I believe that the number of reasons students may have for going to college can be filtered into two categories: one good reason and many bad ones. The good reason would be because you found a skill or trade that you love and know you can excel at, so you go to college to get the degree required in the specified career field. A couple of the poor reasons would be a) you thought what you wanted to major in sounded cool or b) everyone else was doing it.
Ok, so maybe I’m being a little presumptuous, but I am trying to get at something here. With the number of students finishing college and struggling to find a job afterwards, it’s hard not to ask “were you not prepared for this?” Anyway, I’m not here to berate anyone, but instead to show a list of the top 10 most underemployed majors, courtesy of Payscale.com:
1. Business Administration and Management
2. Criminal Justice
3. Drama and Theater Arts
4. Anthropology
5. Liberal Arts
6. History
7. Psychology
8. Biology
9. English
10. Economics
Now with just one look at these 10 majors, one thing can already be said: just about everyone is majoring in one of these. For instance, you can’t go a single day on campus and not run into someone who’s majoring in Psychology. It’s one thing if you have a plan and you know what you want to do with your major. I almost feel sorry for the ones who tell me they’re majoring in Psychology just because their General Psych professor was really cool (I’ve actually had this conversation before). Another one is business majors. “If all else fails, I’ll pick up a business degree, because that can be applied to anything, right?” Yeah, well, so can a 2-year degree. A bachelors in business may be a little more prestigious, of course, but an employer is only going to look at your application and then at you and ask “what make you any better than the hundreds of other applications with business degrees?”
Again, I’m not trying to berate anyone. If one of these majors are something that you really want to go for, then go for it. Just be sure that before you make that jump, figure out what it is that you want to do with that degree. If you really don’t know what you want to do with it, I would recommend sticking with a 2-year degree for the time being.
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