Now that’s what I call a career pivot 
Stats for just highest degree = bachelor’s are below. There was relatively little change.
Percent of Bachelor’s Degree Holders Who Would have Chosen a Different …
- Social Sciences – 51% different major, 22% different college
- Humanities / Arts – 50% different major, 26% different college
- Education – 49% different major, 25% different college
- Life Sciences – 48% different major, 24% different college
- Physical Sciences – 41% different major, 15% different college
- Health – 36% different major, 22% different college
- Business – 36% different major, 23% different college
- Computer Science – 26% different major, 23% different college
- Engineering – 23% different major, 17% different college
The survey doesn’t directly ask if financial factors contribute to their decision to choose a different field of study, but there are hints that this is a contributing factor for some. For example, the survey asks a variety of financial questions such as, “Overall, which one of the following best describes how well you are managing financially these days?” Persons who reported wanting to change field of study were more than twice as likely to report not being in a good financial situation than those who did not report wanting to change field of study. Of course there are numerous other possible contributing factors for wanting to change majors than just their current financial situation.
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So I’m also wondering what it means when someone says they would choose a different major. I mean I’ve been joking for years that if I’d known then what I know now I would have majored in archeology or paleontology (though I’m pretty sure I’d never have been able to determine the difference between one ancient broken tooth or another so let’s say archeology). Is that realistic? Wouid I have been happier? Would I have made more money (which I assume those of you who are all about the money are assuming people mean when they say they’d wished for a different major but for all we know it’s people like me wistful for the what ifs). Who knows, but at this point looking back it sounds like a whole lot more fun. I wouldn’t assume someone who says they wished they’d majored in something else is because they were disappointed in their ability to make money (FWIW I majored in a STEM field). But I’m someone who made very deliberate decisions at certain points in my life that I knew would lead to making less money. In at least one case a lot less money. And I’d make those same choices again as someone who has always valued a work /life balance. While I’d love to live in a society that valued the social worker or the teacher or yes, the artist, the same as the engineer or the computer coder I don’t think those who choose the former careers are underutilizing their college degrees. I think they might measure ROI differently than you do. And if we’ve allowed a society that only allows a select few gainfully employed individuals the privilege of eating and having a roof over their head, well I’d be straying into politics. But I will say that’s not the fault of the liberal art college.
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It looks like “would have chosen a different college” has a similar percentage across all majors (22-25%) except for physical sciences (15%) and engineering (17%) majors.
Hard to know why… Too expensive? Insufficient breadth or depth in major? Other academic factors? Social factors?
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Poor “fit” is a key reason for wanting to choose a different college, but it doesn’t explain why engineering and physical sciences would differ from other majors.
One contributing factor why engineering may differ from other majors is a more limited number of colleges offer engineering majors. Across all majors, students attending public colleges were least likely to say they would have chosen a different college, and students attending for-profit colleges were most likely to say they would have chosen a different college. Colleges offering engineering majors are more likely to be public and less likely to be for-profit. In addition, compared to many fields, engineering hires are less sensitive to college name, contributing to graduates being less likely to think they chose the wrong college name.
However, I don’t have a good explanation for why physical sciences would be different.
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Interesting observation.
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To me it appears that many people were dissatisfied with their majors - not just humanities majors (i.e. 48% of life sciences/41% of physical sciences) - though the majority (regardless of major) seemed to have been happy with their college experience. Maybe it is a case of “the grass is greener” or magical thinking. A lot of what makes someone financially successfully (or not) are personal qualities that have nothing to do with what major you had or what school you attended.
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To me it just proves that Mike Tyson is an underrated genius (i.e. “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”).
Life is what punches you in the face. The plan is the college you go to and the major you choose.
I’m sure most of us know education majors who discovered during their first job that they hate teaching. Nurses who love healthcare in the abstract but can’t stand sick people. Physical Therapists who end up in jobs where they feel they are glorified athletic trainers, even with a doctorate, or financial analysts who end up in jobs where the engineers have all the clout or engineers who end up at companies where marketing is the fast track and engineers are the worker bees.
There are so many variables as to what makes a satisfying career and just getting hired into the desired role may or may not be what someone thinks it’s going to be. The lovely and understanding boss gets promoted and is replaced by a narcissist. The generous company which focuses on “lifelong learning” gets acquired by a company that slashes and burns and cuts the training budget to the bone, while telling people “you want to get promoted? say goodbye to your weekends”. The initial thrill- saving lives, creating useful products, helping families buy homes, training robotic arms to help disabled veterans….turns into a ghastly grind of deadlines, spreadsheets, being the victim of cost-cutting or “just in time” efficiency practices.
I’m not a fan of the ROI method of picking a college or picking a major. It oversimplifies a very complex set of factors by calculating that early career compensation is somehow a proxy for 20 different metrics. And most of us who are middle aged and beyond know that this is not the real world.
None of us can predict who will become the buggy whip manufacturers of 2040. But I guarantee that right now, someone is trying to explain to their HS kid why the 2026 version of buggy whip manufacturing is a fantastic career option with “off the charts” ROI.
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Note that the list above includes persons whose highest degree was bachelor’s. With only a bachelor’s degree, employment stats for popular life sciences are often similar or lower than typical humanities majors. Example early career stats from most recent year of NACE database are below, which includes ~600,000 students at wide variety of colleges.
Biology Majors: Median Salary = $45k, 18% Seeking
Theater Majors: Median Salary = $46k, 18% Seeking
English Majors: Median Salary = $50k, 21% Seeking
Physical sciences were more varied. By far the most popular physical sciences major was chemistry, which had similar early career stats to the majors above. The 2nd most popular physical sciences major was physics, which had early career stats more similar to tech than life sciences / chemistry.
Anecdotally I used to date a woman who fit this description. She attended a highly selective top 20 USNWR ranked private college. Based on her descriptions, she seemed to enjoy her time at the college, and I have no reason to think she would have regretted choosing that particular college. However, she did regret her choice of a biology major. Like most bio majors attending highly selective colleges, she had planned to attend medical school after college. Unfortunately she was rejected to all the medical schools to which she applied. I didn’t press about why, but she said she knew the reason for her rejection and didn’t think applying again without other steps would change the result. She found that employment opportunities related to her desired field were quite limited with only a bachelor’s degree in biology, as students with grad degrees were favored over bachelor’s degrees. When I knew her, she was instead working retail sales at a store in the mall, which she often complained about.
Obviously results vary from one student to the next, and many students with a bachelor’s in biology have a great career outcome, just a many students have a not great career outcome. My point is aggregate stats show large differences between majors, even when controlling for other individual or college level factors. I don’t think we should be quick to dismiss these differences as “magical thinking.”
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As another anecdote, I have a family member who majored in biology in college with the intention of being pre-med. I don’t recall whether the family member ended up applying and didn’t get in to med school or had decided not to pursue med school at all. Either way, the person ended up working as a temp in an HR office of a Fortune 100 company. The company was impressed by their work and offered them a permanent position. The person then worked their way up the HR ranks and is now a senior HR executive at an organization that employs thousands.
So this family member started off in a role that did not require a college degree (either the temping position or, I believe, at least the first permanent position at the company). So this is an example of an individual who was underemployed who has become quite professionally successful in a field unrelated to their major. And this was done from a non-flagship public college.
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And..had this individual worked for a while and then decided to return to school, that job as an “underemployed” office temp would have provided excellent transferable skills.
I remember when this came out, and I was unable to figure out whether the results were driven by, say, psychology majors wishing they’d majored in engineering, or psychology majors wishing they’d majored in English, or psychology majors wishing they’d majored in anthropology.
Basically, the way the responses are binned means that there are a massive number of possible readings of the results, and that leaves me unsatisfied.
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Most biology majors recognize that they will need some type of graduate school.
There are exceptions, of course. It is possible some did not fully realize, and it is possible that some found a job that they liked, that paid well…and decided to stay.
I also have questions about why biology majors (as well as others) wished they chose a different major.
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Agree that “underemployed” is another awfully big bin. There’s a big difference between starting with a program assistant job that is the first step, higher steps of which will greatly be assisted by a degree, and working fast food as the only option. And I think probably most of us would prefer jobs not put artificial degree requirements on jobs. The real worry is “dead-end”, which is even harder to quantify.
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One of my cousins & her husband majored in chemistry. Both planned to become researchers utilizing their degrees in chemistry and they were successful in securing research jobs together at a major international company.
After a few years, both left due to fear of the unknown consequences of working with certain chemicals suspected of causing cancer.
Both wished that they had majored in different subjects during college because their desired field was too risky from a health standpoint.
Both individuals are highly intelligent, hard-working, disciplined, & trustworthy, yet ended up in what turned out to be an undesirable field ven though each was employed in their dream job.
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The director of the institute of genome sciences said that, “Approximately 75 percent of students studying life sciences nationwide plan to go to medical school.” I expect that most students who major in biology are planning/hoping to become a doctor and well aware that one needs to attend medical school to become a doctor. This relates to why biology is by far the most popular STEM degree (not counting nursing as STEM) in the United States. Wanting to become a doctor is one of the more common career choices, and most pre-meds choose a biology major.
The problem occurs in that only ~15% of students who start on the pre-med track become doctors. Some realize that attending medical school is not likely after they get an increasing amount of B’s in pre-med classes or get a subpar MCAT score. Some change their mind along the way for other reasons. The result is a large glut of students who complete biology bachelor’s degree with the intention of becoming a doctor, then along the way find they need to change plans and do something else.
One popular option is pursuing a non-doctor medical related job after college, but options can be limited for medical practice/research with only a bachelor’s. Common first destination job titles among biology major include things like research assistant, lab tech, or medical scribe. Some also pursue jobs in fields largely unrelated to medicine or biology along side students who major in non-STEM fields. Such jobs often don’t require having a degree in a specific major, or may not require having a college degree. Many also choose to pursue a non-MD graduate degree that may or may not be related to biology, in many cases after working full time for several years.
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Those first destination job titles are common for those who plan on working in health care, along with work in underserved communities (TFA, for example).
I agree that many go back to school for a non MD career after working - they discover something else that they like better.
Probably less. About 16.5% complete the pre-med courses, but that does not mean that all of them apply to medical school. Of those who do apply to medical school, most do not get into any medical school.
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Med school acceptance is very competitive, as are many graduate degrees in health care. There are way more applicants than available seats.
Most/many biology grads take these low paying jobs to strengthen their application for graduate programs.
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i got two letters for you. PA.