"Hippie" Careers / Degrees

[rageinacage99]

so which would be better out of the liberal arts..history, english, or poli sci in terms of job opportunities.. isn't history and english practically the same thing?

[brocco]

i think some people are forgetting that correlation =/= causation. many people who major in vague subjects like psychology and english do so because they have no idea what their career goals are to begin with. so yea, if they still haven't figured out what they want to do when they graduate they're probably going to struggle in the job search given that they don't know what they're looking for.

[robertpolyglot]

Hippies, granolas, earthy-crunchy types seem to be found in every college department (some more than others) except the business college. In fact, they even go to law school (which I see as "two peas in a pod" with business) but they are usually there to do environmental, discrimination, public defense, public policy, or other types of "save the world" law. What happens is that these attorneys usually sell out to the more corporate types of law or get disillusioned with the field, but are still qualified for important posts in government or not-for-profits. Heck, there are even branches of engineering suited for them.

[Tracysherm]

Here is the study done by Georgetown that I mentioned earlier:


http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi...ment.Final.pdf


It looks at BA level college grads, recent and with experience, and people with graduate degrees in various field, along with their unemployment rates and average salaries in 2009-2010. As an example, I have a Master's in Social Work, which has a not very desirable salary range, but a very low unemployment rate (2.9%). There are, expectably, lots of "hippie" types in my field, but they are most likely employed. In contrast, if you look at all the graduate degrees in the fine arts, their unemployment rates ranged from 7-13%, with the exception being graduate degrees in Music. From looking at the numbers, you can tell, for example, that people with a Master's degree in Film are either unemployed, or not likely to be gainfully employed in the field (there are only so many video stores left).


(We had been discussing earlier the degrees that are not likely to lead to gainful employment in the chosen field).