Useless Majors? Link

[agrabes]

College Majors That Are Useless - Yahoo! Education

4 of the top 5 useless majors are areas of study that Iowa State is fairly well known for.

I think the agriculture one is very far off. That is one of the hottest job markets and has been for a few years. I can't speak for design or horticulture and what that degree is like, but it seems that degrees in Ag are very valuable.

Thoughts?

Edit: maybe my Ag degree is bad, seeing as I didn't spell useless right the first try biggrin:

I definitely don't undervalue Ag as a business sector, but ag as a degree? What type of jobs require a degree in Agriculture? I would think that most people who are in agriculture would be farmers who don't -need- a degree in Agriculture to farm, but I could be wrong on that.

 

[DeereClone]

I definitely don't undervalue Ag as a business sector, but ag as a degree? What type of jobs require a degree in Agriculture? I would think that most people who are in agriculture would be farmers who don't -need- a degree in Agriculture to farm, but I could be wrong on that.

Sales, bio-tech, lending, manufacturing, management, agronomist, vet, nutritionist, PR/marketing, etc.

Just like most any sector, you could get these jobs without a degree, but a degree definitely helps.

Most kids in the college of Ag won't return to the farm. The small percentage that do, are simply here to earn a degree as a back up plan if farming goes sour.

 

[DeereClone]

To the guy who brought up Tech school....that is not a useless major. You are learning a specific, highly technical skill that there is demand for.

The useless majors are the ones that do not apply to the real world, tech school is about as real as it gets, and they use a very high percentage of what they learned in school at their job everyday.

 

[MissouriCyclone]

As a horticulture major (landscape design option) I am surprised we came in #5. It's alot more than what they listed as their main jobs for hort. Look at turfgrass for example. Golf course management positions are very popular now and courses need them. Also landscape design is very important in the "going green" movement that the government has pushed us to. It seems to me the person that did this study just shows Ag majors are just "people of the land" and don't really care about us... I say, **** 'em.

 

[ISUAgronomist]

To the guy who brought up Tech school....that is not a useless major. You are learning a specific, highly technical skill that there is demand for.

Think you misread his post:

If you want to make money here's a sure fire way to do it; go to tech school and get a welding certificate. Work and save your money and start a fabricating company. Voila, money.

 

[DeereClone]

Think you misread his post:

I was agreeing with him on the part about tech school, but disagreeing with his statement later on on his post saying there is no useless major.

Sorry for the confusion, that's on me.

 

[marothisu]

I did some ISU Theatre and took a few theater classes. I had one prof who begged everyone who was majoring in theater or thinking about it (technically it was a Communication major) to get a degree in something else. He said you can do theater with any degree but the vast, vast majority of acting theater grads spend their lives without theater work. Even most of the tiny minority of "successful" ones have to have another job to make ends meet. ("What do you do for a living?" "I'm an actor." "What restaurant?")

Ironically the most successful actor I knew got his degree in Trans Log then went on to get his MFA in acting elsewhere. I lost track of him, but the last I heard he did a show on Broadway with Carol Burnett.

However, people who get degrees in technical theater are much more employable. You'll still probably never get rich doing it, though. I know one ISU grad who got her MFA (elsewhere) in directing and now is head of a small college theater department.

Definitely right there. A friend of mine got ****** when I criticized her choice for majoring in theatre, but I retracted it and said ultimately it is her goal. If you look at most actors out there today especially in film, most never went to college for it. Any major city has courses you can take if you want to break into acting that will actually teach you a lot and it's only like $200-$400 per course.

I know people who have done technical theater stuff (like lighting) and it's totally true that they have a much easier time finding jobs.

 

[marothisu]

MIS is the most worthless major

I was a comp sci and we'd give MIS a bunch of ****, but really MIS is a pretty useful job and you can get a job at tons of different places if you know your stuff. Companies are getting more and more high tech and need the support to digitally run their businesses from that perspective. Sure I could do it, but I'm going to charge more per hour probably to do it too.

Definitely not a useless major

 

[Dopey]

You have to agree, going to college to study things that happen naturally by themselves seems a little counter-intuitive.

 

[weR138]

I was agreeing with him on the part about tech school, but disagreeing with his statement later on on his post saying there is no useless major.

Sorry for the confusion, that's on me.

Alright, define useless.

If the answer is it helps you make **** for money then we'll just have to agree to disagree. If a degree is truly worthless then it is also invalid. Are you intimating that Art History and Sociology are invalid as areas of study? I'm glad that there are art historians who are trained in that subject and I'm glad that there are sociologists that are trained in that subject. I suppose that General Studies is sort of useless but you can attend Harvard and not have a major. I'm guessing those people do alright.

The hipsters making **** money at Starbucks ****ed up somewhere along the way but it wasn't because they got a Fashion Design degree. It's because they're not talented enough or savvy enough to get a job designing. IMHO the notion that degree X = job Y is pretty lazy. I don't personally connect a college education with financial security.

 

[DeereClone]

Alright, define useless.

If the answer is it helps you make **** for money then we'll just have to agree to disagree. If a degree is truly worthless then it is also invalid. Are you intimating that Art History and Sociology are invalid as areas of study? I'm glad that there are art historians who are trained in that subject and I'm glad that there are sociologists that are trained in that subject. I suppose that General Studies is sort of useless but you can attend Harvard and not have a major. I'm guessing those people do alright.

The hipsters making **** money at Starbucks ****ed up somewhere along the way but it wasn't because they got a Fashion Design degree. It's because they're not talented enough or savvy enough to get a job designing. IMHO the notion that degree X = job Y is pretty lazy. I don't personally connect a college education with financial security.

How can you not connect college educations to financial security? Facts are facts, some degrees lead to more money than others, some degrees, lead to very little job opportunities, which leads to less financial security.

It's all about marketing yourself after college. Art history, sociology, museum studies, etc are not marketable. Your skill set is not desirable in the work force. There is a small, niche market that you can look at, but the overall mass of hiring people do not want those majors.

So if it is not widely respected and marketable in the workplace, yes I call it essentially worthless.

 

[cybsball20]

When it comes down to it, how you communicate and who you know mean a whole lot more than what you study for every job after your first one...

 

[bpmcclain]

As someone who has a pretty worthless degree, I agree with some of this but not everything. I think I've heard the stat that 2/3 people end up working in a field that has nothing to do with their major. When I came out of college, I knew I wasn't going to be making $60,000 with the first job that I got. But I ended up with a decent job, and having a Bachelors degree certainly helped me get that job.

 

[everyyard]

There's always a law degree.

Ha, ha! How true! Whole field of class A a-holes....unless you really need one.

 

[BryceC]

As an English major I am very disappointed. Mine is clearly the most useless.

 

[CyCrazy]

As a horticulture major (landscape design option) I am surprised we came in #5. It's alot more than what they listed as their main jobs for hort. Look at turfgrass for example. Golf course management positions are very popular now and courses need them. Also landscape design is very important in the "going green" movement that the government has pushed us to. It seems to me the person that did this study just shows Ag majors are just "people of the land" and don't really care about us... I say, **** 'em.

I wish, Horticulture is a worthless degree and yes I have one.

 

[bringmagicback]

If you ever apply for an ag based job w/out an ag degree and realize you have no chance whatsoever at getting it you will realize that an ag degree is not infact worthless.

This always frustrated me when looking for jobs, I had several headhunter/job services tell me they wouldnt even look at my resume as I had no ag degree even when I grewup lived and worked on a large farming operation. My degree was in marketing.

 

[CyCrazy]

If you ever apply for an ag based job w/out an ag degree and realize you have no chance whatsoever at getting it you will realize that an ag degree is not infact worthless.

This always frustrated me when looking for jobs, I had several headhunter/job services tell me they wouldnt even look at my resume as I had no ag degree even when I grewup lived and worked on a large farming operation. My degree was in marketing.

Bull, I know several people without an Ag degree who work for Pioneer.

 

[MLawrence]

Some would consider that I have worthless degree. I am a Media Studies major or broadcast journalism as I like to call it, but I think just like anything else it's how much work you put into yourself. For example I am heavy involved with my college's television station, and I have gotten a lot of hands on experience filming sports and shooting feature stories that I probably would not have had if I would have sat on my butt all day. Not only am I getting experience, but my college participates in banquets that gives out awards, and I have won a few. However I can't say how this will help me get a job after I graduate, but it shows incentive along with other skills that I have gained through working with that television channel. But if I can parlay those skills to get a graduate assistantship that would just be gravy.

 

[jdoggivjc]

In the immortal words or Judge Smails, "Well, the world needs ditch diggers too!"

Seriously though, not everyone looks for the "job" when choosing a career or an area of study. Some people do it because it's what they are intersted in. You could make a case that Journalism could be the next one on that list. With social media everywhere now and supposed journalists not checking facts or backing anything up with any kind of references, but instead interjecting their opinion into everything, does anyone pay for "real" journalists any more?

Well, my Journalism degree from ISU was good enough to get me a civilian Technical Writing job (I write and edit the Army's/Marines' technical manuals for their howitzers) that pays $80,000+ a year. I'd say I'm doing quite well with that "lowly" degree...