The 13 Most Useless College Majors

Treefolk · 04-23-2012, 08:04 PM

The 13 Most Useless Majors, From Philosophy to Journalism - The Daily Beast

Quote:

Unemployment, recent grad: 13.9 percent*
Unemployment, experienced grad: 9.2 percent*
Earnings, recent grad: $36,000*
Earnings, experienced grad: $64,000*
Projected growth, 2010–2020: +24 percent*
Related occupation: Architect*

Architecture's #5 on the list. Any thoughts?

jessnic · 04-26-2012, 03:45 AM

They basically are saying art is useless on that list. The top five are all art-related majors.

Don't listen to rankings. Anybody could have written that. It's all subjective anyways.

loowee · 04-26-2012, 09:40 AM

A world without architects, journalists, music and all kinds of art lol ? I'd rather die.

higgins2013 · 05-25-2012, 01:51 PM

Recently saw a salary overview for many different BA/BS majors, and noted that B.Arch degree resulted in a career salary nearly comparable to engineering and accounting, versus significantly lower salary projections for typical LAC degrees. Likewise, my middle-aged friends w/B.Arch degrees generally all earn salaries in the $90,000 - $130,000+, which isn't that shabby. To maximize your B.Arch earning power, grads need to locate themselves in large metropolitan city areas that contain large corporate architectural offices and move up the ranks.

Marsden · 05-28-2012, 11:36 PM

Quote:

Unemployment, recent grad: 13.9 percent*
Unemployment, experienced grad: 9.2 percent*
Earnings, recent grad: $36,000*
Earnings, experienced grad: $64,000*
Projected growth, 2010–2020: +24 percent*
Related occupation: Architect*

Actually, the part I have trouble believing is the projected job-growth rate. Maybe that's worldwide?!

Meanwhile, there will always be oversupply among pursuits which people consider 'fun' and that includes most (all?) in the linked article.

rick12 · 05-31-2012, 06:21 PM

It seems that when times are good nobody can imagine them getting bad, and when times are bad nobody can imagine them getting better. Things have been awful for the last few years, but five years ago any student that I was trying to hire had at least four other job offers. I went to a job fair at Iowa State where there were 65 firms and 15 students interviewing. I can't predict the future, but I know that things change.

The amusing part of this report is that their timing is really off. We are seeing an upturn in work, and for the first time in three years we had to compete with other firms to hire our top candidates. Perhaps Europe will bring us down, but I see a lot of firms that have gotten much older and need to start hiring new graduates to balance out their staffs. Technology continues to change and the new graduates are better prepared to deal with it than the 55 year old architects who got laid off and are still looking for a job. Not to mention the boomers getting ready to retire.

Things are still not great, but I don't think architecture is one of the 13 most useless college majors.

rick

yodelo · 06-12-2012, 09:55 PM

Well quantitative majors will always have the upper hand :P

discoinferno · 06-17-2012, 11:10 AM

"A world without architects, journalists, music and all kinds of art lol ? I'd rather die. "

The thing is that most artists would have done the same thing with/without a college degree in their chosen art (and many were able to perform their art more effectively if they had a profitable "day job").

Lists like this tend to refer to how necessary of an investment a degree is from a financial standpoint. Face it guys, some of you will succeed and some of you won't and your degrees will play a minimal role. That goes for any artistic field.