Why Are College Majors Are Created Equal

From the outside, it is hard to see why I would want to earn a liberal arts degree. Time and time again, the lifetime earnings of workers who studied in the liberal arts are outpaced by their peers who worked in engineering. These “hard sciences” of math and engineering are lauded as the “right choice” for future success by ambitious parents and counselors, while liberal arts degrees are the butt of jokes. However, for me, a liberal arts degree means a lot more than just making money. It means a global vision and universality across disciplines, as well as many future opportunities to change the world radically.

Being in college has taught me that what you majored in does not matter when it comes to finding a career, as long as you have the experience you will be fine. I tend to question myself all the time as to “Why am I attending college when most employers probably would not care about my Bachelors or Associates Degree.” My doubtfulness of college brought me to come across the article “No, It Doesn't Matter What You Majored In”, by Carlo Rotella. Carlo Rotella is a director of the Americans Studies Program and the author of several books. The author believes that “Prospective employers frequently don’t really care what you majored in” Page 468.

According to The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), a study found that “at peak earnings ages (56-60 years) workers who majored as undergraduates in the humanities or social sciences earn annually on average about $2000 more than those who majored as undergraduates in professional or pre-professional fields.” This study which was conducted also found that the unemployment rate for recent liberal arts graduates showed a declining unemployment rate of only 5.2 percent. Not only does the estimated 9.6 million individuals hold a bachelor’s degree in the humanities or social sciences field, nearly 4 million of these individuals also attain a graduate or professional degree. These graduates with advanced degrees usually

1. The author (Ostrander) emphasizes that students should not stress out over choosing a major. He tells us that what one majors in is less important than the overall qualities, knowledge base, and the skills that one develops. Ostrander also points out that a major is much less important than the skills that people gain by using a quote from an executive, “I look for people who take accountability, responsibility and are good team people over anything else. I can teach the technical.”

Education in America is important; due to rising costs, he claims many think liberal-arts degrees are too expensive for the average family to afford. Ungar suggests that a liberal-arts degree prepares people for adapting in their respective career field. Career specific majors are not offering students the broad range of qualities one needs for job opportunities. While he acknowledges the stronger start of students with prior experience in college, it is those students with little experience that end up with the most original ideas, making them valuable to an employer.

Colleges are struggling to adapt to society’s changing requirements for adults entering the work force. John Fawell laments this change and states that humans intrinsically desire to learn more for the purpose of knowing more. However, the focus has shifted away from this and has become more career-oriented. This shift is not well supported in the current college system. The education system is aware of this change and some have modified their programs, but they are too narrow and a broad college education is lost. Even though it has become almost mandatory in society, a college degree does not prepare students for a real-world work environment and is not necessary for most occupations. Many, such as lawyers or doctors, do require further education and a system that instructs them while also training the majority of the workforce would be an improvement.

The article “should everyone go to college” by Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill convinces people that not every school and major is a good investment to choose for studying , also the writer believes not everyone should go to the college. In fact, everyone likes to be successful in terms of both education and wealth , however the people choose different majors based on their abilities and talents. On the other hand, the society demands and the application of the majors define whether studying in a specific major is a good investment or not. If most of the majors categorized in terms of salaries and most of the people choose that specific major , job opportunities will be filled for that major and it’s not a good investment anymore. Therefore

“Misconception No.1: A liberal arts education is a luxury that most families can no longer afford. ‘Career-education’ is what we must now focus on.” (Ungar, 2010, pp.191) As Ungar has claimed, there is a recent misconception that a liberal arts education is no longer a necessity but luxury because it doesn’t provide an instant career launching education. With so many people having to a need to spend as little money as possible, they are determined to only spend money on preparation for their future career. For this reason they go to college only to take courses that are necessary for their future. “She is in college to take vocational training. She wants to write computer code. Start a business. Get a job in television. She uses college to take vocational courses that pertain to her career interest.” (Murray, 2008, pp.228) Murray explained the story of a girl who is in college solely for preparation for her career. Because of this, she isn’t interested in a liberal arts education. If the course doesn’t directly pertain to her desired career, she prefers not to take it.

In her article “Not all College Majors Are Created Equal”, Singletary states that engineering major with relevant internship within the innovation industry results in higher chances of attracting a good job. Unemployment is higher among high school dropouts compared to 22.9%, which represents the rate of unemployment among post-secondary graduates. Therefore, rates of employment among college degree holders are much higher than the chances a high school diploma can fill at workplace because of the differences in skills.

A big concern in todays’ world for graduating college students is being able to find a job right out of school. More times than not, there are many problems that occur when a student chooses a specific career path. In the short exert “Why Focusing Too Narrowly In College Could Backfire”, written by Peter Cappelli, he discusses in his opinion, as well as many others, the right path students should be taking. The lead way students should be following to secure they get a job in a field they will enjoy. Many students have trouble picking a college to go to let alone what major they want to focus on. Students are told to pick a major and start taking the classes for it as soon as possible without realizing they might not even enjoy that field of work. There are many struggles in college with picking the correct classes and

A few decades ago, many faculty members at top universities believed the world needs more liberal arts major. They wanted the universities to de-emphasize the importance on major’s in general and create a broader curriculum. One supporter of liberal arts education is Professor T. Kaori Kitao at Swarthmore University who thinks success will follow any individual who adhere to a flawless education set-up. She thinks people need to be well rounded because they will be more ready for any unexpected changes and can anticipate future problems in the workplace. Professor T. Kaori stated many intriguing facts about the need for liberal arts institutions and majors, but in reality “STEM” majors can be equally or more innovative when it comes to brain

“The liberal arts today have fallen in prestige. In the early decades of the 20th century, about 70% of U.S. undergraduates majored in the liberal arts…”(Roche 4). Liberal arts demands have been reducing due to the scrimmage of economical issues. Students are more likely to make academic decisions that favor fields perceived to be paths to jobs, and jobs that pay well. This desirable way supports brutal economy. As William Zinsser says in “College Pressures” all the costs are high, from heating oil, insurance, postage to health insurance. Despite plenty of evidences that liberal arts graduates also have successful careers, undergraduates prefer other fields that seem to promise employment. Students flee their first steps in to the real world, which is an opportunity to reflect on higher education. Lack of guarantee to secure jobs in the future tends to push students toward vocational arts instead of liberal arts. Moreover, paying too much money is not desired today; in contrast focusing directly on the workplace is the

A noticeable weakness in the beginning of the essay occurs when the list of successful humanities majors is mentioned. This is not the best argument because the names of those who were listed do not appeal to people of all ages. College, or even high school students may read this and form an opinion that is not in favor of the authors because the only real world relation does not interest them due to lack of knowledge. They also mention that 41 percent of engineering company founders “graduated with a healthy combination of liberal arts, health-care and business degrees”(Madsbjerg/rasmussen 472). One would originally believe this helps their case, but it limits those with humanities degrees ability to have flexibility in job selection in the world. Jobs in STEM are a major part of the current workforce, but as mentioned in this essay, there are still plenty of other jobs in the world. The percentages of those with humanities majors in those professions may not be as proportionate. To have such an impact on a major field can be very beneficial, but the combination of others can outweigh the 41 percent of STEM professionals. The weaknesses in this essay have the potential to be great strengths but they lack the finalization of facts which in turn, makes them

Parents push their children to have more academic jobs and majors to improve their child's “status.” But when a student with high academic achievement chooses to have a vocational style job it is seen as unfortunate or even a waste of genius and intellect. Students should have the opportunity to be trained in whatever careers they want, even if it is a more vocational job like a trade instead of an academic job. If these students find these vocational jobs more meaningful than any academic job they should have the right to choose them because of their pursuit of happiness.

Some have recently argued that a liberal education, as opposed to a vocational education, is a waste of time, money and effort because so much of these are spent on the pursuit of knowledge not at all relevant to the chosen major. As Bob Newman of Paradigm Media states, "We all know that career colleges and trade schools get a bad rep in the education industry. For many, they’re viewed as the “other option” or Plan B. What surprises me about these stereotypes is that the data available shows that career/trade school grads can make way more in the long run than students with a Bachelors or even Masters degree.” The common consensus is that college is a mere ticket to the corporate world of high pay, early retirement jobs. If this is