College is a great place to learn and have fun. But let’s not kid ourselves, some degrees are as useless as the plot in a Michael Bay film. Here’s a list of 10 degrees that may be interesting, but do jack shit for you in the real world.
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: With an art history degree you could maybe curate an art gallery or work at a museum or….yeah, that’s it. That’s all you can do. And seeing as how every art gallery and museum I’ve ever been to has exactly one dude sitting quietly at a desk reading a New Yorker and eating a food that requires chopsticks, I’m going to go ahead and assume there’s not a lot of positions open in the field. That means you’re going to have to venture out into the corporate world. And let me inform you, when you’re interviewing with Bob from the HR team at Wal-Mart who’s wearing a tie that has the twin towers smoking with writing underneath that says “We Will Never Forget,” your art history degree says to him “I’m a commie a-hole who thinks I’m better than guys with 9/11 ties.”
What Job You’ll End Up With: After your parents boot your ass from your bedroom to make room for anything that’s not your bedroom, you’ll wander towards the nearest coffee shop and get a job there, which will allow you to meet artists who will thank you for allowing them to put fliers by the cash register that inform people of their upcoming show that touts “the combination of art and flute.”
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: This isn’t ancient Greece: No one is going to pay you money, or allow you to sodomize their attractive son, in exchange for your knowledge of existence. Never has there been an employer who’s said “Man, we’re having all kinds of problems, I wish we had someone on our team who could reference and draw conclusions from the story of Siddhartha that would pull up our fourth quarter numbers.” I took many philosophy classes and it involved reading and smoking a shit pile of weed. You don’t need to pay 20,000 dollars a year to do that. All you need is twenty dollars and a library card.
What Job You’ll End Up With: Thanks to your extensive knowledge of philosophy, you’re now self-aware enough to know that most jobs out there will make you totally miserable. So most likely you’ll wait tables part time and hope someone starts paying you for the bi-monthly entries on your blog.
Why It Won't Help You Get a Job: If you're not named Achmed or Bjork or G'Day Mate this isn't a degree, it's the last 18 years of your life. If you really want to study us you don't need to go to some stupid class, you need only to sit back and watch a two-hour block of Must-See TV to understand The American. After doing my own research, it seems that this mysterious creature is a pot-bellied humanoid with a hot wife and bad credit who has a penchant for low-calorie beer, Chilis, Applebees, TGIFridays, Denny's, McDonald's, Taco Bell, Dave and Busters, Steak and Shake, Chilis (again) and Red Lobster. Oh and he can totally demolish a White Castle Crave Case in, like, 20 seconds. OK, now give me my degree.
What Job You’ll End Up With: To take your American Studies degree one step further, you will be qualified to do 40-50 years of “graduate work” cleaning tables and taking orders at a Chilis, Applebees, TGIFridays or Red Lobster. Or possibly Denny’s.
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: I didn’t even know this was a major until I found it on the Appalachian State website. According to their actual explanation of this major: “Music therapy is the scientific application of the art of music within a therapeutic relationship to meet the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs of individuals.” Which is a big, fancy way of saying “We’ll teach you how to make a mix tape.” I guess I, too, am a qualified music therapist because my “Summer Jams ‘95” tape I made in the 10th grade totally rocked my house party. All my friends told me that kicking it off with Wreckz-N-Effects “Rump Shaker” followed by Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” totally met their physical, mental and spiritual needs to help them get wasted on my dad’s Schnapps and Drambuie.
What Job You’ll End Up With: After realizing that yoga studios and elderly homes don’t pay people just to come in and set mood music, you’re sadly going to end up putting your degree towards burning a fire to keep warm because you are homeless.
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: Go into a communications class on any given day and it’ll smell like dried semen and booze. Reason being, communications is the major for anyone who wants to graduate, but doesn’t want to stop getting totally wasted on weekdays. Here’s the bad news, if an employer is going to hire someone to help decipher how human beings communicate, he’s going to hire someone with the letters “Dr.” before their name, not the person who first checks to see if a class is offered online, then when they find out it’s not, let’s out a “gaaaaay bro.”
What Job You’ll End Up With: You’ll go to several job interviews that turn out to be pyramid schemes, even though at first you won’t realize this and come home and tell your parents, who you still live with, “They said I’ll probably be making six figures in less than a year just by selling these beer cozies.”
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: Despite what “Dancing with the Stars” and “High School Musical” may tell you, there aren’t a lot of dancing jobs out there—so you better be good because there aren’t any gigs for mediocre dancers. Outside of New York City or some crap in LA there is absolutely nothing you can do with a dance degree that doesn’t involve actually dancing for money. And since the Des Moines interpretive dance movement hasn’t really taken off yet, you have a better chance landing a job as an 8-Track repairman or a member of the Beatles.
What Job You’ll End Up With: After moving to New York and trying out for Hello Dolly! or Damn Yankees or any of the other seven Broadway plays that want dancers and not landing a single one because you got your dance degree from Ball State, you will find ample opportunity to show off your choreographic skills at one of the city’s many strip clubs. You’ll just need to change your name to Crystal or Bambi and you’ll be able finally live out your dream as a dancer. (Mom and Dad will be so proud!)
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: If someone can spend a weekend with a box of Cliff’s Notes and have only a slightly less conversational knowledge of what you spent 4 years studying, you probably don’t have the most employer friendly degree. Having an English Lit degree is like being a member of the Kansas City Royals: No one cares and the best you can hope for is every once in a while someone buys you a beer because of it.
What Job You’ll End Up With: You can read and comprehend, so that gives you an advantage over 99.5% of the people that peruse Craig’s list job listings. Therefore, you’ll most likely end up landing an entry level position at a random small company, or showing up to your interview and being raped repeatedly by a group of masked men.
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: Not only does no one speak this language anymore, but we already have all the Latin that exists in the world. There’s no new Latin that’s hot off the presses that needs immediate translating. I’m no business major, but majoring in a language that doesn’t exist anymore doesn’t sound so good for job security. And I’m sorry to break the news to you, but the world doesn’t need someone to translate The Bible or the inscription on the side of a Post Office or El Loco Latino’s “Latin House Party.”
What Job You’ll End Up With: Since you majored in something that doesn’t exist, you’re going to have two jobs. Your first one will be as the annoying pretentious guy who gives everyone the Latin etymology of every big word he hears at every dinner party he attends. Your second, and most lucrative job, will be as a Subway Sandwich Artist.
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: No one in hollywood gives a shit that you made a short film about an alcoholic albino that discovers the meaning of life through the help of a retarded child. Unless that retarded child was played by the son of Harvey Weinstein, your film or degree will be as pointless as the last three seasons of Lost
What Job You’ll End Up With: If you’re lucky, you’ll have an uncle who can get you a job as a production assistant on CSI Miami, where your time will be spent making coffee runs and finding whores that will let David Caruso pee on them.
Why It Won’t Help You Get a Job: Sorry God, but a major in Religion is about as worthless as St. Brice (The Patron Saint of Stomach Aches.) Even Duke University can’t put a solid sell on this degree: “A major in religion offers intellectual excitement and can be a pathway to a liberal education.” OK, you sold me. So now I get to shell out about a hundred thousand dollars so I can know what to wear to a Shinto ceremony and learn how many virgins Allah will give me if I blow myself up in an Israeli square? If it’s OK with you, I’ll keep my money and stick to my sinning-a-lot-now-and-repenting-on-my-deathbed plan.
What Job You’ll End Up With: This one is tricky. On one hand you’ll probably end up working behind the desk of a Christian Science Reading Room. But on the other, you may end up with everlasting peace and spiritual enlightenment. Let’s call it a draw.
i was born in a billionaire family.. schools for poor punks i rather get endless model pussy nd buy shit that not for sale.. dont get me wrong i went to college fucked about all the sluts there nd diped only too be rich the rest of my life god just prefers some over others i guess...
That's pretty great. If all else fails, they could end up in public radio. I currently work in a three person Communications/Web department made up of an Art History major, an English major and a Communications major (the latter being me). I think we did okay for ourselves :-D
don’t know about needing a major in it, but Latin seems fairly important for anyone in pre-med or going into sciences where…let’s see…EVERYTHING has a Latin term. As long as you can keep your mouth shut at parties, Latin is a great tool for life, and if you teach it, you have an excuse to wear a toga to work.
FYI, linnean classificatory names are not really latin. Its more like Dog latin. Something that has some real words and some made up words for convenience sake. Puffer fish is Fugu rubripes, Fugu is japanese for puffer fish. Especially for most of the more recently found species (which is most of them anyway). Besides, you dont need to know latin to work in the sciences. If you dont know the scientific name of an animal you can always look it up. There are thousands of brilliant scientists who do not know latin.
The degree to take is anything in the hard sciences and engineering. Psychologists are hacks (Different universities call it different things)
Reading the majority of these replies makes me get a nice warm fuzzy feeling of superiority.
The moment you resort to swearing/insults you have lost the argument.
English lit is a good BA to pursue a nice slew of graduate studies. But if you're only getting a bachelors you're not goign to be making much money anyway.
What degree leads one to writing blogs that don't make any money, but give one the opportunity to expose one's sheer lack of understanding about the point of education?
Apparently the most recent generation of college grads majored in that like crazy.
Lol! This list cracked me up. For all of you that are debating: Please take this list with a grain of salt. It was intended to be funny. Obviously, people have done great things with all these degrees. On the other hand, I've seen people with law degrees do nothing special.
To conclude: When inspiration meets opportunity, a motivated person will succeed no matter what they do. Who are any of you to judge what success and happiness are? If you feel no self-worth, you have failed. If you feel confident and accomplished, you have succeeded.
I have a B.S. in Sociology my focus was International Relations/Com and my minor was Poli Sci. Hate to break it to you guys but I got a great job! I work in P.R. for U.S. companies in Asia and the Pacific. Unless they spill somethings in the ocean, my job is cake and I make SIX figures! Think about ragging on Poli Sci. and Comm degrees.
I think the MAJORITY of college majors don't actually prepare you for a job. These were good ones, and people who study religion only end up trying to sell books that talk trash about religion or they use it to talk down to anybody who isn't part of THEIR religion.
I know people with a business undergrad degrees who can't find jobs. In fact, at my school, 40 percent of undergrad business majors can't find jobs after they graduate. What do you think about that?
This is too easy to dispel (tons of communication majors - and others - have done already), so I won't spend too much time on it.
Firstly, none of these "what job you'll end up with" envision anything within the educational system. Rather, this doesn't just mean a doctorate is required for success in a "worthless field" (not all universities are unilaterally geared at pedagogy, some admire research, management, and other business-oriented elements that actually are more favorably awarded to those who specialized, rather than took a ubiquitous macroeconomics class by a high-flying libertarian hot-shot.) Contrary to the unashamedly philistine tone of this entry, a lot of liberal arts majors actually are employed for reason of persisting the subject. In regards to art history, not everybody smothers themselves in the perfunctory bullshit tasks of children museum curator - though being a curator at the Louvre, or most any museum, is hardly anything like you describe it. Many are involved in the persistence of these programs, in the continuance of historical appreciation of art. Educational institutes are perfect for this, but many choose to invest themselves within the private sector, to which they find suitable (re: well-paying) jobs.
But a lot of this Michael Douglas-type bickering seems particularly dismissive of everything as "pipe dreams". Tons of religious majors working in the fields of hermeneutics actually ENJOY doing what they are doing...because there's a level of agency that isn't really present in many of the bureaucratic, negligible jobs that a lot of "worthwhile majors do". There's little sense of leeway; you're eyed by some sort of hegemon, even in entrepreneurial work - where a philosophy (mostly conjoined with a political science degree) or communications major working within a research field is able to commentate. Unfortunately, many have been geared not to think for themselves, but rather, to blindly propel some sort of "thinking" that was passed onto you by some education major you would have berated 20 years ago. Tough shit.
I think a lot of the out and out anger at this post is coming from quite a few young folk who haven't even graduated yet. I think an apt comparison to this post is something akin to telling kids that there is no Santa Clause.
At the end of the day real skills are what most employers are going to care about. If all one cares about is expanding their knowledge then by all means take a degree that has pretty much zero real life job prospects.
I think the current mind set that just believe in your self and you can do anything you want is a bunch of BS. Combine the just believe part with social status and the amount of money supporting the just believe attitude and then maybe you'll have success. Most people who get jobs with their "worthless" degrees have parents with a high social standing and come from pretty well off families. They never credit this and more often than not say it was their hard work that landed them where they are today. I can guarantee that for 95 percent of people who are lower middle class/working class that get a degree in say the Arts probably just wasted 4 years of their life and a heck of a lot of money. I know a few people personally that graduated with those worthless degrees, all from working class families. Guess what, they have tons of debt and they are working at crummy dead end jobs.
In the kind of hyper competitive economy that most new grads will face the last thing they should be doing is investing in something that probably has very little chance at getting them anywhere. After someone is well established or wins the lottery, then that would be the appropriate time to expand their knowledge beyond practical skills.
Using a Philosophy major as a stepping stone to say getting in a law school may not be a bad idea, how ever if one thinks that Philosophy is the cats ass and they don't have other goals in mind then indeed it is a waste. The same could be said of the other "stepping stone" degrees on the list.
The only thing I really think that may have some practical value on the list is a Communications major. However with that said I do think it pretty much is a load of BS and it basically boils down to having a degree in being a salesperson. The better you can BS the better you will be in the field of marketing/spin. It always helps to have a suave salesperson aura about you. If your ugly and don't have a good voice then yeah this degree is a waste of time too.
I think as todays twenty somethings grow older they'll be disappointed to find out that it takes much more than "just believe" to make things work in the real world.
Another useless degree...music composition. My kid began playing guitar and piano at 9. All his high school counselors told him, "get a degree in music at Berklee in Boston." To that, he said "kiss my ass, thank you." He is now 20, makes 100K a year teaching guitar.
Drawback: convincing kids that Yngwie Malmsteen is not a genius.
Music Composition is not a useless major. There are countless successful composers on Broadway who majored in composition. Just because your kid doesn't need a music degree does not make it worthless. It maybe worthless to him but to others. And I highly doubt your kid makes 6 figures teaching guitar (I think you just said that to make your point of a worthless music degree).
You don't need a degree in music composition to be a successful composer. 50% of the stuff that they teach in composition courses will not be used in the real world.
I am a semi-professional violinist, and have been composing since I was 8 years old. I have studied music a lot longer than most college graduates have.
I can tell you with great certainty that the act of composition does not require a degree. It might get you a job - because of the piece of paper thing - but it doesn't make you an artist. You have to become an artist. It's a process one accomplishes within the self over great amounts of time.
The truth is, music degrees are somewhat worthless. Only degrees from great institutions like Juilliard are worth something on an artistic level. The violinists at my state university are pathetic. I was better than many of them when I was 15 years old.
Don't take my word for it. Try getting an audition with a top symphony if you have a degree from Podunk State University. It's not easy. It screams "hey, I stink, give me a chance - I couldn't get into a real music school."
It's better to have a liberal arts degree from Podunk U if you are a musician. That is why I studied history. It doesn't say anything about my playing ability. I can still get auditions (and have gotten pretty far in a couple) with known ensembles.
The bottom line is that music isn't an important college major. It just tells people that you didn't learn any marketable skills in college aside from the general education (first 2 years of college).
This is soo hilarious...and soo true. Although you definitely missed other useless majors like music performance. My sister and brother-in-law both got a bachelors degree in this, as well as my sister got a masters degree too- and have they used it? No- they went into my brother-in-law's brother's business, and they're still paying off the student loans.
The illiad and the odyssey were greek, the aeneid was latin which was basically a rip-off of the illiad and the odyssey combined together and with a roman hero. Such a shocker that a roman would steal an idea from the greeks, nah, that never happened.
(This is the extent of what I learned from 3 years of latin in high school, other than amo, amare, amavi, amatus- love- and manere- to remain. Oh yeah and I now randomly write and talk in the passive tense and say things like "I wish that hadn't been true". Its scary sometimes).
I find it funny that in this late age we've abandoned any sort of fulfillment; moreover, we've relinquished any optimistic existentialist thoughts that dominated the nineteenth century because we've got to propel capital or some other form of dogmatic bullshit. In this sense we've brought back almost the esoteric wet dreams of some of the Veblenesque class systems that the Lost Generation used to chastise, perhaps we're in for some sort of incessant return (and withdrawal) of modernism that will play out the rest of our lives. And then some.
This isn't just babble. Look at Phil's post, where (once again) somebody forgoes any mention of putting the effort BACK into education. Sure, there's worthlessness in trying to cross-over, but couldn't we say the same about a business major trying to pass it as a literary theorist? Yes, lots of wealthy families allow for their offspring to be the Hepburns...because they have the money for it, but why not imagine a scenario where a not-so-well-to-do family churns out a son who does theoretical work for the Population Reference Bureau. We've come to such a point where we want to satiate the "arts" and the "pragmatics" because we just don't want to imagine any intersection of the two. I laugh when a friend of mine had to read Foucault for an economics class. He didn't know where to start.
All of these majors have practicality in the real world. They might not have the flexibility of another degree (though, the case can be made that for some jobs that a degree is a degree, interchangeable and simply a socioeconomic trophy. In this sense the practicality of being a quicker, smarter worker is more worthwhile than having read - or skimmed - The Wealth of Nations)
A degree in the arts also presupposes the idea that those who choose such a path have payed close attention how to envision the application of their major. That's being worthwhile. There's no such thing as a worthless major, just a worthless student.
..comm or film degree yeeeah, useless. u have join this and that union, society and every other bullshit gang. its like who you down with bloods or crips. and is really useless if you go to the local state or small privite university. advice to future communication, film whatever you want to call it, students. go to a real film school usc, nyu, ucla
Comm should not be on there. It's not about how to communicate. There are a lot of aspects of a communication major: Public Relations, media production, journalism, and more. Film is often grouped in the comm major in many schools. Plus there are many aspects of film-making, not just Director, Writer, and Actor (the only three that most people know about). AND there are tv stations all over the US that someone with these degrees could work for.
Yes, they are easy majors, yes, that's part of the reason I'm a communication student, and yes those are mainly the types of people that are in them, but not everyone. I'm not in it because I want to be drunk 24/7 and stay in school. I actually do enjoy it.
Bullcrap. Film is awesome. How many of you get to write feature length spec scripts in your classes? What? I didn't think so. It is laughable though. Many films students are bums. Not this one!
Majors do not always determine a career; what determines a career is a person's drive and focus. As someone with a degree in English and Theatre, I first went the teaching route and now I am a full-time writer. I would never trade in my background as a writer for any other so-called money-making major.
Same goes for foreign language majors--French might not seem like the safest bet, but see how far being fluent in a foreign language will get you in business, politics, marketing, etc.
Ok, so I read a ton of these responses and found this whole thing really interesting. I'm a senior at a large university in the midwest majoring in political science, and I gotta say I knew when I picked the major that it was not necessarily going to get me anywhere in and of iteself. I felt like I had to get the BA just to keep up with all the other assholes getting bachelors degrees nowadays. Plus in the time I've been in college I've done some networking, taken some "free" computer classes, improved my spanish, and generally learned more about how society functions through a wide array of classes. My point? Major in what you want to major in, but at the same time try and aquire skills along the way which could help you land at least an ok job, because noone is going to hire you if you have a major and no practical skills. peace
I work in recruiting and am still pursuing my "useless" degree in English...and I can tell you all in complete certainty that once you get into the "real" world, no employer is going to give a shit what your major was, as long as you have a Bachelor's degree. I have even seen people get jobs as Engineers who don't have engineering degrees (I know, I was terrified by this too). Of course I plan to pursue an academic career and be of absolutely no use to anyone in the corporate world :)
Who the hell cares if you studied film, history, or knitting for gods sake... The degree doesnt sell you, you sell yourself and just have that piece of paper to prove to an employer you can set a goal and complete it as well as learn some basic writing, communication, and analytical skills along the way. You and a highschool dropout could have nothing seperating you except a piece of paper, thats all it is, a piece of paper that cost you thousands of dollars, but you still have it. I was a Comm major-loved it, learned a lot and got out of college as fast as I could to spare my pockets. Im working for Microsoft now and lovin it.
Someone doesn't know anything about music therapy. You don't mix tapes, moron. It's a widely growing field and its application has been proven useful many times.
Um I make $80 bucks an hour with my Social work degree, and live in a nice house in a nice area. whoever put that lame comment on there def needs to go back to college. social workers are in demand!
what's the deal with these retards arguing that philosophy opens doors into law school. that's COMPLETELY irrelevant. he's saying that if you major in philosophy then 'this' will happen. what you people are arguing is that getting a law degree gets you a job. a philosphy degree may or may not help you get your law degree (which is the one that actually might do something).
deannacase@hotmail.com::
I'm surprised that the following aren't on this list:
-fashion
-journalism
-history
-child delevopment*
-political science
*could be useful with Masters or PhD
The above, are a few that many of my smarter peers and I see as cotton candy degrees. While I personally would love to major in about two of them, I refrained because I know they are way too easy to obtain and will not get me anywhere in the real world. I guess some of us who have been on our own or had to pay the bills have never been drawn to degrees like this since we are already more than aware of the harsh reality of the real world. lol :)
deannacase@hotmail.com:
K, congrats on doing so well in the social worker industry. However, in most towns a social worker can expect to make $10-12/hr ..or $15-20/hr (max, in bigger cities) for the rest of their lives. You must be doing something pretty awesome to be getting paid more than starting engineers and nurses. In fact, you're getting paid about 3x what a nurse or engineer starts off at...and everyone knows their degree is usually about twice as hard. So forgive us for having a hard time believing you. However, I would still love to know what you specialize in. Maybe it's time I cross over from the medical field and do social work. Heck, if I can make that kind of money! Count me in!!
I would disagree on some points. Latin is very useful if one is planning on attending law school in the future, and English is also good if you plan on getting a law degree. As for Communications, well if you plan on geting into broadcasting is is useful, but more often then not you end up at the phone company.
You forgot African American Studies and Women's Studies. What sort of a job can you possibly get with one of those degree?
If college students stuck to majoring in areas that idiotic bloggers who misspell simple words deemed legit or not, then there would be no diversity or innovation in this world. Come on people, major in whatever the fuck you want to, whatever you are truly interested in / passionate about, and you will be successful. Just have your shit together, do your research, and know what you can do with your degree- you can go in whatever direction you want to. It's all about your ambition, ability to be an effective communicator, the connections you acquire and the resume you build, and ultimately doing good in an interview and establishing that your not an incompetent idiot, but the exact opposite rather. So many fields of business and degrees intertwine with others these days... companies want diversity- graduates from different disciplines who can bring fresh ideas and aspects to the table.
I think the majority of the people who have left comments on this stupid blog have degrees or are working on obtaining them; the blogger is probably just an internet nerd who has some sort of angst about his own inability to succeed. But he's the one getting the last laugh because of all our bickering. blah-- Cyber Idiot=1 point, College Graduates=0
Wow. I'm mostly surprised at the number of people that can't take a joke. Anyone with a bit of intelligence knows that it's not the degree that gets the job and succeeds (or fails); it's you, the person. Anywy, how is money the measure of who you are as a person?
Haha you hit the nail on the head with the Com. major. every douche at my school really believes that communications is the shit. it is the easiest and laziest way to "graduate" from college without doing shit and still somehow getting a degree. if i have to hear someone bitch about how their presentation was hard and they're having a tough time with their com class i will shoot myself.
major that is totally useful: Biology
im a bio major, going on to pharmacy school...when i get out of there, i get six figures! sounds like a good deal to me :)
In fairness it all depends on how good at it you are. You do a degree in a shit college and its a waste tbh. Im in UK doing Business Management, in our first lecture are lecturer told us 'too many people do business, its becoming the next media', funny as hell to see peoples reactions: 'What, shit, did he just say that?'.
Point is if I get a 2-2 im gonna be earning (going on averages) the same as someone without a degree, and im in Cardiff Uni, a business school that outranks both Oxford and Cambridge on graduate earning. Too many people do a degree because thats whats seen as the norm. Point is, you gotta do well at it and know how to use it......................that said im hoping to be a journalist, where i start out on 10K a year......yey! Oh and i may end up doing a masters in com, stop making me 2nd guess myself!!!!!!!
While Latin is a completely worthless major in itself, it will get you immediately hired in some major public school districts that started teaching AP Latin (which for reasons that completely elude me has recently become popular in education again). Since Latin has never been part of the Ed curriculum, no one in most school systems is capable of teaching it so they'll hire anyone with a pulse that's mildly competent at Latin.
Take note future college grads - a liberal arts degree leads to one of three things - teaching, law school, a cubicle, or (worst of all) an equally worthless PhD. I know, I majored in English.
If I had it to do over, it would have been accounting.
Art History and Philosophy is something that the only job you can get once you obtain your degree is to become an art history or philosophy teacher. Great Options!
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August 18th, 2008 at 01:43 pm
i was born in a billionaire family.. schools for poor punks i rather get endless model pussy nd buy shit that not for sale.. dont get me wrong i went to college fucked about all the sluts there nd diped only too be rich the rest of my life god just prefers some over others i guess...
August 18th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
That's pretty great. If all else fails, they could end up in public radio. I currently work in a three person Communications/Web department made up of an Art History major, an English major and a Communications major (the latter being me). I think we did okay for ourselves :-D
August 19th, 2008 at 06:51 am
don’t know about needing a major in it, but Latin seems fairly important for anyone in pre-med or going into sciences where…let’s see…EVERYTHING has a Latin term. As long as you can keep your mouth shut at parties, Latin is a great tool for life, and if you teach it, you have an excuse to wear a toga to work.
FYI, linnean classificatory names are not really latin. Its more like Dog latin. Something that has some real words and some made up words for convenience sake. Puffer fish is Fugu rubripes, Fugu is japanese for puffer fish. Especially for most of the more recently found species (which is most of them anyway). Besides, you dont need to know latin to work in the sciences. If you dont know the scientific name of an animal you can always look it up. There are thousands of brilliant scientists who do not know latin.
The degree to take is anything in the hard sciences and engineering. Psychologists are hacks (Different universities call it different things)
August 19th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Why isn't Women's Studies on this list?
August 20th, 2008 at 02:10 pm
Reading the majority of these replies makes me get a nice warm fuzzy feeling of superiority.
The moment you resort to swearing/insults you have lost the argument.
August 21st, 2008 at 09:41 am
why study science? it gets you a job designing suntan lotion or microchips. no thanks, i'll let india and taiwan handle that.
August 21st, 2008 at 05:48 pm
English lit is a good BA to pursue a nice slew of graduate studies. But if you're only getting a bachelors you're not goign to be making much money anyway.
August 23rd, 2008 at 04:45 pm
What degree leads one to writing blogs that don't make any money, but give one the opportunity to expose one's sheer lack of understanding about the point of education?
Apparently the most recent generation of college grads majored in that like crazy.
August 24th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
LOL this is a great list. I'm an art history grad and am working for a web advertising agency. RIGHT NOW.
Funny how things turn out.
August 24th, 2008 at 03:35 pm
Lol! This list cracked me up. For all of you that are debating: Please take this list with a grain of salt. It was intended to be funny. Obviously, people have done great things with all these degrees. On the other hand, I've seen people with law degrees do nothing special.
To conclude: When inspiration meets opportunity, a motivated person will succeed no matter what they do. Who are any of you to judge what success and happiness are? If you feel no self-worth, you have failed. If you feel confident and accomplished, you have succeeded.
August 26th, 2008 at 12:22 am
I have a B.S. in Sociology my focus was International Relations/Com and my minor was Poli Sci. Hate to break it to you guys but I got a great job! I work in P.R. for U.S. companies in Asia and the Pacific. Unless they spill somethings in the ocean, my job is cake and I make SIX figures! Think about ragging on Poli Sci. and Comm degrees.
August 26th, 2008 at 05:12 am
wow. who would have thought this many people would care
August 26th, 2008 at 02:28 pm
I think the MAJORITY of college majors don't actually prepare you for a job. These were good ones, and people who study religion only end up trying to sell books that talk trash about religion or they use it to talk down to anybody who isn't part of THEIR religion.
August 26th, 2008 at 05:44 pm
I know people with a business undergrad degrees who can't find jobs. In fact, at my school, 40 percent of undergrad business majors can't find jobs after they graduate. What do you think about that?
August 26th, 2008 at 09:10 pm
This is too easy to dispel (tons of communication majors - and others - have done already), so I won't spend too much time on it.
Firstly, none of these "what job you'll end up with" envision anything within the educational system. Rather, this doesn't just mean a doctorate is required for success in a "worthless field" (not all universities are unilaterally geared at pedagogy, some admire research, management, and other business-oriented elements that actually are more favorably awarded to those who specialized, rather than took a ubiquitous macroeconomics class by a high-flying libertarian hot-shot.) Contrary to the unashamedly philistine tone of this entry, a lot of liberal arts majors actually are employed for reason of persisting the subject. In regards to art history, not everybody smothers themselves in the perfunctory bullshit tasks of children museum curator - though being a curator at the Louvre, or most any museum, is hardly anything like you describe it. Many are involved in the persistence of these programs, in the continuance of historical appreciation of art. Educational institutes are perfect for this, but many choose to invest themselves within the private sector, to which they find suitable (re: well-paying) jobs.
But a lot of this Michael Douglas-type bickering seems particularly dismissive of everything as "pipe dreams". Tons of religious majors working in the fields of hermeneutics actually ENJOY doing what they are doing...because there's a level of agency that isn't really present in many of the bureaucratic, negligible jobs that a lot of "worthwhile majors do". There's little sense of leeway; you're eyed by some sort of hegemon, even in entrepreneurial work - where a philosophy (mostly conjoined with a political science degree) or communications major working within a research field is able to commentate. Unfortunately, many have been geared not to think for themselves, but rather, to blindly propel some sort of "thinking" that was passed onto you by some education major you would have berated 20 years ago. Tough shit.
August 27th, 2008 at 05:55 pm
I think a lot of the out and out anger at this post is coming from quite a few young folk who haven't even graduated yet. I think an apt comparison to this post is something akin to telling kids that there is no Santa Clause.
At the end of the day real skills are what most employers are going to care about. If all one cares about is expanding their knowledge then by all means take a degree that has pretty much zero real life job prospects.
I think the current mind set that just believe in your self and you can do anything you want is a bunch of BS. Combine the just believe part with social status and the amount of money supporting the just believe attitude and then maybe you'll have success. Most people who get jobs with their "worthless" degrees have parents with a high social standing and come from pretty well off families. They never credit this and more often than not say it was their hard work that landed them where they are today. I can guarantee that for 95 percent of people who are lower middle class/working class that get a degree in say the Arts probably just wasted 4 years of their life and a heck of a lot of money. I know a few people personally that graduated with those worthless degrees, all from working class families. Guess what, they have tons of debt and they are working at crummy dead end jobs.
In the kind of hyper competitive economy that most new grads will face the last thing they should be doing is investing in something that probably has very little chance at getting them anywhere. After someone is well established or wins the lottery, then that would be the appropriate time to expand their knowledge beyond practical skills.
Using a Philosophy major as a stepping stone to say getting in a law school may not be a bad idea, how ever if one thinks that Philosophy is the cats ass and they don't have other goals in mind then indeed it is a waste. The same could be said of the other "stepping stone" degrees on the list.
The only thing I really think that may have some practical value on the list is a Communications major. However with that said I do think it pretty much is a load of BS and it basically boils down to having a degree in being a salesperson. The better you can BS the better you will be in the field of marketing/spin. It always helps to have a suave salesperson aura about you. If your ugly and don't have a good voice then yeah this degree is a waste of time too.
I think as todays twenty somethings grow older they'll be disappointed to find out that it takes much more than "just believe" to make things work in the real world.
August 27th, 2008 at 07:39 pm
Frank Zappa once said, "if you want an education, go to a library. If you want to get laid, go to college."
August 27th, 2008 at 07:53 pm
Another useless degree...music composition. My kid began playing guitar and piano at 9. All his high school counselors told him, "get a degree in music at Berklee in Boston." To that, he said "kiss my ass, thank you." He is now 20, makes 100K a year teaching guitar.
Drawback: convincing kids that Yngwie Malmsteen is not a genius.
August 27th, 2008 at 08:14 pm
Music Composition is not a useless major. There are countless successful composers on Broadway who majored in composition. Just because your kid doesn't need a music degree does not make it worthless. It maybe worthless to him but to others. And I highly doubt your kid makes 6 figures teaching guitar (I think you just said that to make your point of a worthless music degree).
May 19th, 2009 at 02:21 am
You don't need a degree in music composition to be a successful composer. 50% of the stuff that they teach in composition courses will not be used in the real world.
I am a semi-professional violinist, and have been composing since I was 8 years old. I have studied music a lot longer than most college graduates have.
I can tell you with great certainty that the act of composition does not require a degree. It might get you a job - because of the piece of paper thing - but it doesn't make you an artist. You have to become an artist. It's a process one accomplishes within the self over great amounts of time.
The truth is, music degrees are somewhat worthless. Only degrees from great institutions like Juilliard are worth something on an artistic level. The violinists at my state university are pathetic. I was better than many of them when I was 15 years old.
Don't take my word for it. Try getting an audition with a top symphony if you have a degree from Podunk State University. It's not easy. It screams "hey, I stink, give me a chance - I couldn't get into a real music school."
It's better to have a liberal arts degree from Podunk U if you are a musician. That is why I studied history. It doesn't say anything about my playing ability. I can still get auditions (and have gotten pretty far in a couple) with known ensembles.
The bottom line is that music isn't an important college major. It just tells people that you didn't learn any marketable skills in college aside from the general education (first 2 years of college).
August 27th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
This is soo hilarious...and soo true. Although you definitely missed other useless majors like music performance. My sister and brother-in-law both got a bachelors degree in this, as well as my sister got a masters degree too- and have they used it? No- they went into my brother-in-law's brother's business, and they're still paying off the student loans.
The illiad and the odyssey were greek, the aeneid was latin which was basically a rip-off of the illiad and the odyssey combined together and with a roman hero. Such a shocker that a roman would steal an idea from the greeks, nah, that never happened.
(This is the extent of what I learned from 3 years of latin in high school, other than amo, amare, amavi, amatus- love- and manere- to remain. Oh yeah and I now randomly write and talk in the passive tense and say things like "I wish that hadn't been true". Its scary sometimes).
August 28th, 2008 at 01:27 am
I find it funny that in this late age we've abandoned any sort of fulfillment; moreover, we've relinquished any optimistic existentialist thoughts that dominated the nineteenth century because we've got to propel capital or some other form of dogmatic bullshit. In this sense we've brought back almost the esoteric wet dreams of some of the Veblenesque class systems that the Lost Generation used to chastise, perhaps we're in for some sort of incessant return (and withdrawal) of modernism that will play out the rest of our lives. And then some.
This isn't just babble. Look at Phil's post, where (once again) somebody forgoes any mention of putting the effort BACK into education. Sure, there's worthlessness in trying to cross-over, but couldn't we say the same about a business major trying to pass it as a literary theorist? Yes, lots of wealthy families allow for their offspring to be the Hepburns...because they have the money for it, but why not imagine a scenario where a not-so-well-to-do family churns out a son who does theoretical work for the Population Reference Bureau. We've come to such a point where we want to satiate the "arts" and the "pragmatics" because we just don't want to imagine any intersection of the two. I laugh when a friend of mine had to read Foucault for an economics class. He didn't know where to start.
All of these majors have practicality in the real world. They might not have the flexibility of another degree (though, the case can be made that for some jobs that a degree is a degree, interchangeable and simply a socioeconomic trophy. In this sense the practicality of being a quicker, smarter worker is more worthwhile than having read - or skimmed - The Wealth of Nations)
A degree in the arts also presupposes the idea that those who choose such a path have payed close attention how to envision the application of their major. That's being worthwhile. There's no such thing as a worthless major, just a worthless student.
September 1st, 2008 at 05:57 pm
..comm or film degree yeeeah, useless. u have join this and that union, society and every other bullshit gang. its like who you down with bloods or crips. and is really useless if you go to the local state or small privite university. advice to future communication, film whatever you want to call it, students. go to a real film school usc, nyu, ucla
September 4th, 2008 at 02:57 pm
Comm should not be on there. It's not about how to communicate. There are a lot of aspects of a communication major: Public Relations, media production, journalism, and more. Film is often grouped in the comm major in many schools. Plus there are many aspects of film-making, not just Director, Writer, and Actor (the only three that most people know about). AND there are tv stations all over the US that someone with these degrees could work for.
Yes, they are easy majors, yes, that's part of the reason I'm a communication student, and yes those are mainly the types of people that are in them, but not everyone. I'm not in it because I want to be drunk 24/7 and stay in school. I actually do enjoy it.
September 5th, 2008 at 06:04 am
Bullcrap. Film is awesome. How many of you get to write feature length spec scripts in your classes? What? I didn't think so. It is laughable though. Many films students are bums. Not this one!
September 6th, 2008 at 04:31 pm
i am the devil. i am comment #666 and i say if u study religion you will be seeing me veeery soon!!!!!12/21/2012 listen to the mayans!!
September 8th, 2008 at 06:18 am
youre an idiot. you dont have a clue what philosophy is about. you ignorant shit.
September 8th, 2008 at 02:42 pm
Majors do not always determine a career; what determines a career is a person's drive and focus. As someone with a degree in English and Theatre, I first went the teaching route and now I am a full-time writer. I would never trade in my background as a writer for any other so-called money-making major.
Same goes for foreign language majors--French might not seem like the safest bet, but see how far being fluent in a foreign language will get you in business, politics, marketing, etc.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Ok, so I read a ton of these responses and found this whole thing really interesting. I'm a senior at a large university in the midwest majoring in political science, and I gotta say I knew when I picked the major that it was not necessarily going to get me anywhere in and of iteself. I felt like I had to get the BA just to keep up with all the other assholes getting bachelors degrees nowadays. Plus in the time I've been in college I've done some networking, taken some "free" computer classes, improved my spanish, and generally learned more about how society functions through a wide array of classes. My point? Major in what you want to major in, but at the same time try and aquire skills along the way which could help you land at least an ok job, because noone is going to hire you if you have a major and no practical skills. peace
September 11th, 2008 at 07:15 am
I work in recruiting and am still pursuing my "useless" degree in English...and I can tell you all in complete certainty that once you get into the "real" world, no employer is going to give a shit what your major was, as long as you have a Bachelor's degree. I have even seen people get jobs as Engineers who don't have engineering degrees (I know, I was terrified by this too). Of course I plan to pursue an academic career and be of absolutely no use to anyone in the corporate world :)
September 12th, 2008 at 03:18 am
Who the hell cares if you studied film, history, or knitting for gods sake... The degree doesnt sell you, you sell yourself and just have that piece of paper to prove to an employer you can set a goal and complete it as well as learn some basic writing, communication, and analytical skills along the way. You and a highschool dropout could have nothing seperating you except a piece of paper, thats all it is, a piece of paper that cost you thousands of dollars, but you still have it. I was a Comm major-loved it, learned a lot and got out of college as fast as I could to spare my pockets. Im working for Microsoft now and lovin it.
September 13th, 2008 at 05:58 am
Holy Shit there are a lot of comments up above. Sensitive topic.
I'll take pre-med (scratch that), psychology (scratch that), anthropology (scratch that), management FTW!
September 14th, 2008 at 01:26 am
You have no idea what the hell you're talking about. And what did you major? Dumbass?
September 15th, 2008 at 06:17 pm
Someone doesn't know anything about music therapy. You don't mix tapes, moron. It's a widely growing field and its application has been proven useful many times.
September 15th, 2008 at 07:11 pm
Um I make $80 bucks an hour with my Social work degree, and live in a nice house in a nice area. whoever put that lame comment on there def needs to go back to college. social workers are in demand!
September 21st, 2008 at 01:25 am
what's the deal with these retards arguing that philosophy opens doors into law school. that's COMPLETELY irrelevant. he's saying that if you major in philosophy then 'this' will happen. what you people are arguing is that getting a law degree gets you a job. a philosphy degree may or may not help you get your law degree (which is the one that actually might do something).
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
deannacase@hotmail.com::
I'm surprised that the following aren't on this list:
-fashion
-journalism
-history
-child delevopment*
-political science
*could be useful with Masters or PhD
The above, are a few that many of my smarter peers and I see as cotton candy degrees. While I personally would love to major in about two of them, I refrained because I know they are way too easy to obtain and will not get me anywhere in the real world. I guess some of us who have been on our own or had to pay the bills have never been drawn to degrees like this since we are already more than aware of the harsh reality of the real world. lol :)
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
deannacase@hotmail.com:
K, congrats on doing so well in the social worker industry. However, in most towns a social worker can expect to make $10-12/hr ..or $15-20/hr (max, in bigger cities) for the rest of their lives. You must be doing something pretty awesome to be getting paid more than starting engineers and nurses. In fact, you're getting paid about 3x what a nurse or engineer starts off at...and everyone knows their degree is usually about twice as hard. So forgive us for having a hard time believing you. However, I would still love to know what you specialize in. Maybe it's time I cross over from the medical field and do social work. Heck, if I can make that kind of money! Count me in!!
September 24th, 2008 at 02:49 am
I would disagree on some points. Latin is very useful if one is planning on attending law school in the future, and English is also good if you plan on getting a law degree. As for Communications, well if you plan on geting into broadcasting is is useful, but more often then not you end up at the phone company.
You forgot African American Studies and Women's Studies. What sort of a job can you possibly get with one of those degree?
September 26th, 2008 at 12:39 am
If college students stuck to majoring in areas that idiotic bloggers who misspell simple words deemed legit or not, then there would be no diversity or innovation in this world. Come on people, major in whatever the fuck you want to, whatever you are truly interested in / passionate about, and you will be successful. Just have your shit together, do your research, and know what you can do with your degree- you can go in whatever direction you want to. It's all about your ambition, ability to be an effective communicator, the connections you acquire and the resume you build, and ultimately doing good in an interview and establishing that your not an incompetent idiot, but the exact opposite rather. So many fields of business and degrees intertwine with others these days... companies want diversity- graduates from different disciplines who can bring fresh ideas and aspects to the table.
I think the majority of the people who have left comments on this stupid blog have degrees or are working on obtaining them; the blogger is probably just an internet nerd who has some sort of angst about his own inability to succeed. But he's the one getting the last laugh because of all our bickering. blah-- Cyber Idiot=1 point, College Graduates=0
September 28th, 2008 at 05:50 pm
Wow. I'm mostly surprised at the number of people that can't take a joke. Anyone with a bit of intelligence knows that it's not the degree that gets the job and succeeds (or fails); it's you, the person. Anywy, how is money the measure of who you are as a person?
September 29th, 2008 at 05:09 am
Haha you hit the nail on the head with the Com. major. every douche at my school really believes that communications is the shit. it is the easiest and laziest way to "graduate" from college without doing shit and still somehow getting a degree. if i have to hear someone bitch about how their presentation was hard and they're having a tough time with their com class i will shoot myself.
September 30th, 2008 at 02:27 am
cant they be like teachers
October 3rd, 2008 at 01:18 am
major that is totally useful: Biology
im a bio major, going on to pharmacy school...when i get out of there, i get six figures! sounds like a good deal to me :)
October 3rd, 2008 at 01:06 pm
In fairness it all depends on how good at it you are. You do a degree in a shit college and its a waste tbh. Im in UK doing Business Management, in our first lecture are lecturer told us 'too many people do business, its becoming the next media', funny as hell to see peoples reactions: 'What, shit, did he just say that?'.
Point is if I get a 2-2 im gonna be earning (going on averages) the same as someone without a degree, and im in Cardiff Uni, a business school that outranks both Oxford and Cambridge on graduate earning. Too many people do a degree because thats whats seen as the norm. Point is, you gotta do well at it and know how to use it......................that said im hoping to be a journalist, where i start out on 10K a year......yey! Oh and i may end up doing a masters in com, stop making me 2nd guess myself!!!!!!!
October 5th, 2008 at 08:44 pm
That other poster is actually right re: Latin.
While Latin is a completely worthless major in itself, it will get you immediately hired in some major public school districts that started teaching AP Latin (which for reasons that completely elude me has recently become popular in education again). Since Latin has never been part of the Ed curriculum, no one in most school systems is capable of teaching it so they'll hire anyone with a pulse that's mildly competent at Latin.
Take note future college grads - a liberal arts degree leads to one of three things - teaching, law school, a cubicle, or (worst of all) an equally worthless PhD. I know, I majored in English.
If I had it to do over, it would have been accounting.
October 6th, 2008 at 03:45 pm
uh ok i am a corporate communications graduate and i am now working in a media planning/marketing firm, so much for that theory.
October 6th, 2008 at 05:13 pm
Art History and Philosophy is something that the only job you can get once you obtain your degree is to become an art history or philosophy teacher. Great Options!
October 6th, 2008 at 06:51 pm
all degrees are worthless. none of them prepare you for the real world like having rich parents does. ~sorry engineering guys.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:31 am
ha i think they forgot how you can major in beekeeping, or underwater basket weaving
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