Thanks for the list @tucsonmom. I’m glad to see accounting #1. I could have used that list on the thread that skewered accounting a few days back 
@sryrstress I was thinking the same thing and I don’t even have any accountants in the family!
Choosing a major is a tricky business. A student need to like it in order to take the most of out of it. Then, income potential comes into play. Not everyone needs to be a millionaire, but I bet most students want to have a job that puts his/her major and training in use right out the school. Here, some majors give you more chance than the others. Most ranking of majors give us some such information about job availability, along with starting salary.
These prevalent methods are, nevertheless, far from complete. How about the potential for further career and income growth when one turns 40, 50, or 60? In some majors and industries, ageism is particularly problematic. The mentality of “young people are simply smarter” and its potential damages should be known to students when they choose their majors.
Heard from our flagship state U rep. that a very post-grad highly employable major is turf grass management /turf grass science. Who’d have thought.
Forgot to include the gazillion students majoring in “game design”. I know this sounds snarky, but many of them sound like extreme gamers hoping to hit the jackpot so that they can return to their couches and continue their addiction.
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It seems as if every other kid I know is majoring in International studies/relations. Yet many of these kids have never traveled abroad, do not have a strong enough interest in a another language to become proficient, etc. I wonder what attracts them to this major.
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It’s a sexy sounding major. Visions of jetting off to interesting and exotic places, rather than sitting in some cubicle in some plain-Jane office.
My S did an internship with an international mobile gaming company last summer. What he had learned was that the gaming industry is a huge industry and a rather “sustained” one relative to all tech industries. His observation was that there is an endless, continuous supply of teens forming robust demand for games, and is unlikely to go away in the foreseeable future.
In contrast, for those of us who are old enough, if we look back the history of tech, we would surely see a lot of disruption: the fight for operating system, the rise of internet, internet browser competition, the rise of MIS in 80’s and its fall at the beginning of the century, dotcom bubble, searching engineering, many eras of social media, etc. Now, many students have their eyes on apps, cloud computing, bigdata, etc. But how long these current darings will last?
I bet gaming will last longer than the majority of current darings given its tracked record. At the same time, the major of game design, if its curriculum is not well designed, may not produce a better game design professional. A good game (an additive one ;( ) is more about psychology and (sub-) culture, and less about programming.
One facet that wannabe “game designers” are oblivious to is that they have to be visually creative or decent at coding – oh heavens! A very successful designer I knew was simply an artistic whiz with computer generated graphics – a hobby he picked up on in HS. He never went to college – he went straight into the industry
There are definitely other sources of data available, which would provide a better & bigger picture of the best & worst majors in terms of employment. I will admit that I just picked the links at the top of the Google search I did.
However, would a specialized computer game design major be of any advantage over a more general computer science major?
The general principles of computer science are applicable to game development just as they are to other software development. Throw in a few popular computer science electives like graphics and artificial intelligence, take a physics course, and use humanities breadth courses for art, creative writing, and take some applicable social studies courses. Computer game employers do not restrict their hiring to those who majored in computer game design.
So it does not seem to make sense to limit one’s choice of colleges to those with a computer game design major, or send a signal to non-game employers that one is more likely to leave at the first chance a game job opens up.
There definitely are some people who seem not to distinguish between liking to play video games and having the skills to design them. Just like there are people who seem to think they should open a restaurant because they love to eat out.
I agree a more general CS major is likely fine and has more broad appeal if you need or want to look for a job outside of game design.
“The general principles of computer science are applicable to game development just as they are to other software development.”
Of course. By the same token, an even more general principle, such as arts, psychology, and humanities, will find its usefulness in game design as well.
I have been reading the Actuarial Science sub Reddit daily. They recommend to not major in Actuarial Science and rather major applied math or stats. In case the exams prove to hard and Actuary is not the career for you.
People will spend money on entertainment, and especially young people and also retirees - all different forms of entertainment. Turf grass, sure - have to have all those football fields, soccer fields, baseball fields with great grass. Sports is also entertainment. Look at the player salaries.
People have to spend money on health care, if they like it or not. Long term care. May not show up regularly in some of the corporate world stuff with Forbes etc.
I suspect if the IRS ever gets more simplified, there will be slightly less accounting and tax accounting jobs, but all companies want to follow the money. And if the company is with publicly held stock, needs to have specific reporting.
Some job market things are predictable, and some are not.
Turf grass includes the same sod we put on our lawns. We’ve got some biggish producers where I live and demand/profits are cyclical, based on the economy.
Fwiw, my highly paid friend in game design was a professional artist and art college prof, til they lured her away. Depth/breadth of reference matters, not just coding and drawing.
Funny you mentioned that. It’s almost cliched how a large proportion of aspiring CS majors who end up flunking their intro CS courses for majors tended to be those who were hardcore computer/video gamers. Most end up encountering issues due to poor mathematical foundation, inability to prioritize putting in time/effort in academic projects/exams due to gaming, and finding the actual process of coding is far more tedious and less exciting than the games they’re used to playing.
Good computer/video games are designed to be entertaining and exciting to a larger population whereas the excitement and entertainment to be had from computer programming tends to be more of a niche appeal.
Blasting aliens or mutants in first person shooters, shooting down enemy planes in flight sims, or playing a fast paced arcade game is one thing.
Sitting for hours, days, sometimes even months to program/debug and find an issue with the code before being released to beta status or worse…released live to clients/customers only to find the cause was due to a misplaced semicolon or bracket…not exactly what most hardcore gamers or people in general consider “fun” and exciting".
You all make me nervous. My high school sr plans on pursuing IR, IB, or econ combined with 2 languages. She is very serious about her languages, though. Her goals are to be at an advanced-high level by college graduation.
The languages are a given. She is still exploring the others.
She will be fine @Mom2aphysicsgeek. Business knowledge and being trilingual is a great combo.
Had dinner tonight with someone who teaches cyber-security at a college few here will have heard of. His graduates are in high demand and make $$$.
When I saw “Legally Blonde,” I thought the writers made up Fashion Merchandising as a major. I thought they were making fun of Elle.
I wish.
.I am not really into fashion but can’t see anything wrong with a person pursuing a degree in Fashion Merchandising or Fashion Design, if that is where their interests lie. It may not be what I would study, but doesn’t mean it could not be a valuable major for someone else. http://www.fashion-schools.org/articles/top-75-fashion-merchandising-schools-us
@Mom2aphysicsgeek - Your D will be fine. Make sure she takes the higher level math with her economics degree. Many schools offer a lower level of calculus to business and/or life science majors. Most schools will allow economics students to substitute the more difficult calculus/statistics courses that math and engineering majors take. Higher level quantitative skills are prioritized in the job market as are those fantastic language skills your D will be acquiring.