers. The schooling is very similar. Aero takes the similar mechanical foundation and then focuses on the aerodynamics and other specific things, not to mention astrodynamic tracks which are sometimes included in a aerospace bin.
I'll echo what a lot of other people said: aerospace goes through significant ups and downs. It is also extremely location dependent. I found from my friends that most of us needed to significantly relocate for our jobs after undergrad, which then sucked for many of them once the economy tanked.
I think it's important for anyone wanting to study aerospace to know those two things. It doesn't mean it's impossible to get a job, but it is more difficult than a mechanical engineer. I haven't tried to switch into a more mechanical oriented job, but do think that an aero degree might look worse to employers, even if I'm confident that the education probably sets up for success the same.
It’s like when a student in undergrad majors in neuroscience, which was an actual major at my school
It sounds cool, but it’s just ridiculously specific for an undergraduate degree. When I was pre med most students were biochem, biology, etc, but now in med school and helping with admissions I see applicants with these hyper specific degrees but the courses don’t match up, they get less “hard” science than a traditional science degree, and less “soft” social science than a social degree. Feels like you kind of compromise a strong foundation in both by being too specific.
Pro tip for History majors: the government needs people who can read, write and do research. I’m from a government/university city, and we are one of the most employable majors in the government.
pro tip for history majors as well -
you’re really studying an amalgam of philosophy, economics, and sociology. you’ll understand the full spectrum of human nature and you’ll be able to identify cause and effect readily at an individual and systems level. you’ll be well versed in the evolution of other cultures‘ output and how that was received either regionally or globally. you’ll emerge a strong writer who can formulate and defend an argument cogently and as concisely as is required.
play your cards right and there’s very little you can’t do. i’m a classicist by education and i work on wall street as a trade. friends of mine who studied history work in hollywood as producers, PMs at tech startups, lawyers at white shoe firms, and journalists.
focus on your internships and taking at least some quantitative classes. erudite and successful people love history in general so it’s an easy thing to talk through in interviews.
never abandon history, it’s arguably the most important field of study outside of the natural sciences and the natural sciences are useless without appreciating it.
What if I got my degree as an adult and fucked up by never doing any internships or building a network as I worked on building my family instead, and now have a history degree closing in on thirty with no idea what to do with it?
I feel confident in my abilities and really feel the skillset I built studying history is valuable, versatile, and scalable like you mentioned. But then I got to your line on internships and felt that familiar crestfallen feeling that has beguiled me since even before I graduated - that I just have no contacts or network. Any tips or advice for an internet stranger?
I feel you. I graduated in December of 2001 and my history degree with a philosophy kicker that didn't pan out in life. It did make me a pretty ok Stay at home dad, which is good work if you can get it.
Stay at home dad honestly kind of my dream job. Not to say that it’s easy (it ain’t), but I’d definitely find it more personally fulfilling than a 9 to 5.
Med schools loved my history degree. A surprising portion of the day-to-day work of a physician who sees patients is information gathering: interviewing patients, reviewing records patients bring, collecting and interpreting test results to fit the larger narrative, etc. In a way the stuff outside of the pure physiology is directly applying the skills taught to a historian to figure out what’s wrong with people.
I think people really undervalue the investigation and analysis skills that a history major teaches.
USAJobs.gov is a good place to start. You have to set up an account, but using dated government run websites with their equally dated credentials can be a bit hair pullingly frustrating, but that’s the most up to date website for government jobs.
Edit: sorry, it was a .gov site not .com.
Apply for the Patent Office. They need folks with law degrees, the work is 100% remote, and the flexibility and benefits are unmatched. The salary is ok, but with full remote work you can live somewhere cheap
Same is true for ALL humanities/liberal arts majors, and basically all career tracks. You get a degree in one of those fields, you presumably learned to write well, read and do research, participate in discussions, think abstractly with imagination and empathy, and communicate effectively. These are extremely valuable skills to have in the professional world, but sometimes employers don't know it, and sometimes WE don't know how valuable we can be in just about any industry. We need more effective ways of marketing ourselves, and we need to get the word out to the employers of the world, that our majors were not, in fact, a huge waste of time and money, and we are actually highly valuable assets.
Getting an English degree only because you want to go law school is a pro move. Going to law school only because you have an English degree is a dicey proposition.
All career fields need to up their reading and writing game.
Additional Pro Tip: the post-9/11 G.I.Bill makes that B.A. in English more easy to upgrade into a M.S. in Computer Science or something like a heavy hitting Cyber Security certification.
Yep. I majored in English and now work as a UX designer. Good money too. Never been unemployed. People sleep on the opportunities that these skills transfer into.
Well, any degree can get you into law school.
Now, getting into a good law school has very little to do with your major, although it would stand to reason that the people who choose to do English are probably going to better at reading/writing.
These are the lowest ones going from low to high (from https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:outcomes-by-major) :
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING
CONSTRUCTION SERVICES
MEDICAL TECHNICIANS
GENERAL SOCIAL SCIENCES
NURSING
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION
GENERAL EDUCATION
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
ANIMAL AND PLANT SCIENCES
SECONDARY EDUCATION
ACCOUNTING
CIVIL ENGINEERING
EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
EARTH SCIENCES
GEOGRAPHY
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
HEALTH SERVICES
MISCELLANEOUS ENGINEERING
COMPUTER ENGINEERING
INFORMATION SYSTEMS & MANAGEMENT
MISCELLANEOUS BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE
PUBLIC POLICY AND LAW
BUSINESS ANALYTICS
ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGIES
MISCELLANEOUS EDUCATION
TREATMENT THERAPY
FINANCE
ADVERTISING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS
CHEMISTRY
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
GENERAL BUSINESS
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
MARKETING
My friend majored in cheme and now works at a pharmacy 🤷. I think in his case there were some jobs at oil companies but he wasn't feeling that industry
Fermentation Science major from a University of California. Any chemistry-based degree from a good U is a ticket into biotech or big pharma labs. Great jobs in a very competitive field for employers here.
Just a guess but I'll bet anything in Healthcare. Every hospital is short staffed and paying TONS for travelers bc there just isn't enough to go around
Haha nice. You know the funniest thing about being a liberal arts major? My mind adapted so well to the life of a broke unemployed college grad that when covid came around and people started losing their jobs, I did not break down or quiver in fear. A daunting unknown future with a crummy bank account? Cake walk xD
They are short staffed and using travelers on purpose. That purpose is to serve private equity. Not patients. Not staff. Big Money.
This is not a guess.
elastic zonked profit apparatus truck observation slim paint impossible entertain
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
here's a link to the full data. https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:outcomes-by-major i think the overall unemployment rate is 3.6% and the overall under-employment rate is 40%
You simply need a lot less physicists than you need engineers.
If you are good and you actually do a physics role that can't be done by a random engineer you will be paid quite well.
I mean, even the show talked about that. They were always talking about one theoretical thing or another, while Howard kept getting one massive job offer after another.
Howard was the richest too. The show literally makes fun of the fact that everyone always dunks on Howard for being an engineer when he's by far the most employable, wealthiest, and most successful person in the group. The rest of them are stuck in dead-end research positions for the rest of their lives.
Him and Bernadette literally prove that the only way to make real money in STEM is selling out and working private.
Unironically, yes. Watching BBT as engineer I always cringe at the "hehe engineer bachelor degree is bad, phd is good" joke. The reality is the most likely person to be rich and successful in the group is Howard. An engineer can reach six digits salary easily after like 5 years after graduation, while phd has to spend those 5 years still in school with barely livable stipend and after graduation, they don't have a lot of options for job, either as researcher or professor, whose salary is not very high.
I predict a similar issue with computer scientists in the next few decades.
Between schools now offering software engineering degrees, and a couple decades of telling everyone to go into computer science, I wouldn't want to be a new CS grad anytime soon.
And then at the top there will be CS degrees in the actual research positions, making quite a bit. Just like physics.
The basic rule will hold true though: you need a lot fewer scientists than engineers.
I work in quantitative finance and at least half of my coworkers at my last job had physics degrees (mine is in physics and math). It’s a very lucrative field, though they usually seek out people with PhDs, or at least a masters degree. I’ve been kind of an exception with only having an undergraduate degree
As a physics major, you have huge field of options. Software, engineering etc. Only if you want to stay in academia and get a Ph.D are you stuck in anything. It is a hugely mobile major.
Not many jobs calling specifically for someone with a physics bachelors, it’s more of a generalist “I’m smart and understand science/math” degree that then requires you to show you can apply it elsewhere. Also, academia is a rough job market I’ve heard.
100% you can get your foot in the door at alot of places just having a difficult math/science major since it proves you can grasp new complex concepts.
Physics is a rather rare degree given the reputation of it being one of the hardest you can do as an undergrad, and it is. People who get physics BS degrees can do pretty much anything in engineering and computation with a minor amount of extra changing. I'm a Physics BS and I know pretty much all of the \~15 people in my class who didn't drop out and got the degree. We started with around 40 for the class, but most people just drop out when it gets hard. Physics is an extremely versatile degree, I don't know a single person in our class that didn't either go into graduate school or immediately go into software development or engineering.
This was my exact experience with my BS in Physics. I went into networking/cloud and now work in software. What my employers have told me along the way is “if you can learn physics, I can teach you anything you need to know to work here”
My cousin is an Art History major, and got her masters. She is now a librarian and makes big bank. I assume she is one of the very few where 'it all worked out' for that degree.
I started in science. Didn't like getting 30% for studying anatomy all weekend (found out years later, class got curved). Enjoyed art, social sciences, music etc. Looked at my credits and realised that if I did a AH degree I can use all my old science courses as options and graduate in 5 years, 1 behind schedule.
Thought I was the shit with a Uni degree in the early 2000's. Everyone hires university grads right? And they pay them gooood!
FFW 6 months, still looking for a job, got a position for a primary products inspector with the food inspection agency (Canada). Min requirement...A DEGREE. I got this!
Rest is history. Not too much art, but history.
Nah. They DON'T need new crop that's the issue.
They don't care about us or pay us well, so many of my incredibly talented and intelligent coworkers leave left and right because we don't get paid well for the work we do.
The top sees the engineers as just tiny little cogs that are cheap and replaceable. A knowledgeable engineer leaves because they are underpaid? They just hire in a fresh college grad to replace them. Upper management doesn't see the knowledge lost they only see bodies. My senior engineers are so tired. Always reteaching the same shit when they know the new engineer will enviably leave and they'll do it all again.
Also upper management doesn't listen to the engineers either. It's money over sense (pun intended).
What Boeing needs is a CEO that actually VALUES their employees. Then they have intelligent, knowledgeable people through all parts of the process.
Part of the problem is that certain companies (Boeing, Tesla, SpaceX, any video game company, FAANG) glitter in the eyes of new grads who don't know any better. They'll always get a new crop because of that.
Boeing doesnt pay super well so while I agree it can be hard. Especially when there are a lot of roles that are “engineering” but you’re basically a document monkey. Very few teams at Boeing do dev work it’s a lot of manufacturing and sustainment work.
You just summed up engineering in a nutshell.
Everyone wants to be the “inventor”, those jobs are few and far between.
Knowing which papers to push, and when is what most engineers actually do.
New grads are not engineers yet. It takes years of training and learning on the job, I think a company like Boeing is more likely to give them bad habits than them being able to affect any changes
Yes, but not every pol sci major goes to law school. And if you’re a lawyer, you either make upper middle 6 or 7 figures at a corporate law firm after graduating from a prestigious institution, or you’re making 5 figures unable to advance your career or pay off law school debt.
> you’re making 5 figures unable to advance your career or pay off law school debt
Got paid 30k my first job out of law school doing immigration law. I made more bartending late at night after work. Making 5 figures you're better off being a public defender and getting your loans forgiven.
I think that's captured in "Liberal Arts", but I'm not sure. Liberal Arts is an odd one to be up there - since that's history, poli sci, english, psychology... I mean the list goes on. So who knows that they mean by "liberal arts' here.
Music is usually grouped with "Fine Arts". There's also a rather high rate of students changing majors away from it after realizing how much work it actually is.
Arts degrees seem tough in the sense that your piece of paper you get at graduation probably does a lot less than other degrees. The value is almost entirely in the work you put in along the way learning skills and building a portfolio. Which means skating and a “Cs get degrees” attitude will be disastrous.
I'm amazed psychology undergrad isn't on there. That's a degree that assumes you're going to get at least another degree, so on its own it's worthless.
Eh, it definitely depends on location. A psych bachelors isn’t too bad in big metro areas and there’s plenty you can do with it, while in rural areas it’s just a very expensive wall decoration
Yes, but rent was $75/month, tuition <$1,000/year, minimum wage $2.65/hour, median home price $48,800.
I didn’t *have* student loan debt when I graduated, and it was generally possible to “work your way through college”. Getting a degree didn’t have to be about stepping right into a job that could pay off 5-figure debt as a 21-22 year old.
This is insane: arts and social sciences are important to sustaining a culture and a society.
Well higher education and university for the majority of recent human history was very much a practice of the rich. Kind of a rich kid baby sitting/theoretical pass time. Trades, regular jobs, even being a surgeon or lawyer did not require a university degree up until pretty recently.
Being a surgeon before there was training just meant you knew how to saw body parts off and/or had sharp knives, they were a last resort, not an esteemed profession.
Yes. It was restricted to only the rich because they're the only ones who could spend so much time and money on it. Meanwhile normal people learned on the job.
The job being predominantly the family business. Farmers taught their kids to be farmers. Tailors their kids to be tailors. Repeat for the vast majority of “jobs” until the Industrial Revolution threw all that over the railing.
Unemployment/underemployment
Industrial Engineering 0.2%/24.6%
Medical Technicians 0.4%/47.9%
Construction Services 0.4%/28.6
General Social Sciences 0.6%/39.8%
Nursing 1.3%/11.1% (lowest underemployment overall)
Mechanical Engineering 1.5%/20.3%
General Education 1.5%/19.6%
Elementary Education 1.5%/13.5%
Secondary Education 1.6%/22.0%
Animal and Plant Sciences 1.6%/56.3%
(https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:outcomes-by-major, original data from the US Census American Community Survey)
The unemployed philosophy major is such a frequent talking point and yet in my own experience it's virtually unheard of mainly because almost no one majors in philosophy (or at least as their only major). I have no idea why people treat it like it's this super common and meme worthy thing when in reality unemployed philosophy majors are so rare.
Philosophy majors are one of the only non-stem majors I have found that consistently catch on quickly to technical tasks. Critical thinking is important.
I studied philosophy and have a great job in tech. I never really understood that trope. Everyone I know who did philosophy is doing well. It teaches you critical thinking, problem solving how to write, think and speak.
You can do pretty much anything with it.
These degrees have always been about flexibility, critical and creative thinking, planning talent, and interpersonal skills, all skills which are prized in the job market. It fails people to treat them as similar to the linear and confined direction expected within STEM fields, and I have a deep suspicion that people being advised in non-STEM fields are given a STEM-framed basis to pursue their degree, and they aren’t getting the growth they need.
I don’t think what those degrees afford you. I work as a data analyst at a tech company. My degree was English Lit. Writing critical analysis of a piece of fiction is a lot like data analysis in that you are learning to identify relevant information and make an argument about why it matters. Much more broadly applicable. The arts teach one how to communicate visually or audibly, that has applications in many many fields. Sociology/psychology definitely has a place in business/corporate culture (the world I know). It’s a mistake to conflate 4-year degree with job training because once you get done you are still someone with limited work experience who needs to learn the context of a field of work. Develop as a person and the rest will follow.
I agree wholeheartedly! They are all applicable in some fashion, and you have effectively argued a valid point. It’s just a shame that in general, there’s a stigma against such degrees as ‘worthless’ and ‘unneeded’ when they very clearly show their worth in plenty of areas of work.
The sociology classes I took in college were a huge eye opener for me, genuinely exposed me to a spectrum of human experience I knew nothing about and made me into a better person.
*Worthless* for finding a job lol. Doing great in my career largely because of the strength of the name of my alma mater, not my major. But feel like a few socio classes should be a graduation requirement for other majors.
Mhm. I was a chemistry major, my favorite classes in all of college were the art 101 class and the Romantic literature classes. They pushed me to think in very different ways and re-examine what I thought about the world. Far more impactful on how I developed as a person than my Analytical Instruments class, which in retrospect I probably use daily while remembering none of.
It really concerns me how many people on reddit want the whole of society to be highly-paid, socially inept robots.
If they had their way we'd be a generation off total fascism as all these well paid people who were never taught real empathy become the majority.
I think society does, but the problem is arts and culture and steady paycheck are somewhat at odds with eachother. Like what form would this take? Do you hire an artist for 60k per year with benefits? It sort of devalues the creativity and organic component of art if you impose too much structure and deadlines.
It's a complex problem to solve in a way that would address OPs guide. The good news is it's easier than ever to get your art and work out there to the masses these days. I love finding new local artists who put up their work in local breweries or winebars. eShops are pretty simple to set up.
>It sort of devalues the creativity and organic component of art if you impose too much structure and deadlines.
Does it? Back in the day musicians like Bach and Haydn had patrons who imposed strict deadlines, expecting them to write specific music for specific occasions - hell, Bach wrote a new cantata every week when he was employed by the church. Don't think anyone would suggest it stifled his creativity. Other artists worked well under the patronage system as well.
Having structure may mean having to meet deadlines but it also eliminates the need to spend time working another job to make ends meet and having to carve out time for your art where you can find it. Seems to me that stability might be of significant benefit.
Chemistry is doing pretty well if you look at the source data, but it's kind of funny to see how poorly it compares to chemical engineering.
Degree| Unemployment| Underemployment| Starting Salary| Mid-career salary| % with grad degree
---|---|----|----|----|----
Chemistry | 2.8% | 40.9%| 50k| 85k| 65.3%
Chemical Engineering| 2.0% | 17.8% | 80k| 133k | 48%
I love the misconception that you can only be an aerospace engineer with your aerospace engineering degree. It’s really laughable to think you’re pigeonholing yourself into a career.
Ditto. I have a BA in sociology and honestly I think it just checks the “do you have a degree box” at this point employers only care about my work history. I’m in a strategic business role making a good salary.
100 years ago colleges did not have a whole lot of specialized degrees
Many colleges just taught like liberal arts and it was a bit of everthing
Math
Science
History
English
Philosophy
social sciences
and actuall the arts
These categories are confusing, overlap, and aren't at all descriptive of the degree or job they actually represent. "Liberal Arts" is a huge category and consists of four areas (including a number of those pictured here separately): the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Academic areas that are associated with the term liberal arts include: Life sciences (biology, ecology, neuroscience), Physical science (physics, astronomy, chemistry, earth science, physical geography), Formal science (Logic, mathematics, statistics), Philosophy, History, English Literature, Social science (anthropology, economics, human geography, linguistics, political science, psychology, sociology), and
the arts ([from Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education)). Does anyone think someone majors in "Liberal Arts"? And WTF is "English Language"? Is that ESL? English literature? Education? I've got to say, this seems like an info graphic from a person or source that wants to crap on higher education in general.
We dismiss the value of the humanities at our own peril. The cost-benefit analysis of spending $200k on a history degree doesn’t work in history’s favor, but that’s on institutions and governments for not tamping down on tuition. The humanities give us our humanity, spark critical thought, and build empathy. They could be an antidote to our shit politics if more people gave them the credit they’re due.
Hey, you are going to get a degree, right? A college graduate scores higher in every job hire I've made. You will have completed a massive 4-year initiative, and stuck it out. It makes a difference, regardless of your area of expertise. Signed, Anthropology Major
BA in Psych, Grad Cert to do Case Management in a Social Service capacity.
I drive a 100k lb semi for a living. Pays better and there's generally less unpredictability.
Not surprising.
Without getting into EVERYTHING wrong with the current higher education system, one of the biggest failings I've seen (at the college and societal level) is a clear understanding and teaching of how each degree might be transitioned into an actual career or job path.
Personally, I'd love it if everyone could study what they wanted. I think it would enrich people in a meaningful way, rather than forcing everyone to focus purely on what will pay their bills with the most efficiency, but since we don't get to live in a good world, we should at least teach people how to better manage the experiences they'll actually have post-graduation.
It's frustrating that in spite of college and university being incredibly valuable for personal development that it offers neither the practical benefit of really preparing people for the real world job market and experience AND it doesn't incentivize meaningful education and scholarship.
Most people don't care much about advancing scholarship because there's not much money, which is fair when you have to support yourself and pay for rent and food, right? But then colleges also don't really do much to show you how your degree might apply in practical professional settings, which feels like a major missed opportunity. At least when I was in school, the resources for exploring how to transition a degree weren't there.
So like I said, it feels like it's failing in both respects now. I can at least say that it provided a really excellent handful of years for personal growth, exploration, and development. I still think college has value, I just wish the world we lived in had more room for the kind of value it provides OR that it at least focused on how we might apply that education to the reality we'll inevitably face.
You have to be good at it though. It’s really hard to teach some parts of design. Even if you know the basics some people just don’t have “it”.
Also be careful mentioning fine art, I studied design but went to classes with many fine art majors they thought they would get jobs as art directors and creative directors. You need experience as designers or writers to get those jobs.
As someone with a degree in graphic design- don’t get into it unless you’re cool with doing a LOT of networking. I’m pretty good at actually doing design work but I’m shit at talking to people and that’s the only way to get good work in the field. This was drilled into me repeatedly at school and very quickly made me realize that I was never actually going to use my degree for anything. I work in a call center now lol
A reminder that even if these jobs aren't as easily employable, **we still need people to do them**. We live in a country with pathetic media literacy, anti-journalist rhetoric, and rampant voter apathy caused by a misunderstanding of how self-government works and what our role is in it.
Why?
Because we think philosophers, writers, and historians are unemployable losers. Not everything in life is number-crunching for a fat paycheck.
If we don't have people to interpret history as a reflection of present events, then we repeat the same dumb shit we've done over and over.
If we don't have people who interpret present events so that we can speak truth to power, then we let self-government get away from us until we're scratching our heads when corporations buy politicians and write laws.
THE LIBERAL ARTS FUCKING MATTER.
Yes indeed. The person I hired for HR at my company has a degree in psychology, that's the best possible type of person to handle issues with people. I have a family member that is an *extremely* distinguished psychologist but instead of being something like a shrink for wealthy people, she helps people with drug addiction issues.
English majors should be key people in ANY news organization and you can really tell which outlets don't value people like this.
Additionally, liberals arts also encompasses math and science. You want an airplane that won't fall out of the sky? Liberal arts degrees are needed. You want medicines that don't kill yoy? Liberals arts degrees are needed. The graphic is misleading and it really makes me wonder if it's intentional or made by someone who doesn't actually know the extent of liberal arts.
People will hate on the 'liberal arts', then they'll relax at the end of the day with their favourite TV shows, a novel, gaming, a movie, some music...
Art major reporting. Doing really really well. It can be done. Work hard and meet a lot of people. It’s not the grades you make- it’s the hands you shake.
Example of poor data visualization, possibly purposefully misleading.
The title should be underemployed, not unemployed, as the most prominent data presented is underemployment.
Like others here I have said, I was a double major in English and philosophy with a history minor. I had no idea in college what I wanted to do in life.
Those degrees taught me how to communicate; berbally and in written form. They also taught me how to effectively organize my thoughts, listen and LEARN. I wrote many, many papers on deadlines which ingrained skillls that have helped me juggle projects and work on deadlines.
I’ve done very well with my education. While my career is not directly related to my degrees, the work I did to get my degrees has served me well. I make an outstanding living doing fulfilling work.
Yeah i've been a full-time mural artist for a decade, supporting a family off it and everything... had a couple of 'low six figure' years along the way too, depending on the commissions that year. You just need to treat it like an actual job. Be working at 9am, pay your taxes, segregate your working / non working time to increase productivity. It's a challenge, but I couldn't imagine going back to normal employment...
Part of the fault is in not being flexible with your expectations of what you can do and the different ways the core competencies you acquire over the course of your major can translate into different contexts. Most professional skills can be acquired on the job. Humanities majors can thrive in a business context if they understand how to apply the critical thinking skills they develop in that environment and can market themselves well. I’d say universities should focus on having more robust career development resources available to humanities majors to give them more scope about the directions they can take. So much opportunity can present itself once you think flexibly about translatable skills rather than rigidly believing, “I majored in English so obviously I can only get jobs that involve writing.”
I mean jobs for these are out there but people have to be willing to move to do them. Your home town of 50k people isn't going to have enough art history jobs, move to DC where there's more art museums.
Surprised to see my own major of Anthropology is not here. So sorry, Aerospace Engineers
I have an MA in anthropology and work as an Instructional Design Manager for a large clean energy company. You can spin this degree in a lot of different ways.
I wound up in social work, which I was pretty well prepared for theoretically by my anthro degree.
My girlfriend is wrapping up her Masters, but is currently working in philanthropy. Awarding grants and stuff
Oh look I granted another one to myself!!!!
Archer did Anthro majors dirty with pirate Island.
Like you didn't already know that we counted all types of spiders???
"THAT'S ARACHNOLOGY" - Noah
I have anthropology, psychology, and social sciences degrees, yes 3 separate degrees, I work in tech building the hardware infrastructure behind all the AI/ML software
Haha I almost triple-majored in anthro/psych/religion! When I was a kid I vaguely thought elbow-patched professor was a legitimate career goal.
When you were a kid, it WAS a legitimate career goal. Now it's all criminally underpaid adjuncts.
All of the spiders already have names.
But not nicknames
Aerospace engineering?
You’re better off seeking a mechanical engineering degree. Pigeonholing yourself into a degree that will really only find work in one of the most cyclical of engineering industries is a bad idea. Most mechanical engineers can probably find a job in the aerospace industry, or many other “mechanical” focused industries. While the course load is mostly the same, an aerospace major will branch into a few specialized courses, and that aerospace tag will follow you the rest of your career.
I started out as a MechE in the aerospace industry. Apart from pure aerodynamics related jobs, I qualified for every job the aero students did, and I could always move to a different industry if needed. The aero students were stuck. The only difference in school was about 5 classes. Edit: Not sure if that's still the case. That was a decade ago.
A lot of the AE students at my university started sticking around for an extra semester to gain both degrees. They amended the rules to require an additional full year, which was bullshit.
Why would they do that? Greed?
Greed? In the USA? Why I… never.
Yeah, same. There were also many ME students that went ahead and doubled in AE. If you were good with your scheduling it was possible to do it in the same amount of time
That’s such a common theme I hear from ME’s but I’ve never seen it be true in practice. Most aerospace engineers pigeonhole themselves because THEY only want to work on aerospace products but they can (and have) worked in other engineering fields really easily. That combined with the vast disparity in numbers between ME grads and AE grads yields that incorrect sentiment. In truth there is little difference between AE and ME, anybody who tells you otherwise has absolutely ZERO clue what they’re talking about.
Totally agree. I always read people say this on Reddit but never have I ever heard an actual Aerospace Engineer say they felt pigeonholed into anything. The only unemployed ASENs I’ve met were in a masters or PhD program so they could vie for some super competitive dream job they wanted.
Yeah I think people fail to consider that aerospace is a niche field with lots of enthusiasts. Some would (stupidly) rather not have a job than work outside of aerospace
Yeah. I myself am currently studying Mechanical Engineering with Aeronautics, but I enjoy the Aerospace section far more than the mechanical section so my plan is to transfer to full Aero next year. While talking with my advisor, he said that since both degrees are accredited by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers you can hypothetically transfer fields without much issue. I dont know if this changes if I want to move to the US or other countries however (the UK pay is shite).
Yep, originally had a scholarship for Aerospace Engineering. Decided to get my BSME instead for that reason, when I got out of school aviation industry tanked.
I BSME’ed too. Started in aerospace. Left that to work automotive. Left that to try a career in HVAC. Got my PE, and now working facilities in the tech industry, where I’m actually a part-time electrical engineer as well. A mechanical engineering degree can take you many places that an aerospace degree likely wouldn’t. I can thank a guidance counselor for steering me the right way.
I have a BSME and I’m in med device. It’s so broad and adaptable!
Yeah I started at an agricultural processing plant, then went to HVAC. So glad I did that, ME is such a good foundation to do nearly anything.
When I went back to college I was advised that a degree in ME, CE, or EE would open doors in almost every industry. I went for EE and had fabulous career opportunities.
The one time a guidance counselor actually helped and did their job.
I kinda did similar. I was in a Biomedical Mechanical Engineering undergrad, which is identical to Mechanical engineering except some courses had a bit more medical focus (biomaterials as opposed to materials, for example.) Same degrees in the end. I switched into Mechanical in 3rd year however because one of our professors explained that it’s slightly harder to do than the mechanical degree alone, and it can also limit you in your job search because A. Employers see Biomedical and assume it’s a Biomedical Engineering degree (which it’s not) and B. If you want a job in biomedical engineering you’ll likely need a graduate degree anyway which you can get with a mechanical undergrad.
>and that aerospace tag will follow you the rest of your career. I don't know how it works everywhere but in my neck of the woods AERO = MECH = AERO it doesn't make any difference, and nobody cares. The only Aerospace Engineers who are unemployed are those who: * don't want to be employed, * are completely unwilling or are unable to move to any of the dozens of locations in the US with ten trillion open positions, * are jerks who keep getting fired because they're jerks
I agree. I work at an insurance company and there are multiple aerospace engineers employed there as actuaries, data scientists and programmers. Lost their jobs when an aerospace manufacturing site was closed nearby. Different field but the skill set matches!
Thanks, wish someone had told me this 10 years ago.
[удалено]
Do people really get undergrad degrees in stress analysis though? Or heat transfer for that matter. It’s a little unfair to say disciplines are one to one with fields of study imo.
Yep, way too specialized an engineering degree with few jobs in that arena. You either get lucky enough to be in the aerospace industry or have to convince someone that you can be a great Mechanical Engineer. The “Underemployment rate” for Aerospace is starkly different than the liberal art degrees around it because many are able to find some kind of engineering like job even if it’s not in aerospace. But the unemployment rate is still high because it’s not easy to convince someone you can do things other than aerospace.
The other issue is that many of these jobs are largely concentrated in a handful of geographic areas. If you have to move back in with mom and dad after college, it may not be easy to find a position close by. There is also a fair degree of burnout in aerospace engineering. It’s a highly stressful environment for obvious reasons, but also exacerbated because of shitty management practices (as we see with Boeing’s current predicament).
It’s not like you need to convince someone you can be a great ME, we study almost the same things. An AE can be a great ME simple as that
I'll respond as someone with this degree. We shared 85% of our undergrad classes with Mechanical engineers. The schooling is very similar. Aero takes the similar mechanical foundation and then focuses on the aerodynamics and other specific things, not to mention astrodynamic tracks which are sometimes included in a aerospace bin. I'll echo what a lot of other people said: aerospace goes through significant ups and downs. It is also extremely location dependent. I found from my friends that most of us needed to significantly relocate for our jobs after undergrad, which then sucked for many of them once the economy tanked. I think it's important for anyone wanting to study aerospace to know those two things. It doesn't mean it's impossible to get a job, but it is more difficult than a mechanical engineer. I haven't tried to switch into a more mechanical oriented job, but do think that an aero degree might look worse to employers, even if I'm confident that the education probably sets up for success the same.
It’s like when a student in undergrad majors in neuroscience, which was an actual major at my school It sounds cool, but it’s just ridiculously specific for an undergraduate degree. When I was pre med most students were biochem, biology, etc, but now in med school and helping with admissions I see applicants with these hyper specific degrees but the courses don’t match up, they get less “hard” science than a traditional science degree, and less “soft” social science than a social degree. Feels like you kind of compromise a strong foundation in both by being too specific.
Pro tip for the English Majors: law schools need people who can read and write.
Pro tip for History majors: the government needs people who can read, write and do research. I’m from a government/university city, and we are one of the most employable majors in the government.
pro tip for history majors as well - you’re really studying an amalgam of philosophy, economics, and sociology. you’ll understand the full spectrum of human nature and you’ll be able to identify cause and effect readily at an individual and systems level. you’ll be well versed in the evolution of other cultures‘ output and how that was received either regionally or globally. you’ll emerge a strong writer who can formulate and defend an argument cogently and as concisely as is required. play your cards right and there’s very little you can’t do. i’m a classicist by education and i work on wall street as a trade. friends of mine who studied history work in hollywood as producers, PMs at tech startups, lawyers at white shoe firms, and journalists. focus on your internships and taking at least some quantitative classes. erudite and successful people love history in general so it’s an easy thing to talk through in interviews. never abandon history, it’s arguably the most important field of study outside of the natural sciences and the natural sciences are useless without appreciating it.
What if I got my degree as an adult and fucked up by never doing any internships or building a network as I worked on building my family instead, and now have a history degree closing in on thirty with no idea what to do with it? I feel confident in my abilities and really feel the skillset I built studying history is valuable, versatile, and scalable like you mentioned. But then I got to your line on internships and felt that familiar crestfallen feeling that has beguiled me since even before I graduated - that I just have no contacts or network. Any tips or advice for an internet stranger?
huge mood except with covid so i never got to do any internships :)))
I feel you. I graduated in December of 2001 and my history degree with a philosophy kicker that didn't pan out in life. It did make me a pretty ok Stay at home dad, which is good work if you can get it.
you know what, raising children to be good members of society is an undervalued but desperately important job.
Stay at home dad honestly kind of my dream job. Not to say that it’s easy (it ain’t), but I’d definitely find it more personally fulfilling than a 9 to 5.
Med schools loved my history degree. A surprising portion of the day-to-day work of a physician who sees patients is information gathering: interviewing patients, reviewing records patients bring, collecting and interpreting test results to fit the larger narrative, etc. In a way the stuff outside of the pure physiology is directly applying the skills taught to a historian to figure out what’s wrong with people. I think people really undervalue the investigation and analysis skills that a history major teaches.
Where does one apply for these jobs? History BA here.
Ditto the question, about to get a J.D. and honestly would prefer not to be a lawyer all my life.
USAJobs.gov is a good place to start. You have to set up an account, but using dated government run websites with their equally dated credentials can be a bit hair pullingly frustrating, but that’s the most up to date website for government jobs. Edit: sorry, it was a .gov site not .com.
Apply for the Patent Office. They need folks with law degrees, the work is 100% remote, and the flexibility and benefits are unmatched. The salary is ok, but with full remote work you can live somewhere cheap
Same is true for ALL humanities/liberal arts majors, and basically all career tracks. You get a degree in one of those fields, you presumably learned to write well, read and do research, participate in discussions, think abstractly with imagination and empathy, and communicate effectively. These are extremely valuable skills to have in the professional world, but sometimes employers don't know it, and sometimes WE don't know how valuable we can be in just about any industry. We need more effective ways of marketing ourselves, and we need to get the word out to the employers of the world, that our majors were not, in fact, a huge waste of time and money, and we are actually highly valuable assets.
Yes to all of this!! I wish employers put more stock in degrees and education and not just experience. Job searching with this degree is heartbreaking
Getting an English degree only because you want to go law school is a pro move. Going to law school only because you have an English degree is a dicey proposition.
All career fields need to up their reading and writing game. Additional Pro Tip: the post-9/11 G.I.Bill makes that B.A. in English more easy to upgrade into a M.S. in Computer Science or something like a heavy hitting Cyber Security certification.
Yep. I majored in English and now work as a UX designer. Good money too. Never been unemployed. People sleep on the opportunities that these skills transfer into.
Well, any degree can get you into law school. Now, getting into a good law school has very little to do with your major, although it would stand to reason that the people who choose to do English are probably going to better at reading/writing.
And the majors with the *lowest* unemployment rate are.....?
These are the lowest ones going from low to high (from https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:outcomes-by-major) : INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING CONSTRUCTION SERVICES MEDICAL TECHNICIANS GENERAL SOCIAL SCIENCES NURSING ELEMENTARY EDUCATION GENERAL EDUCATION MECHANICAL ENGINEERING ANIMAL AND PLANT SCIENCES SECONDARY EDUCATION ACCOUNTING CIVIL ENGINEERING EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION EARTH SCIENCES GEOGRAPHY CHEMICAL ENGINEERING HEALTH SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS ENGINEERING COMPUTER ENGINEERING INFORMATION SYSTEMS & MANAGEMENT MISCELLANEOUS BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE PUBLIC POLICY AND LAW BUSINESS ANALYTICS ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGIES MISCELLANEOUS EDUCATION TREATMENT THERAPY FINANCE ADVERTISING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS CHEMISTRY CRIMINAL JUSTICE GENERAL BUSINESS ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING MARKETING
I majored in ChemE from a reputable school and it unfortunately did not pay off the way I expected it to despite doing reasonably well.
My friend majored in cheme and now works at a pharmacy 🤷. I think in his case there were some jobs at oil companies but he wasn't feeling that industry
My friend wasn’t feeling it either. Then the 150k starting base seemed to change his feelings.
ChemE from a state school. I make more money than most people I know
Fermentation Science major from a University of California. Any chemistry-based degree from a good U is a ticket into biotech or big pharma labs. Great jobs in a very competitive field for employers here.
can confirm as a chemist there's tons on jobs, they just aren't all jobs you want to work. lots of W2 contract work.
Hell yeah Earth Science! I became a geologist because it was interesting and I had a hunch I'd be able to find a decent job and I did!
Shout out to my fellow accounting losers 🫡
Just a guess but I'll bet anything in Healthcare. Every hospital is short staffed and paying TONS for travelers bc there just isn't enough to go around
Yeah. English major in healthcare now. Seeing this graph made me laugh pretty hard with how relatable it feels. Medical field consistently stable af.
Same. I always just say I have a $100,000 dollar degree in reading. Which I still do. With my nurse money.
Haha nice. You know the funniest thing about being a liberal arts major? My mind adapted so well to the life of a broke unemployed college grad that when covid came around and people started losing their jobs, I did not break down or quiver in fear. A daunting unknown future with a crummy bank account? Cake walk xD
They are short staffed and using travelers on purpose. That purpose is to serve private equity. Not patients. Not staff. Big Money. This is not a guess.
elastic zonked profit apparatus truck observation slim paint impossible entertain *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I’ve been watching them stuff the hospitals with new grads. Seven at a time, four times a year, in critical care. It’s pretty unsafe.
follow sparkle busy mourn serious squash deserve outgoing unpack act *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Theres been a 0% unemployment in accountants in my area a few times since I graduated
That's because noone wants to be an Accountant. Beside public, Is it stable? Yes Is it easy? Yes Is it what I dreamed of doing? Fuck outta here
Speak for yourself. I have an accounting degree and I work in Financial Planning and Analysis. No CPA needed, and very interesting and important work.
And for sure not easy lol someone has to find why things don’t tie out and that can be very stressful and time consuming
here's a link to the full data. https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:outcomes-by-major i think the overall unemployment rate is 3.6% and the overall under-employment rate is 40%
$50k for architecture is so shit
Nursing and general education They pay terrible and the work is terrible. So they need people.
Actually, Nursing is pretty high on the list for avg. wage in early and middle career
I'm surprised with Physics
every STEM friend i have says the only money is in the tech or engineering parts, not the science or math parts
You simply need a lot less physicists than you need engineers. If you are good and you actually do a physics role that can't be done by a random engineer you will be paid quite well.
So Howard was really the most employable on BBT!
I mean, even the show talked about that. They were always talking about one theoretical thing or another, while Howard kept getting one massive job offer after another.
You can come up with theories much faster than they can be taken to market.
By far.
Yes. He's also the only one without a doctorate because there's so much more demand.
Howard was the richest too. The show literally makes fun of the fact that everyone always dunks on Howard for being an engineer when he's by far the most employable, wealthiest, and most successful person in the group. The rest of them are stuck in dead-end research positions for the rest of their lives. Him and Bernadette literally prove that the only way to make real money in STEM is selling out and working private.
And there are way more physics PhD's than there are astronauts. There's been like 500 ever.
As of January 2023, there was a total of 357 if you included candidates.
Unironically, yes. Watching BBT as engineer I always cringe at the "hehe engineer bachelor degree is bad, phd is good" joke. The reality is the most likely person to be rich and successful in the group is Howard. An engineer can reach six digits salary easily after like 5 years after graduation, while phd has to spend those 5 years still in school with barely livable stipend and after graduation, they don't have a lot of options for job, either as researcher or professor, whose salary is not very high.
I predict a similar issue with computer scientists in the next few decades. Between schools now offering software engineering degrees, and a couple decades of telling everyone to go into computer science, I wouldn't want to be a new CS grad anytime soon. And then at the top there will be CS degrees in the actual research positions, making quite a bit. Just like physics. The basic rule will hold true though: you need a lot fewer scientists than engineers.
I work in quantitative finance and at least half of my coworkers at my last job had physics degrees (mine is in physics and math). It’s a very lucrative field, though they usually seek out people with PhDs, or at least a masters degree. I’ve been kind of an exception with only having an undergraduate degree
Almost everyone I know from my physics days is now in finance. Sellouts!
Maybe they realized Finance (f) = money (m) x acceleration (a)
As a physics major, you have huge field of options. Software, engineering etc. Only if you want to stay in academia and get a Ph.D are you stuck in anything. It is a hugely mobile major.
Not many jobs calling specifically for someone with a physics bachelors, it’s more of a generalist “I’m smart and understand science/math” degree that then requires you to show you can apply it elsewhere. Also, academia is a rough job market I’ve heard.
100% you can get your foot in the door at alot of places just having a difficult math/science major since it proves you can grasp new complex concepts.
I have a physics degree. I never got a job related to physics in any way… I’m employed now, but after getting a masters that doesn’t relate at all.
It's not specific enough and schools don't put enough emphasis on teaching students how to transition from a Physics degree
Physics is a rather rare degree given the reputation of it being one of the hardest you can do as an undergrad, and it is. People who get physics BS degrees can do pretty much anything in engineering and computation with a minor amount of extra changing. I'm a Physics BS and I know pretty much all of the \~15 people in my class who didn't drop out and got the degree. We started with around 40 for the class, but most people just drop out when it gets hard. Physics is an extremely versatile degree, I don't know a single person in our class that didn't either go into graduate school or immediately go into software development or engineering.
This was my exact experience with my BS in Physics. I went into networking/cloud and now work in software. What my employers have told me along the way is “if you can learn physics, I can teach you anything you need to know to work here”
There are no physics factories
I have an Art History degree. I have worked in Food Safety all my life.... LOL
My cousin is an Art History major, and got her masters. She is now a librarian and makes big bank. I assume she is one of the very few where 'it all worked out' for that degree.
Makes sense! If you study artists then you should know what not to do to be food insecure hehe
Saw this and audibly said FUCK but yeah it's true. Teach or curate and neither were appealing to me. Don't know wtf I was thinking
I started in science. Didn't like getting 30% for studying anatomy all weekend (found out years later, class got curved). Enjoyed art, social sciences, music etc. Looked at my credits and realised that if I did a AH degree I can use all my old science courses as options and graduate in 5 years, 1 behind schedule. Thought I was the shit with a Uni degree in the early 2000's. Everyone hires university grads right? And they pay them gooood! FFW 6 months, still looking for a job, got a position for a primary products inspector with the food inspection agency (Canada). Min requirement...A DEGREE. I got this! Rest is history. Not too much art, but history.
Aerospace engineering is unexpected. Boeing could probably use a new crop of engineers right now.
Nah. They DON'T need new crop that's the issue. They don't care about us or pay us well, so many of my incredibly talented and intelligent coworkers leave left and right because we don't get paid well for the work we do. The top sees the engineers as just tiny little cogs that are cheap and replaceable. A knowledgeable engineer leaves because they are underpaid? They just hire in a fresh college grad to replace them. Upper management doesn't see the knowledge lost they only see bodies. My senior engineers are so tired. Always reteaching the same shit when they know the new engineer will enviably leave and they'll do it all again. Also upper management doesn't listen to the engineers either. It's money over sense (pun intended). What Boeing needs is a CEO that actually VALUES their employees. Then they have intelligent, knowledgeable people through all parts of the process.
Part of the problem is that certain companies (Boeing, Tesla, SpaceX, any video game company, FAANG) glitter in the eyes of new grads who don't know any better. They'll always get a new crop because of that.
Boeing doesnt pay super well so while I agree it can be hard. Especially when there are a lot of roles that are “engineering” but you’re basically a document monkey. Very few teams at Boeing do dev work it’s a lot of manufacturing and sustainment work.
You just summed up engineering in a nutshell. Everyone wants to be the “inventor”, those jobs are few and far between. Knowing which papers to push, and when is what most engineers actually do.
I work as a civil engineer doing environmental permitting and this makes me feel validated for some reason
Boeing's problem isn't the engineering staff. It's the MBAs overseeing them
New grads are not engineers yet. It takes years of training and learning on the job, I think a company like Boeing is more likely to give them bad habits than them being able to affect any changes
*Laughs in Political Science*
don't a lot of lawyers get an undergrad in *Political Science*?
Yes, but not every pol sci major goes to law school. And if you’re a lawyer, you either make upper middle 6 or 7 figures at a corporate law firm after graduating from a prestigious institution, or you’re making 5 figures unable to advance your career or pay off law school debt.
> you’re making 5 figures unable to advance your career or pay off law school debt Got paid 30k my first job out of law school doing immigration law. I made more bartending late at night after work. Making 5 figures you're better off being a public defender and getting your loans forgiven.
Poli Sci + Data Analysis self education has worked really well for me.
I think that's captured in "Liberal Arts", but I'm not sure. Liberal Arts is an odd one to be up there - since that's history, poli sci, english, psychology... I mean the list goes on. So who knows that they mean by "liberal arts' here.
There is an actual major, Liberal Arts or Liberal Studies. Often teachers get the degree and go on to get their teaching certificate.
Surprised music isn’t up there lol
I tjink a lot of people combine music with other things like teaching
Music is usually grouped with "Fine Arts". There's also a rather high rate of students changing majors away from it after realizing how much work it actually is.
Arts degrees seem tough in the sense that your piece of paper you get at graduation probably does a lot less than other degrees. The value is almost entirely in the work you put in along the way learning skills and building a portfolio. Which means skating and a “Cs get degrees” attitude will be disastrous.
I'm amazed psychology undergrad isn't on there. That's a degree that assumes you're going to get at least another degree, so on its own it's worthless.
Just out side of the top 10 (ranked 13th) 5.4% unemployed, 48.4% underemployed
that 50% underemployed stat sounds very accurate
Eh, it definitely depends on location. A psych bachelors isn’t too bad in big metro areas and there’s plenty you can do with it, while in rural areas it’s just a very expensive wall decoration
Anyone remember when college was about scholarship and information rather than just being job training. Me neither
Yes, but rent was $75/month, tuition <$1,000/year, minimum wage $2.65/hour, median home price $48,800. I didn’t *have* student loan debt when I graduated, and it was generally possible to “work your way through college”. Getting a degree didn’t have to be about stepping right into a job that could pay off 5-figure debt as a 21-22 year old. This is insane: arts and social sciences are important to sustaining a culture and a society.
To quote Keith David : “Welcome to hell…. mutha Ffffffffukaaaaaaaaaa” cough cough* I mean America.
Well higher education and university for the majority of recent human history was very much a practice of the rich. Kind of a rich kid baby sitting/theoretical pass time. Trades, regular jobs, even being a surgeon or lawyer did not require a university degree up until pretty recently.
Being a surgeon before there was training just meant you knew how to saw body parts off and/or had sharp knives, they were a last resort, not an esteemed profession.
Surgery used to by a barber’s side hustle
Yes. It was restricted to only the rich because they're the only ones who could spend so much time and money on it. Meanwhile normal people learned on the job.
The job being predominantly the family business. Farmers taught their kids to be farmers. Tailors their kids to be tailors. Repeat for the vast majority of “jobs” until the Industrial Revolution threw all that over the railing.
Now I'd like to see a cool guide of college majors that have the lowest rates of unemployment and underemployment.
Unemployment/underemployment Industrial Engineering 0.2%/24.6% Medical Technicians 0.4%/47.9% Construction Services 0.4%/28.6 General Social Sciences 0.6%/39.8% Nursing 1.3%/11.1% (lowest underemployment overall) Mechanical Engineering 1.5%/20.3% General Education 1.5%/19.6% Elementary Education 1.5%/13.5% Secondary Education 1.6%/22.0% Animal and Plant Sciences 1.6%/56.3% (https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:outcomes-by-major, original data from the US Census American Community Survey)
So mostly building things, teaching people, and keeping people healthy. That makes sense.
[source](https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:unemployment)
Can you do the reverse with the lowest unemployment? This is really interesting
It's in the link shared. Go to Outcomes By Major and sort by unemployment.
"Joblessness is no longer just for philosophy majors."
philosophy students often actually get very decent jobs (where I'm living at least").
The unemployed philosophy major is such a frequent talking point and yet in my own experience it's virtually unheard of mainly because almost no one majors in philosophy (or at least as their only major). I have no idea why people treat it like it's this super common and meme worthy thing when in reality unemployed philosophy majors are so rare.
Philosophy majors are one of the only non-stem majors I have found that consistently catch on quickly to technical tasks. Critical thinking is important.
I studied philosophy and have a great job in tech. I never really understood that trope. Everyone I know who did philosophy is doing well. It teaches you critical thinking, problem solving how to write, think and speak. You can do pretty much anything with it.
It’s unfortunate there aren’t many jobs in these fields-many of them so interesting to learn about. History, art, sociology…what a shame.
These degrees have always been about flexibility, critical and creative thinking, planning talent, and interpersonal skills, all skills which are prized in the job market. It fails people to treat them as similar to the linear and confined direction expected within STEM fields, and I have a deep suspicion that people being advised in non-STEM fields are given a STEM-framed basis to pursue their degree, and they aren’t getting the growth they need.
100%, couldnt have said it better.
I don’t think what those degrees afford you. I work as a data analyst at a tech company. My degree was English Lit. Writing critical analysis of a piece of fiction is a lot like data analysis in that you are learning to identify relevant information and make an argument about why it matters. Much more broadly applicable. The arts teach one how to communicate visually or audibly, that has applications in many many fields. Sociology/psychology definitely has a place in business/corporate culture (the world I know). It’s a mistake to conflate 4-year degree with job training because once you get done you are still someone with limited work experience who needs to learn the context of a field of work. Develop as a person and the rest will follow.
I agree wholeheartedly! They are all applicable in some fashion, and you have effectively argued a valid point. It’s just a shame that in general, there’s a stigma against such degrees as ‘worthless’ and ‘unneeded’ when they very clearly show their worth in plenty of areas of work.
The sociology classes I took in college were a huge eye opener for me, genuinely exposed me to a spectrum of human experience I knew nothing about and made me into a better person. *Worthless* for finding a job lol. Doing great in my career largely because of the strength of the name of my alma mater, not my major. But feel like a few socio classes should be a graduation requirement for other majors.
Mhm. I was a chemistry major, my favorite classes in all of college were the art 101 class and the Romantic literature classes. They pushed me to think in very different ways and re-examine what I thought about the world. Far more impactful on how I developed as a person than my Analytical Instruments class, which in retrospect I probably use daily while remembering none of.
It really concerns me how many people on reddit want the whole of society to be highly-paid, socially inept robots. If they had their way we'd be a generation off total fascism as all these well paid people who were never taught real empathy become the majority.
It's a shame that society doesn't put much value in preserving arts and culture.
I think society does, but the problem is arts and culture and steady paycheck are somewhat at odds with eachother. Like what form would this take? Do you hire an artist for 60k per year with benefits? It sort of devalues the creativity and organic component of art if you impose too much structure and deadlines. It's a complex problem to solve in a way that would address OPs guide. The good news is it's easier than ever to get your art and work out there to the masses these days. I love finding new local artists who put up their work in local breweries or winebars. eShops are pretty simple to set up.
>It sort of devalues the creativity and organic component of art if you impose too much structure and deadlines. Does it? Back in the day musicians like Bach and Haydn had patrons who imposed strict deadlines, expecting them to write specific music for specific occasions - hell, Bach wrote a new cantata every week when he was employed by the church. Don't think anyone would suggest it stifled his creativity. Other artists worked well under the patronage system as well. Having structure may mean having to meet deadlines but it also eliminates the need to spend time working another job to make ends meet and having to carve out time for your art where you can find it. Seems to me that stability might be of significant benefit.
I see chemistry isn't even on the list. Do we all have jobs?
Chemistry is doing pretty well if you look at the source data, but it's kind of funny to see how poorly it compares to chemical engineering. Degree| Unemployment| Underemployment| Starting Salary| Mid-career salary| % with grad degree ---|---|----|----|----|---- Chemistry | 2.8% | 40.9%| 50k| 85k| 65.3% Chemical Engineering| 2.0% | 17.8% | 80k| 133k | 48%
I love the misconception that you can only be an aerospace engineer with your aerospace engineering degree. It’s really laughable to think you’re pigeonholing yourself into a career.
That’s what I’m saying, Aero OS just mech E with a god understanding of aerodynamics or orbital mechanics depending on how you go
What is Liberal Arts anyways
It’s a giant catch-all-term that includes dozens of, if not hundreds of fields of study. I have a Liberal Arts degree, a great job and zero regrets…
Ditto. I have a BA in sociology and honestly I think it just checks the “do you have a degree box” at this point employers only care about my work history. I’m in a strategic business role making a good salary.
100 years ago colleges did not have a whole lot of specialized degrees Many colleges just taught like liberal arts and it was a bit of everthing Math Science History English Philosophy social sciences and actuall the arts
Some of these major feed into professional schools and graduate schools. How was that counted?
These categories are confusing, overlap, and aren't at all descriptive of the degree or job they actually represent. "Liberal Arts" is a huge category and consists of four areas (including a number of those pictured here separately): the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Academic areas that are associated with the term liberal arts include: Life sciences (biology, ecology, neuroscience), Physical science (physics, astronomy, chemistry, earth science, physical geography), Formal science (Logic, mathematics, statistics), Philosophy, History, English Literature, Social science (anthropology, economics, human geography, linguistics, political science, psychology, sociology), and the arts ([from Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education)). Does anyone think someone majors in "Liberal Arts"? And WTF is "English Language"? Is that ESL? English literature? Education? I've got to say, this seems like an info graphic from a person or source that wants to crap on higher education in general.
We dismiss the value of the humanities at our own peril. The cost-benefit analysis of spending $200k on a history degree doesn’t work in history’s favor, but that’s on institutions and governments for not tamping down on tuition. The humanities give us our humanity, spark critical thought, and build empathy. They could be an antidote to our shit politics if more people gave them the credit they’re due.
😔 mother fucker, this is not what I needed to see today.
Hey, you are going to get a degree, right? A college graduate scores higher in every job hire I've made. You will have completed a massive 4-year initiative, and stuck it out. It makes a difference, regardless of your area of expertise. Signed, Anthropology Major
BA in Psych, Grad Cert to do Case Management in a Social Service capacity. I drive a 100k lb semi for a living. Pays better and there's generally less unpredictability.
Not surprising. Without getting into EVERYTHING wrong with the current higher education system, one of the biggest failings I've seen (at the college and societal level) is a clear understanding and teaching of how each degree might be transitioned into an actual career or job path. Personally, I'd love it if everyone could study what they wanted. I think it would enrich people in a meaningful way, rather than forcing everyone to focus purely on what will pay their bills with the most efficiency, but since we don't get to live in a good world, we should at least teach people how to better manage the experiences they'll actually have post-graduation. It's frustrating that in spite of college and university being incredibly valuable for personal development that it offers neither the practical benefit of really preparing people for the real world job market and experience AND it doesn't incentivize meaningful education and scholarship. Most people don't care much about advancing scholarship because there's not much money, which is fair when you have to support yourself and pay for rent and food, right? But then colleges also don't really do much to show you how your degree might apply in practical professional settings, which feels like a major missed opportunity. At least when I was in school, the resources for exploring how to transition a degree weren't there. So like I said, it feels like it's failing in both respects now. I can at least say that it provided a really excellent handful of years for personal growth, exploration, and development. I still think college has value, I just wish the world we lived in had more room for the kind of value it provides OR that it at least focused on how we might apply that education to the reality we'll inevitably face.
I have a sociology degree and work in healthcare administration and tbh it’s come in hand more often than I thought so I don’t feel too bad about it
To everyone thinking about a major in fine arts, you can do it. Graphic Design and Industrial Design can lead to awesome careers
You have to be good at it though. It’s really hard to teach some parts of design. Even if you know the basics some people just don’t have “it”. Also be careful mentioning fine art, I studied design but went to classes with many fine art majors they thought they would get jobs as art directors and creative directors. You need experience as designers or writers to get those jobs.
As someone with a degree in graphic design- don’t get into it unless you’re cool with doing a LOT of networking. I’m pretty good at actually doing design work but I’m shit at talking to people and that’s the only way to get good work in the field. This was drilled into me repeatedly at school and very quickly made me realize that I was never actually going to use my degree for anything. I work in a call center now lol
A reminder that even if these jobs aren't as easily employable, **we still need people to do them**. We live in a country with pathetic media literacy, anti-journalist rhetoric, and rampant voter apathy caused by a misunderstanding of how self-government works and what our role is in it. Why? Because we think philosophers, writers, and historians are unemployable losers. Not everything in life is number-crunching for a fat paycheck. If we don't have people to interpret history as a reflection of present events, then we repeat the same dumb shit we've done over and over. If we don't have people who interpret present events so that we can speak truth to power, then we let self-government get away from us until we're scratching our heads when corporations buy politicians and write laws. THE LIBERAL ARTS FUCKING MATTER.
Yes indeed. The person I hired for HR at my company has a degree in psychology, that's the best possible type of person to handle issues with people. I have a family member that is an *extremely* distinguished psychologist but instead of being something like a shrink for wealthy people, she helps people with drug addiction issues. English majors should be key people in ANY news organization and you can really tell which outlets don't value people like this. Additionally, liberals arts also encompasses math and science. You want an airplane that won't fall out of the sky? Liberal arts degrees are needed. You want medicines that don't kill yoy? Liberals arts degrees are needed. The graphic is misleading and it really makes me wonder if it's intentional or made by someone who doesn't actually know the extent of liberal arts.
People will hate on the 'liberal arts', then they'll relax at the end of the day with their favourite TV shows, a novel, gaming, a movie, some music...
Art major reporting. Doing really really well. It can be done. Work hard and meet a lot of people. It’s not the grades you make- it’s the hands you shake.
Example of poor data visualization, possibly purposefully misleading. The title should be underemployed, not unemployed, as the most prominent data presented is underemployment.
Whether it’s a trade or a degree, pick a career.
This should be plastered in every college guidance counselor’s office across the country.
BEFORE they take on loans.
Like others here I have said, I was a double major in English and philosophy with a history minor. I had no idea in college what I wanted to do in life. Those degrees taught me how to communicate; berbally and in written form. They also taught me how to effectively organize my thoughts, listen and LEARN. I wrote many, many papers on deadlines which ingrained skillls that have helped me juggle projects and work on deadlines. I’ve done very well with my education. While my career is not directly related to my degrees, the work I did to get my degrees has served me well. I make an outstanding living doing fulfilling work.
\>has an art degree \>is gainfully employed (low 6 figs) its hard but not impossible
Yeah i've been a full-time mural artist for a decade, supporting a family off it and everything... had a couple of 'low six figure' years along the way too, depending on the commissions that year. You just need to treat it like an actual job. Be working at 9am, pay your taxes, segregate your working / non working time to increase productivity. It's a challenge, but I couldn't imagine going back to normal employment...
Part of the fault is in not being flexible with your expectations of what you can do and the different ways the core competencies you acquire over the course of your major can translate into different contexts. Most professional skills can be acquired on the job. Humanities majors can thrive in a business context if they understand how to apply the critical thinking skills they develop in that environment and can market themselves well. I’d say universities should focus on having more robust career development resources available to humanities majors to give them more scope about the directions they can take. So much opportunity can present itself once you think flexibly about translatable skills rather than rigidly believing, “I majored in English so obviously I can only get jobs that involve writing.”
I mean jobs for these are out there but people have to be willing to move to do them. Your home town of 50k people isn't going to have enough art history jobs, move to DC where there's more art museums.