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Useless Majors? Link

So let's use the article's own information.

Total number of ag managers in 2008: 1,234,000
Total farmers or ranchers in 2008: 985,900
Total number of fashion designers in 2008: 22,700
Total numbers of actors/producers/director in 2008: 155,100
Total number of animal scientists in 2008: 2700. (how many animal science majors plan to be an animal scientist anyway? )

Just found this interesting. How about a degree in common sense? That would easily make the top of the author's most useless degree list.
 
I'm going to guess that this author's research that led him to conclude Agriculture was the #1 most useless major was conducted in Arizona, New Mexico, New York City, Los Angeles and Alaska.

....that, or the author, Terrence Loose, is really Stephen G. Bloom in disguise.
 
The_Architect said:
English, Literature, Art History, Sociology, etc. All virtually worthless in the real world. If you get these degrees, expect to work at Starbucks, wear hipster glasses and occupy wall street. Also, complain that your starting salary isn't over $50,000 (more like $24,000).
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Exactly. I don't feel sorry for these people one bit when they can't find a job and are working at Starbucks and Family video just barely getting by.

Do some research on your major, what jobs it typically leads to, placement rate, and average starting income. If it doesn't look good, don't do it.
 
farminclone said:
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 :pbiggrin:
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I agree that #3 is useless for the most part, but not completely. It can help you become a great actor, but you don't necessarily need a degree to be a great actor in the first place. I think having a theater degree is mainly for smaller town people perhaps who want the opportunity to teach theater, because having stuff like doing community theatre in a community of 50,000 people doesn't mean much. If you say you have a degree or were doing stuff on broadway though, you would get the job. If you went to a university and tried to get a job teaching theater and all that was on your resume was doing small community theater, they would not take you as seriously.

I also think Fashion Design gets a lot of **** too. It's kind of like theatre in that you don't need a degree to design great clothing, but it could teach you a lot of things. I have seen textbooks for some fashion design and textiles courses and was surprised to see a lot of calculus in them. Not completely useful/useless, but I find fashion a lot harder to compete in than say community theatre. Anybody can do both, but it's a lot easier to put on a show than design clothes and get people to actually know about it/wear it. Most people in Paris, London, NYC, Milan, etc won't even hire you unless you have great examples of stuff you've done, so you don't NEED college for that, but it might help people who are say less naturally gifted at it.

I disagree with the others. I've never grown up in a small community, but to say that agriculture, animal science, etc degrees are useless is kind of sad.
 
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The_Architect said:
English, Literature, Art History, Sociology, etc. All virtually worthless in the real world. If you get these degrees, expect to work at Starbucks, wear hipster glasses and occupy wall street. Also, complain that your starting salary isn't over $50,000 (more like $24,000).
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Yeah, I remember I went to this get together from my friend I went to HS with who moved near me by chance. She has a theater degree and I knew nobody at this thing but she and her husband. Everyone who was there besides my friend and her husband and me all had theater degrees. Every one of them was saying how their jobs were like Starbucks or Cosi or something like that and how they were seeking jobs, but none of them had anything to do with theater.

It's like, yeah you go into something you like, but there's a balance. DO most people not have multiple things they like? You know, I LOVE archaeology and I LOVE music, Psychology, etc etc etc but I also love other things like math and computer programming (Comp Sci). I loved all those things, but I knew if I went into archaeology, music, etc that I'd be ****ed in life for a long time. I almost started a double major in Health and Human Performance or Nutrition too, because I love all that too, but decided not to and just stick with one thing.

I just don't know how people don't (a) have more interests than one thing in life and (b) how they don't filter out certain concentrations they love and go to others they love because their future will be more secure. I'm trying to say what you love, because I firmly believe you have to love your work to do a real good job in it, but do these people only have ONE interest in life? Depressing. Don't get me wrong, I love theater too sometimes, but I know that you don't need a degree in it to do a lot of theatre and get paid for it.
 
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I think that more people should take a year off between high school and college. I went to college right out of university and ended up with a crap degree and crap grades because I had no idea where I wanted to go in life. It wasn't until I was 24 or 25 that I really figured out my passion. Now I am just starting to see success and opportunity open before my eyes because of hard work+passion.
 
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marothisu said:
I agree that #3 is useless for the most part, but not completely. It can help you become a great actor, but you don't necessarily need a degree to be a great actor in the first place. I think having a theater degree is mainly for smaller town people perhaps who want the opportunity to teach theater, because having stuff like doing community theatre in a community of 50,000 people doesn't mean much. If you say you have a degree or were doing stuff on broadway though, you would get the job. If you went to a university and tried to get a job teaching theater and all that was on your resume was doing small community theater, they would not take you as seriously.
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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.
 
Bewilderme said:
I think that more people should take a year off between high school and college. I went to college right out of university and ended up with a crap degree and crap grades because I had no idea where I wanted to go in life. It wasn't until I was 24 or 25 that I really figured out my passion. Now I am just starting to see success and opportunity open before my eyes because of hard work+passion.
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Here's the root of the "useless major" thread that pops up every year.

The underlying premise is that a major is useless if it can't make you money. Well, that's ****ing stupid.

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.

Too many people are telling kids to go to college to get a degree so that they can earn money. Sure, that worked for me because my job requires a license you need a professional degree to get but the path to simply earning good money is SOOOO much simpler than that. Plumbers and welders make GREAT money and we need more of them.

There really is no such thing as a useless major. There are however millions of misguided youth who are missing out on making money because the notion of going to college to achieve financial security has been drilled into them beginning in middle school by ****ty guidance counselors and narrow minded parents.
 
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flycy said:
There's always a law degree.
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yes... a lawyer who has been trained to deal with a variety of issues that come up in people's lives for which they are unable to adequately handle (complicated tax issues, estate planning and probate, criminal law, insurance litigation, property disputes and real estate transactions, secured transations and commercial lending... the list goes on) is much less valuable than Joe Blow that graduated from Buena Vista University with a psychology degree and was taught about canned theories that nobody gives a **** about
 
These threads rule. People who study or have studied the "worthless majors" always get all hot and bothered and rush here to attack other majors - very entertaining.
 
weR138 said:
Here's the root of the "useless major" thread that pops up every year.

The underlying premise is that a major is useless if it can't make you money. Well, that's ****ing stupid.

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.

Too many people are telling kids to go to college to get a degree so that they can earn money. Sure, that worked for me because my job requires a license you need a professional degree to get but the path to simply earning good money is SOOOO much simpler than that. Plumbers and welders make GREAT money and we need more of them.

There really is no such thing as a useless major. There are however millions of misguided youth who are missing out on making money because the notion of going to college to achieve financial security has been drilled into them beginning in middle school by ****ty guidance counselors and narrow minded parents.
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If college were free that'd be one thing. But it is outright stupid to sink tens of thousands of dollars into something that, when you graduate, you wont be able to pay for because the major you had wont get you anything better than a minimum wage job.

Yes. There are useless majors. Any major whose main career option is teaching other students that major... is a useless major.
 
The_Architect said:
These threads rule. People who study or have studied the "worthless majors" always get all hot and bothered and rush here to attack other majors - very entertaining.
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Frankly, I was surprised my major didn't make the list. I always tell everyone that I have a worthless degree. But there are a lot of careers where the most important thing is that you demonstrate that you finished something (a degree, no matter what it is) and that you have real world experience that fits the job.
 
CYNWIA said:
MIS is the most worthless major
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3811055786_b51d292cde.jpg
 
I dont like using the green man... I feel like people should be good enough to detect sarcasm on their own without me spelling it out... but I do highly regard MIS majors, they make my job a heck of a lot easier
 
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