IMO, for the student who is a motivated planner with a goal in mind, all majors are created equal. For the aimless student who is not sure what career path he wants to pursue, some majors are wiser choices than others.
As an example, all of the majors under D2’s consideration typically populate the top of the lists of greatest unemployment per major. To just select one of those fields in the absence of other planning would be silly. However, we have researched the bios of people who are holding the sort of jobs she wants to have one day, and found that they frequently had that major in college. So long as D supplements her choice of college major with relevant volunteer, internship, and work experience related to her career goals, I think the decision would make sense. Absent those experiences, it would be a foolish choice. Similarly, the smart, engaged philosophy major planning to go to law school is probably going to do just fine, even if he changes direction, as a result of the other skills such a student is likely to have been accumulating for years.
For an average student with average academic and career motivation, philosophy is probably not be the best choice. In general, for the un-directed student muddling through college–the kind of kid who by default (because it’s easy) keeps working summers at the same mall job or fast food restaurant where he worked in high school–choosing one of the those allegedly “impractical” majors would indeed be impractical. He would be better served by one of the stereotypical practical ones, like a generic business degree.
This particular robot does see value in history, philosophy, art, music, and literature. I would just make sure that a young, inexperienced kid knows what he/she will be facing when they get out of college. Kids can be very idealistic, and I think it’s important for parents to help them see the reality of the work world. There’s a big difference between seeing no value in something and making it a major (and possibly, only) focus of your undergraduate education.
As far as plateauing, I don’t think the STEM kids are “wondering” about money matters very much while sitting up on that plateau. I think they’re pretty comfortable up there. According to the Payscale data that was posted in the Kids Living in Your Basement thread, their plateau is almost 50% higher in income than some of the majors you mentioned. There are plenty of good reasons to study those non-STEM majors you mentioned, but I don’t think higher mid career salary is very high on that list of reasons…
However, it is likely that the relatively aimless students are not choosing philosophy as their majors, as it has a reputation of being relatively rigorous. It would not be surprising if business were the most common major among these types of students.
