Comments on: Choosing a College Major: Do What You Enjoy

By: nyxmoxie

nyxmoxie — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:32:17 +0000

I dislike this advice and respectfully must disagree. Many jobs require specific degrees. Also I hate it when people tell you to major in what you enjoy, but then don’t tell you how you can apply the degree for a job. They tell you “you must market yourself” -well how? How can students market themselves with degrees like english, sociology, or american studies?

Also what about when you go to the business world but they want to promote someone with a more specific degree? A sociology degree is okay for entry-level but when you want to climb the corporate ladder then what? What about those who majored in philosophy, literature, and had to go back to get second degrees because they couldn’t get hired by anyone with these degrees?

Its fine to major in something you like, but what about eating after graduation?

By: Heather

Heather — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:19:23 +0000

I strongly disagree with this advice. While many jobs do allow you to work in a field that is not necessarily the same as what you studied, some of the best paid and in demand jobs do not. Any engineering discipline, hard science, or health care area, such as nursing, will require an undergraduate major in the field. If these are areas you would like to work in, you need to study there in your undergraduate and you can work immediately in these areas without graduate work, which most people do.

And to clarify, with an American Studies major, you cannot work as an engineer, a chemist, a nurse, or many other specialties. With a lot of studying in biology, you may be able to get into med school, but this will require knowledge of biology at a college level, which requires significant work outside of the major.