During dinner with friends last night, the conversation turned to mention of one being friends with Tom Toro, cartoonist for The New Yorker, who was an undergrad art history major with focus on film/cinema studies (in fairness, he did do some illustration for one of the school papers) at Yale. Jimmy Stewart was an architecture major at Princeton. Rowan Atkinson (“Mr. Bean”) has a bachelors and masters in Electrical Engineering. Brian May, guitarist with Queen, has a Ph.D in astrophysics. Angela Merkel has an undergrad degree in physics and PhD in quantum chemistry. Jonathan Karl, ABC chief Washington correspondent and co-host of This Week with George Stephanopolous has a BA in sociology. Who knows where your undergrad degree will or may not take people. Who else comes to mind whose degree has nothing to do with their career/profession?
Mayim Bialik, actress, has a PhD in neuroscience.
This very successful businesswoman who has a PhD in political science, although not from a US college (her fashion house makes amazing shoes!)
I wouldn’t say it has nothing to do with her career. Prior to obtaining the PhD, her acting career was slow. She might go a year with her only acting job being the voice on a single episode, of a cartoon character. However, soon after obtaining the PhD she got the part that revitalized her career for which she is most well known. The producer of the show said they were initially going to choose someone else for the character, but when they saw Mayim had a PhD in neuroscience they thought it added authenticity (her character also has a PhD in neuro), so they gave her the part.
And she played a neuroscientist in The Big Bang Theory, so… maybe kind of 
Brian May of course famously only went back to complete his PhD long after Queen was famous, which possibly makes him a little different to the rest of the list, most of whom I assume got their degrees before they became famous.
(Edit: I really should have tried to use something other than “famous” 3 times in the same sentence but I’m too tired to think of synonyms now!)
Adding to the list: Arnold Schwarzenegger has an economics degree which may have been relevant to his political career, but not to his bodybuilding/acting ones.
Sociology and other social sciences are relevant to news reporting, because much of what is reported in news relates to social science subjects.
Ken Jeong - Zoology followed by MD
Gerard Butler - Law
Lisa Kudrow - Biology
Andrea Bocceli - Law
Carly Fiorina - Philosophy and History
Michael Eisner - English
Eddie Redmayne - History of Art
William Shatner - Business
Kate McGarrigle - Chemical Engineering
I feel like a lot of famous people have degrees unrelated to what they’re known for, especially those in the TV and movie industry. It’s probably more common than people think.
And of course, some (including some famous entrepreneurs) don’t have a degree at all.
Although his best known character was in management (ship captain).
Steve Jobs is a well known example, but he did attend Reed for a semester and audited courses there after withdrawing. He did mention that without a calligraphy course he audited, the Macintosh would not had fonts with variable width characters.
Of course, you could also look at early persons in computing before college majors in computer science became widely available, although some may have had majors in subjects like math or electrical engineering.
Similar may apply to other areas of work.
Sundar Pichai would be a more modern example. His undergraduate degree is in metallurgical engineering.
I agree, especially those in music and on screen don’t need to have studied music or acting, so none of the degrees they do have are surprising.
Perhaps Jimmy Carter (Naval Academy, Nuclear Engineering), George W. Bush (History), Michael Bloomberg (Electrical Engineering, though he did get an MBA) might be better fits, though you might argue that politics doesn’t require any specific degree either.
Maybe this thread is a good exercise in showing that whatever you study in college is not a limiting factor in where you end up–you know, like we always point out here on CC.
I’d be more interested in listing where regular people like us ended up with their degrees. I’m sure some of us landed in places unrelated to our formal education.
ETA: We did have that conversation: What is you/your kid’s intended/landed major/job and What jobs do your graduates have and what what their major?
So, carry on.
I love that idea (for a new thread). Go for it
Looks like we’ve already had that conversation as I ETA’d in my post. I’m not one for starting duplicate threads. 
Ah! I wasn’t aware of those threads.
The two threads @ChoatieMom linked are fun to read, but since both are locked (and have been for over a year) no one new can post there. Maybe we do need a new thread…or one needs to be unlocked @moderators