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Our wealthiest family friends, wealth to the level that buildings on college campuses and in the major city are named after them wealthy, were English majors in college, started teaching high school English, moved on to buy a publishing company....having attended a Liberal Arts College that wasn't ranked anywhere....
Several of my doctors have English degrees in undergrad....having attended an unranked liberal arts college with 100% acceptance rate into Med school for the past many, many years....
Psych majors are in HUGE demand, contrary to popular belief, yes, they need a MS at least, but they have to get an BA/BS in something to get there and psychology seems to be a logical major
It's not the degree that matters as much as what you do with that degree.....can we get over the "Liberal Arts is worthless" mindset once and for all....please!!!!
How come there aren't any conservative arts studies?
The reason why people with liberal arts degrees can't find jobs is because they haven't marketed themselves properly. There are nearly limitless possibilities for someone with a history degree, but it takes work to get out and sell your research, writing, and speaking skills. Studying history builds critical thinking , analysis, the ability to articulate a coherent and logical argument, and to present material in both written and oral form. These are skills that are in high demand in virtually every segment of the business world. A liberal arts major who can't find a job is just not trying hard enough.
Exactly this. If you are thinking about going into academia with a history degree, it's probably not really practical unless you can get your degree from one of the very top programs. OTOH, in other fields, a history degree can be an asset for just the skills you cited, especially for people looking to move into administration or management. Coupling a BA in History with an MBA or MPA or even including coursework/internships in skill-specific areas like IT or accounting can work just fine.
They do it out of ignorance. The cute girl is in for a major disappointment - there are no publishing house or university jobs for English majors. Those don't exist anymore, and the few that are there are so competitive that she would have had to go to a top top school for a shot, plus have connections.
Those non-subject majors are generally marketed toward people who have very little education and just want a college degree, like older people who never went to college but just want to go back and get a degree, just to have a degree.
I'm not sure what any of it has to do with "following dreams." Unless you are the very best student at the very best school, studying things like history and English beyond a bachelor's degree is nothing but an intellectual luxury that most people can't afford.
I agree mainly with the above. Now that is not to say that if you go LA then its all "GLOOM and DOOM" and minimum wage until you die. There are successful people with LA degrees and I just don't mean people how graduated 10+ years ago. You certainly can be successful with the LA degree.
However the biggest challenge I find is the sheer number of people applying for the LA type job vastly outnumbers the actual # of job openings. So for instance, yes Norton, Penguin, Scholastic, Macmillian would certainly hire that LA grad for that publishing job opening, but I bet that publishing company probably have 60+ English, History, Sociology, etc... type grads applying for that 1-3 open publishing jobs, so what the heck does the 57 + people who applied for that job do?
So then you turn to the Customer service, admin assistant, sales assistant, marketing assistant etc...the very basic, bottom of the totem pole type office job that generally don't require a specific degree or years of experience. Well you with your history degree will be competing against every other LA grad for those limited # of customer service positions and again the number of applicants probably vastly outnumbers the amount of people they are looking to hire for that customer service, sales position-good luck, truly good luck.
Now compared to pharmacy or nursing or accounting, you are only competing against Nursing grads for that nursing job, pharmacy grads for that pharmacy job. You are not competing against the English grads, the history grads unless he/she went back to pharmacy, nursing school. Now let me be clear, that is not to say that pharmacy, nursing and accounting are "you will never be unemployed" proof but at the very least you are competing against a smaller pool of applicants than the generic "customer service job" that anyone regardless of major can apply to.
Perhaps then the problem is not so much "LA grads are useless" but rather the number of people applying for work severely out numbers the number of people an employer is actually looking to hire.
There is a lot of good advice in this thread. I am currently majoring in English at a university and will be graduating in May. My university has a career services office and a website with a search engine only available to current students and alumni. I'm sure the university you went to has something similar. My major adviser sends out emails a couple times a semester with internships and job openings relevant to editing, tutoring, teaching, publishing, sales etc. He also sends emails telling all English majors not to feel like it will be useless upon graduation and lists various things that can be done with it. I'm sure every university is like this.
It's true that the Liberal Arts like History, English, and Psychology aren't as technical as something like accounting or engineering, but they are far from useless. Not everyone excels in heavy math fields like Engineering. I'm not a fan of math myself and have zero interest in being an engineer. I don't care how much it pays. Studying Accounting sounds really boring. I would hate my life if I was stuck crunching numbers everyday. I feel the same way about a Business degree. Most degrees outside of the technical fields I mentioned and a few others are broad and don't translate into any one type of career. Physics, Chemistry, Biology etc are no more likely to land you a job right after graduation than English, History, and Philosophy. Many people seek more education after receiving a bachelors to become doctors, lawyers, and professors at the university and community college level, but there are many that don't. A lot of entry level jobs require degrees and don't care what they are in. With a degree working in these jobs it is more likely that an employee will be promoted into higher level positions over those with no degrees. I know someone with an English degree that moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and works in sales and makes decent money. I know a person with a History degree who works at a library and makes more money than her coworkers who don't have a degree. I know someone who got their degree in Philosophy and is teaching English in Spain.
Nobody is ever too old to get a masters degree. You could always go back to school for something like Information Systems or Library Science or even Law School. Getting a degree is expensive and college is not for everyone, but a degree opens many doors these days and a person with a four-year degree is one step ahead of somebody with only a high school diploma or none at all. Liberal Arts degrees teach things like critical thinking and how to communicate effectively. These are skills most employers want in their employees. Getting a degree also makes a person more well-rounded and able to see other perspectives. That is why degree curriculum requires students to take classes outside their major.
I believe that the people who can't find a job with their Liberal Arts degree after graduation don't try hard enough. You have to put yourself out there. Volunteer and get internships that are closely related to a desirable career path. Network and meet people to make connections with. Some people believe that going to the library and reading books and the internet for hours will teach you everything a degree can, but I don't think so. In college, students network with peers and professionals and get feedback on their work from experienced professors and their own peers. These are things that make a degree better than just relying on a library.
Another thing people with degrees that can't find jobs won't do is move. They often move back to where they grew up expecting there to be jobs waiting for them. You have to be willing to move to another city in your state or even another state to find a job.
There may be people who work at Starbucks with degrees, but maybe that's what they wanted to do. So what? It's their life. Besides Starbucks actually treats their employees well and gives them great benefits from what I hear.
Excellent post! A lot of the people who can't find jobs with their LA degrees likely wouldn't find jobs with STEM degrees or applied science degrees, either, because they're not trying very hard. Contrary to popular belief, unless daddy owns the business, nobody is just going to hand you a job. You've got to work at it. That's been true for decades, too, not just recently.
Wow, learning "Middle English on the fly and then writing a fifty-page honors thesis on Chaucer". I think you just answered your own question on the difficulty of a liberal arts degree. That is why folks in the STEM fields find a liberal arts degree so funny.
Yes, you can make a good living with a liberal arts degree. As long, as your willing to work hard and know how to solve problems. My college drop-out daughter was making 80,000 a year at age 23. Oh, she did not have a liberal arts degree or a STEM degree!! She, however, did get through semesters of Calculus in high school and all the honors science classes. AND she found those classes useful.
CRITICAL THINKING with a liberal arts degree!!! Really, and what sort of critical thinking can you do without a firm grounding in math and statistics?? .....oh yeah, Middle Ages English and Chaucer.
You remember the quote "if you cannot explain it with numbers....you don't understand it".
What passes for critical thinking by Liberal Arts graduates is actually mental....well, lets stop there.
BTW...I am not saying all Liberal Arts graduates are dumb, not by any means.
But those that were smart and got a Liberal Arts degree wasted their god-given talents. For those that don't believe in a deity, they did not live up to their genetic code potential.
Let me guess. You're marooned in some kind of dead-end job and need to trash others to make yourself feel better.
Actually, in truth, critical thinking comes very much into play, thanks, as well as the ability to think abstractly. Funny how my engineering and software clients prize my critical thinking skills and pay me for them.
Wow, learning "Middle English on the fly and then writing a fifty-page honors thesis on Chaucer". I think you just answered your own question on the difficulty of a liberal arts degree. That is why folks in the STEM fields find a liberal arts degree so funny.
Yes, you can make a good living with a liberal arts degree. As long, as your willing to work hard and know how to solve problems. My college drop-out daughter was making 80,000 a year at age 23. Oh, she did not have a liberal arts degree or a STEM degree!! She, however, did get through semesters of Calculus in high school and all the honors science classes. AND she found those classes useful.
CRITICAL THINKING with a liberal arts degree!!! Really, and what sort of critical thinking can you do without a firm grounding in math and statistics?? .....oh yeah, Middle Ages English and Chaucer.
You remember the quote "if you cannot explain it with numbers....you don't understand it".
What passes for critical thinking by Liberal Arts graduates is actually mental....well, lets stop there.
BTW...I am not saying all Liberal Arts graduates are dumb, not by any means.
But those that were smart and got a Liberal Arts degree wasted their god-given talents. For those that don't believe in a deity, they did not live up to their genetic code potential.
Not only are science and math/statistics liberal arts, but many of the social sciences require a statistics course at the undergraduate level. A lot of business majors do not take a math course that is any more advanced than what social science majors take. Economics is actually more mathematically-challenging than the business fields. At the graduate level, psychology requires a firmer grasp of statistics than what MBA programs require. When you get to the PhD level, many psychology majors are also statisticians and teach statistics courses.
They do it out of ignorance. The cute girl is in for a major disappointment - there are no publishing house or university jobs for English majors. Those don't exist anymore, and the few that are there are so competitive that she would have had to go to a top top school for a shot, plus have connections.
Those non-subject majors are generally marketed toward people who have very little education and just want a college degree, like older people who never went to college but just want to go back and get a degree, just to have a degree.
I'm not sure what any of it has to do with "following dreams." Unless you are the very best student at the very best school, studying things like history and English beyond a bachelor's degree is nothing but an intellectual luxury that most people can't afford.
Shows what you know. You realize, of course, that we've entered an era where content is king, right? You know, the Information Age? The ability to write effectively and persuasively is valuable like never before. Study after study shows that those with liberal arts degrees wind up outperforming those with career-driven majors.
Our wealthiest family friends, wealth to the level that buildings on college campuses and in the major city are named after them wealthy, were English majors in college, started teaching high school English, moved on to buy a publishing company....having attended a Liberal Arts College that wasn't ranked anywhere....
Several of my doctors have English degrees in undergrad....having attended an unranked liberal arts college with 100% acceptance rate into Med school for the past many, many years....
Psych majors are in HUGE demand, contrary to popular belief, yes, they need a MS at least, but they have to get an BA/BS in something to get there and psychology seems to be a logical major
It's not the degree that matters as much as what you do with that degree.....can we get over the "Liberal Arts is worthless" mindset once and for all....please!!!!
Anyone who is wealthy today graduated "back in the day." When I went to school, people with English degrees could get jobs on Wall Street, and everyone was talking about these amazingly upwardly mobile Yuppies. That's irrelevant today.
And it doesn't count if you have to get a second degree after the first. Anyone who is smart enough to get into med school can major in what they want.
Who told you psych majors of any kind were in "huge" demand? They aren't.
Shows what you know. You realize, of course, that we've entered an era where content is king, right? You know, the Information Age? The ability to write effectively and persuasively is valuable like never before. Study after study shows that those with liberal arts degrees wind up outperforming those with career-driven majors.
What studies would these be? Sounds like you have the research skills of a liberal arts major.
Undergrads cannot write either persuasively or effectively, and that skill is NOT in demand by itself anyway.
Excellent post! A lot of the people who can't find jobs with their LA degrees likely wouldn't find jobs with STEM degrees or applied science degrees, either, because they're not trying very hard. Contrary to popular belief, unless daddy owns the business, nobody is just going to hand you a job. You've got to work at it. That's been true for decades, too, not just recently.
Exactly.....especially with an unemployment rate nationally of 4.9%. There have been ups and downs in the employment market since there have been jobs there have also been good employees and bad employees since the dawn of time. In this market, if you can't find a job, the issue is with you, not the market, and maybe you need to reevaluate what you are doing to get a job...maybe you are looking in to limited of a geographic area, maybe your attitude in an interview is turning people off, maybe you are just lazy???
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