Help my niece choose a marketable college major

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alfaspider
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by alfaspider »

MMiroir wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 2:33 pm I have posted the following on BH before to great amusement by other posters. The information is dated but the relative incomes by major would still be applicable today.

Image

I shared this information with one of our kids when she was deciding on what to study. She loves history and was considering being a history major, but after careful consideration, she decided to purse a dual degree in Economics and History. She loves her many history classes, tolerates the math intensive economics classes, and is very happy that she has a summer internship lined up with a major investment bank in a large financial center.

It is very possible for kids to study what they love in college and to earn a remunerative major even they are not the same subject.

You have to be a bit careful of that data because it often excludes students who went on to graduate school. Many of the lower paying sort are mostly undertaken in preparation for graduate or professional school.
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joe8d
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by joe8d »

strummer6969 wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 3:15 pm Some observations:

1. Vocational training is way underrated.

2. Colleges admit too many students in non-marketable majors because a sizeable portion of the student body does not have the aptitude or interest for hard sciences, engineering, etc.

3. There are far more students with liberal arts degrees than there are job openings for them in professional careers.

4. A liberal arts degree from a top ranked school (Ivy, etc) goes a lot further in the job market than similar degrees from other schools because a student at a top school has already proven they are smart (others' perception, not always true). A liberal arts major from a state school is a dime a dozen.

5. Start with a career and work backwards to a major.

6. The primary purpose of college is to develop employable skills. Attaining knowledge for its own sake can be done at any time. You don't need to spend tens of thousand of dollars to do that.
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livesoft
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by livesoft »

strummer6969 wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 3:15 pm ...
3. There are far more students with liberal arts degrees than there are job openings for them in professional careers.
...
But there are plenty of jobs for college grads with liberal arts degrees. I know I interact with them many days: Managers of stores, front-desk people in businesses and offices, sales reps, phone reps, customer service reps, restaurant staff, ... If everybody had a professional career then who would be working in all these other jobs?

I think the niece is not going to have any problems and may not even want a career working.
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bikesandbeers
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by bikesandbeers »

UC Santa Barbara has a great school of environmental science, and just opened a graduate degree in big data. I will agree with whoever said statistics above. Even in “softer” social science some strong data skills are very very marketable
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Tamarind
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by Tamarind »

No major is marketable, IMO. Some are required for the real training, others make it easier to get a first job in the field of one's choice. Any major from a decent school will still distinguish an applicant from someone who didn't complete their degree. None are especially meaningful after your first year on the job.

Case in point, I majored in a "qualitative" social science and have been very successful in IT. Job focused training at colleges for my job didn't exist when I was in school and still doesn't today.

The performance boost a student gets from studying something they truly find interesting will help them to develop the skills that will actually be marketable. That doesn't mean one should pay any amount for any major at any school, but it's counterproductive to try to force a student's choice of major based on outdated ideas of what a major is worth in the marketplace.

The soft skill of setting boundaries with relatives who give well-intentioned advice is also highly valuable in work and life.

(I will say, however, that I can't recommend any student pursue a humanities or social science degree with the primary goal of staying in academia. The number of tenure track jobs is so much smaller than the number of PhDs now that it's more of a lottery than a career. I watched many of my cohort burn a lot of years as adjuncts.)
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by GreendaleCC »

fitawrari wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 8:39 am.
Unfortunately UC Santa Barbara doesn't have business school as I think marketing would have been a good fit for her.
I’m curious to hear more about why you feel that marketing could be a match.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by KlangFool »

Tamarind wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 9:32 pm
Case in point, I majored in a "qualitative" social science and have been very successful in IT. Job focused training at colleges for my job didn't exist when I was in school and still doesn't today.

Tamarind,

I disagreed. I worked part-time in the University Computer Center while I was studying for my BSEE and MSEE. There are plenty of part-time employment opportunities on college campus.

I had 5 years of working experience when I graduated with my MSEE.

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Tamarind
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by Tamarind »

KlangFool wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 6:41 am
Tamarind wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 9:32 pm
Case in point, I majored in a "qualitative" social science and have been very successful in IT. Job focused training at colleges for my job didn't exist when I was in school and still doesn't today.

Tamarind,

I disagreed. I worked part-time in the University Computer Center while I was studying for my BSEE and MSEE. There are plenty of part-time employment opportunities on college campus.

I had 5 years of working experience when I graduated with my MSEE.

KlangFool
Hi Klang, I mean my particular job, not the industry more generally. The kind of software I specialized in barely existed when I graduated college and no colleges at all used it, so of course they couldn't teach it or provide exposure via campus jobs. Lots of folks worked in the computer center keeping the printers and laptops running but that would not have been any more relevant to many IT subfields than any random office job.

The point I'm trying to make by including this detail is that the job OP's niece will one day become known for being good at may not exist yet or may not be something a university knows about or employs anyone to do. Treating a major as preparation for a specific future job misses out on the fact that set of good jobs is not static - new jobs get invented and jobs that were once good jobs get devalued.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by KlangFool »

Tamarind wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 9:41 am
KlangFool wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 6:41 am
Tamarind wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 9:32 pm
Case in point, I majored in a "qualitative" social science and have been very successful in IT. Job focused training at colleges for my job didn't exist when I was in school and still doesn't today.

Tamarind,

I disagreed. I worked part-time in the University Computer Center while I was studying for my BSEE and MSEE. There are plenty of part-time employment opportunities on college campus.

I had 5 years of working experience when I graduated with my MSEE.

KlangFool
Hi Klang, I mean my particular job, not the industry more generally. The kind of software I specialized in barely existed when I graduated college and no colleges at all used it, so of course they couldn't teach it or provide exposure via campus jobs. Lots of folks worked in the computer center keeping the printers and laptops running but that would not have been any more relevant to many IT subfields than any random office job.

The point I'm trying to make by including this detail is that the job OP's niece will one day become known for being good at may not exist yet or may not be something a university knows about or employs anyone to do. Treating a major as preparation for a specific future job misses out on the fact that set of good jobs is not static - new jobs get invented and jobs that were once good jobs get devalued.
Tamarind,

"Lots of folks worked in the computer center keeping the printers and laptops running but that would not have been any more relevant to many IT subfields than any random office job."

Meanwhile, some people take the opportunity to learn to be Database Administrator, System Administrator, and network engineer.

"The point I'm trying to make by including this detail is that the job OP's niece will one day become known for being good at may not exist yet or may not be something a university knows about or employs anyone to do. "

And, by having some relevant job experience will place the OP's niece ahead of anyone with zero job experience.

"Treating a major as preparation for a specific future job misses out on the fact that set of good jobs is not static - new jobs get invented and jobs that were once good jobs get devalued."

Ditto, treating the major as totally irrelevant to future jobs does not make any sense. For example, a good foundation in math and science is totally useful to learn any new technology advancement.

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Doom&Gloom
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by Doom&Gloom »

If necessary refer your niece to a guidance or career counselor to help her figure out something that pays decently and that she won't hate doing for the next 5, 10, 20, or 30 years and go from there. The first of those is relatively easy; the second, not so much.
tibbitts
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by tibbitts »

KlangFool wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 6:41 am
Tamarind wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 9:32 pm
Case in point, I majored in a "qualitative" social science and have been very successful in IT. Job focused training at colleges for my job didn't exist when I was in school and still doesn't today.

Tamarind,

I disagreed. I worked part-time in the University Computer Center while I was studying for my BSEE and MSEE. There are plenty of part-time employment opportunities on college campus.

I had 5 years of working experience when I graduated with my MSEE.

KlangFool
I was very appreciative of the employment-focused experience I was able to get related to the computer science program at my college, and it resulted directly in my career in IT. However some of the professors who taught CS had terminal degrees in such things as Political Science, Psychology, and Chemistry - and they all had very successful careers. I wouldn't worry much about what major someone starts college with; very few people outside of Bogleheads finish college headed in the same direction they started out in.
valleyrock
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by valleyrock »

Scanning through the above should leave the OP understanding that so much of the answer to the question is a function of the individual:
their inherent abilities, their ability to study and learn, their ability to seek out people who can make suggestions*, their ability to find and recognize opportunities, so that they can recognize luck when they see it. And, their ability to pick themselves up after failing, or, here, recognizing that they perhaps took or are on the wrong path for them.

Resilience. Can you teach resilience? Well, I'd say it can be learned by getting experience. Don't worry too much about being marketable right away. Keep it in mind, look for it, sign up for some things. And remember the number one rule of school and work: show up. As my professor father used to say, "you can't teach experience." Get in there and get some. Jump in knowing that, as the Dutch saying goes: "There's more than one way for a cow to catch a rabbit." So, don't take things too seriously. Have fun, be practical get to know people. Work and play, all that. Marketable skills will come along apace.

*Careful about advice from people who have something to gain from the advice, such as people at a college or university who want you in their program, which can be for a variety of reasons, some altruistic and some not so altruistic.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by texasdiver »

GreendaleCC wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 9:44 pm
fitawrari wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 8:39 am.
Unfortunately UC Santa Barbara doesn't have business school as I think marketing would have been a good fit for her.
I’m curious to hear more about why you feel that marketing could be a match.
According to my recently graduated daughter, Marketing is for business students who can't do or aren't good at spreadsheets and math.

She was a communications/marketing major at an SEC school and now is well compensated and advancing rapidly with a company that does social media marketing for corporate clients. She basically manages the social media accounts of corporate clients. Or, more accurately, at age 24 she now supervises about 10 other account managers who do that work.
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fitawrari
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by fitawrari »

A few observations.

1/ The argument that students need to discover themselves and their interest in college is a luxury first generation students don't have. I think students who come from upper middle class can afford to do that because a failure to find their fist job right after graduation will have little, if any, impact in their long-term success as the parents will continue to support them until they/students find their passion, for example, with further schooling. However, for students who come from low wage earning parents, students are better off not taking a risky path. They simply cannot afford to take the risk.

2/ Relatedly, if a student does not come from money and his/her passion is in X (which does not make money*) but are also good at something else Y (that makes more money but is not their passion), then they should be encouraged to do Y as a career and X as a hobby.

3/ Personal experiences could be different and that should not be used as the norm. To me, the norm is the majority in the middle. I like to use the middle 50% (from the 25th to the 75th percentile) unless I noticed some unique observation about her, ex ante, that will put her on either side of the distribution. Because of this, I will like to suggest to her college majors that often lead to solid career outcomes.

4/ everything has exception including my comments above but, as they saying goes, the exception cannot be used as "the rule". The exception is the tail outcome of the population/distribution.

5/ That being said, I very much appreciate all of your input and have read every single one of them.

(* see 3/)
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by stoptothink »

fitawrari wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 11:58 am A few observations.

1/ The argument that students need to discover themselves and their interest in college is a luxury first generation students don't have. I think students who come from upper middle class can afford to do that because a failure to find their fist job right after graduation will have little, if any, impact in their long-term success as the parents will continue to support them until they/students find their passion, for example, with further schooling. However, for students who come from low wage earning parents, students are better off not taking a risky path. They simply cannot afford to take the risk.

2/ Relatedly, if a student does not come from money and his/her passion is in X (which does not make money*) but are also good at something else Y (that makes more money but is not their passion), then they should be encouraged to do Y as a career and X as a hobby.


3/ Personal experiences could be different and that should not be used as the norm. To me, the norm is the majority in the middle. I like to use the middle 50% (from the 25th to the 75th percentile) unless I noticed some unique observation about her, ex ante, that will put her on either side of the distribution. Because of this, I will like to suggest to her college majors that often lead to solid career outcomes.
All of this. It is my impression that many (if not most) on this board simply can't relate to #1, but it is statistically a significant percentage of students. No doubt my opinion is influenced by my experience, as my mom came to this country as a teen and neither her or my birth father or my older brother even completed high school.

My sister, who used full need-based aid to an Ivy for a degree with zero real-world relevance and then took on debt for two MAs in equally unmarketable fields, decided to put her "passions" aside and find a way to support herself in her mid-30s. A coding bootcamp later and she was making like 5x what she ever had. Still, she'll probably be in student debt well into her 40's. I recently heard her say something to the effect of: after the humiliating experience of living in my mom's basement as a 35yr old, I finally realized it was time to make my abilities my career and my passions my weekend hobbies.

Sounds like your niece kind of falls in the middle of the spectrum (like most people). Best of luck to her.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by Pdxnative »

fitawrari wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 11:58 am
1/ The argument that students need to discover themselves and their interest in college is a luxury first generation students don't have. I think students who come from upper middle class can afford to do that because a failure to find their fist job right after graduation will have little, if any, impact in their long-term success as the parents will continue to support them until they/students find their passion, for example, with further schooling. However, for students who come from low wage earning parents, students are better off not taking a risky path. They simply cannot afford to take the risk.
However, with the exception of engineering (which pretty much requires starting degree requirements from day one and leaves very little room to “catch up” for late deciders) most undergrad degrees are structured to allow for—in fact, require—this early exploration with little to no penalty in terms of falling behind.

Your niece can undertake the sort of exploration people are suggesting while completing the general education requirements for almost any BS or BA degree. A philosophy, stats, or history course might not be required for her eventual major and career, but all those classes likely fulfill Gen Ed requirements that she’ll need to fulfill anyway. So she can use them to understand her strengths and weaknesses. It really isn’t until year 3 for most majors that a firm decision needs to be made, although a gradual narrowing usually happens prior to this.

It will do her no good to decide early on that a quantitative major is the best career path if she has no interest or aptitude for quantitative work. Same with a major and career that requires excellent writing and communication skills. Most HS curriculums don’t provide the sort of breadth and depth that would allow students to identify interests and strengths.
GreendaleCC
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by GreendaleCC »

texasdiver wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 11:15 am
GreendaleCC wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 9:44 pm
fitawrari wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 8:39 am.
Unfortunately UC Santa Barbara doesn't have business school as I think marketing would have been a good fit for her.
I’m curious to hear more about why you feel that marketing could be a match.
According to my recently graduated daughter, Marketing is for business students who can't do or aren't good at spreadsheets and math.

She was a communications/marketing major at an SEC school and now is well compensated and advancing rapidly with a company that does social media marketing for corporate clients. She basically manages the social media accounts of corporate clients. Or, more accurately, at age 24 she now supervises about 10 other account managers who do that work.
Not surprising :happy

From my perspective, any young person starting their career as a marketer with a minor in Statistics will have a huge advantage. I think a lot of this “can’t do or aren’t good at math” is a mindset that’s learned at an early age, unfortunately.
livesoft
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by livesoft »

texasdiver wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 11:15 am...
According to my recently graduated daughter, Marketing is for business students who can't do or aren't good at spreadsheets and math.

She was a communications/marketing major at an SEC school and now is well compensated and advancing rapidly with a company that does social media marketing for corporate clients. She basically manages the social media accounts of corporate clients. Or, more accurately, at age 24 she now supervises about 10 other account managers who do that work.
But 6 years ago what was your daughter planning for a career as she entered college? Did she change majors along the way? Obviously, things turned out great for her which I would extrapolate that most parents / relatives do not need to worry about bright young people going off to college and making their way in the world.

I believe you have asked for help on college for your children in other threads, so were you in the shoes of the OP years ago? I sort of know that you were a high school teacher ... maybe still are ... among other things.
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michaeljc70
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by michaeljc70 »

IMO, picking a school without knowing if it even offers your unknown major is not something I'd do or recommend (unless you're going to an Ivy League school). Choosing a major based on it being marketable whether you have any aptitude or interest in it also strikes me as odd. The only advice I'd give is for her to take general coursework (which is typical anyway for the first year or two) and decide on a major herself later (transferring if needed). Anyone can look up what the most marketable degrees are.

I looked at the list of majors offered in the link above for UC Santa Barbara and 90% of them (aka liberal arts degrees) aren't very marketable IMO. That certainly doesn't mean you can't be successful regardless of your major (or even if you went to college at all).
blackwhisker
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by blackwhisker »

hunoraut wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 9:20 am the best thing you can do is introduce her to your acquaintances who work in various fields and have them give her "real life" advice so she can explore which appeals to her, and the direction to get there.

disclaimer being that i personally never used career "counselors" or advisors in high school or college, but i dont think imagine that a single-focus administrator/staff type person is adequately equipped or incentivized to provide high quality guidance.
Well said. Thank you hunoraut.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by blackwhisker »

hunoraut wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 9:42 am
hammockhiker wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 9:26 am But it's still irrelevant to her job prospects. Using my own experience as illustration, I majored in English but spent most of my adult life working in industry, mostly in Quality Control but also in various lab-type settings. Anything I needed to learn for a position, I learned. Being educable is more important to most employers than being educated, in my n=1 experience.
Getting the right degree lands the first job by way of targeted recruitment, and is the biggest boost in starting ones career (which can very well change focus).

English majors can do well. In aggregate, they don't. So probabilistically, a person major in English won't. Being educable doesn't much change that realistic uphill battle.

Students should be encouraged to explore all the career possibilities early, before being consumed with the momentum of simply being in school...until they face graduation and its too late.
I can't agree with you more honoraut!
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by mjg »

jpohio wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 3:56 pm Based on recent experience I would tell your niece to skip college and become either an electrician or plumber. They can’t hire enough people and my guess is they make more than a high percentage of college graduates and will never want for a job. I write this somewhat in jest, but not really.
One hundred percent this.

The trades. Welder, electrician, plumber.

Listen to some Mike Rowe podcasts (The Way I Heard It).

Be making six figures within two years. No college debt.
KlangFool
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by KlangFool »

mjg wrote: Sun May 07, 2023 3:43 pm
jpohio wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 3:56 pm Based on recent experience I would tell your niece to skip college and become either an electrician or plumber. They can’t hire enough people and my guess is they make more than a high percentage of college graduates and will never want for a job. I write this somewhat in jest, but not really.
One hundred percent this.

The trades. Welder, electrician, plumber.

Listen to some Mike Rowe podcasts (The Way I Heard It).

Be making six figures within two years. No college debt.
FYI. During Telecom Bust, I was talking to an electrician working at my office. It turned out that he used to be Electrical Engineer. He transitioned into electrician by getting the master electrician certification. He got paid a lot more than electrical engineer since there are no unpaid overtime work for master electrician.

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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by texasdiver »

livesoft wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 1:00 pm
texasdiver wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 11:15 am...
According to my recently graduated daughter, Marketing is for business students who can't do or aren't good at spreadsheets and math.

She was a communications/marketing major at an SEC school and now is well compensated and advancing rapidly with a company that does social media marketing for corporate clients. She basically manages the social media accounts of corporate clients. Or, more accurately, at age 24 she now supervises about 10 other account managers who do that work.
But 6 years ago what was your daughter planning for a career as she entered college? Did she change majors along the way? Obviously, things turned out great for her which I would extrapolate that most parents / relatives do not need to worry about bright young people going off to college and making their way in the world.

I believe you have asked for help on college for your children in other threads, so were you in the shoes of the OP years ago? I sort of know that you were a high school teacher ... maybe still are ... among other things.
When she started college she was interested in public relations careers and went into communications for that reason. But now with a career in social media marketing she is doing better than most of her peers who did go into PR. So she did make the right career pivot. I don't think her specific degree was hugely important to her career success to date. More that she did the right internships and got the right chance when it mattered.

Honestly, this particular child was not particularly academic and I didn't really see her pursuing an advanced degree like MBA, law school, etc. and she is very much NOT STEM oriented so all the computer/engineering/medicine careers were out. So navigating college to get some sort of generally marketable business-related degree was the objective. And it has worked out.

My other two children are MUCH more academic-oriented and so undergrad is likely to just be a launching pad into some sort of graduate studies. Each child has to find their own path.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by AlaskaTeach »

Just using my own experience, I really enjoyed the Psychology courses, as they overlapped with Management courses. By the time I finally graduated at the age of 27, I was taking a Bachelor's degree program in a non-traditional program for adults. I was required to document my experiences and competencies in the work force and write a paper based upon the experiences. It was a 70 or so page paper. That was the "Capstone course" for the adult degree. I had to concentrate on three areas or so. I chose Psychology, Business Communications and Business Management.

Right after college I became a restaurant manager for 8.5 years and then found my niche as a teacher, in an alternative certification program.

If I had it to do over again in today's environment of high tuition and fees, I would find the degree program that would have exposed me to the most different kinds of people, and get the degree as quickly as possible, while at the same time doing a "minor" in Military Studies. Iow, join the Guard, go ROTC/SMP and graduate with a commission in the National Guard or Army Reserve. The government would pay for loans through the Student Loan Repayment Program. Retiring as early as age 38 from the Guard enables a person to receive health insurance benefits - either free or almost free when the Guardsman retires from the military at age 60.

I say this because I served in the Texas Army National Guard starting senior in high school and finished at age 27. I went ING, which is Inactive National Guard and then IRR, Inactive Ready Reserve.

A person who has a "boring desk job" during the week can do all kinds of fun stuff on the weekend in the Guard, like shooting a machine gun, getting troops lost at North Fort Hood, Texas, camping in the woods, etc.

That poor 2nd Lt. who got us lost at Fort Hood must have been sick to his/her stomach. We drove around for hours and finally found the place, got off the truck, shot M203 grenade launchers and Light Anti-Tank weapons for about an hour and jumped back on the truck to go back home.

You can't get that kind of leadership experience at a young age in many places, I would think.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by Valuethinker »

AlaskaTeach wrote: Sun May 07, 2023 9:23 pm Just using my own experience, I really enjoyed the Psychology courses, as they overlapped with Management courses. By the time I finally graduated at the age of 27, I was taking a Bachelor's degree program in a non-traditional program for adults. I was required to document my experiences and competencies in the work force and write a paper based upon the experiences. It was a 70 or so page paper. That was the "Capstone course" for the adult degree. I had to concentrate on three areas or so. I chose Psychology, Business Communications and Business Management.

Right after college I became a restaurant manager for 8.5 years and then found my niche as a teacher, in an alternative certification program.

If I had it to do over again in today's environment of high tuition and fees, I would find the degree program that would have exposed me to the most different kinds of people, and get the degree as quickly as possible, while at the same time doing a "minor" in Military Studies. Iow, join the Guard, go ROTC/SMP and graduate with a commission in the National Guard or Army Reserve. The government would pay for loans through the Student Loan Repayment Program. Retiring as early as age 38 from the Guard enables a person to receive health insurance benefits - either free or almost free when the Guardsman retires from the military at age 60.

I say this because I served in the Texas Army National Guard starting senior in high school and finished at age 27. I went ING, which is Inactive National Guard and then IRR, Inactive Ready Reserve.

A person who has a "boring desk job" during the week can do all kinds of fun stuff on the weekend in the Guard, like shooting a machine gun, getting troops lost at North Fort Hood, Texas, camping in the woods, etc.

That poor 2nd Lt. who got us lost at Fort Hood must have been sick to his/her stomach. We drove around for hours and finally found the place, got off the truck, shot M203 grenade launchers and Light Anti-Tank weapons for about an hour and jumped back on the truck to go back home.

You can't get that kind of leadership experience at a young age in many places, I would think.

This is all good re leadership experiences. At least for an outdoors-oriented person.

However my (non-US) impression was that 9-11 was a game changer. After that, as part of the War on Terror, just about everyone with National Guard or Army Reserve status found themselves mobilized at some point, and in most cases rotated through either Iraq or Afghanistan, and sometimes more than once? Years out of their lives (besides high levels of danger and stress, of course).

Now right now the USA does not have those sorts of commitments, and political leaders would be wary of re-entering into them. However there's plenty of international flashpoints. As I understand it, the US military is now highly configured around using its "Reserve" units in times of crisis to fulfil essential functions.

But the point is that when they say service, they mean it, and it can be really disruptive of one's life, and put one behind one's peers significantly because of the length of deployment.

I may just not understand how the system works. But this is the impression from someone outside the USA (but interested in issues of military readiness).
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by MrNarwhal »

1. What does your niece consider a "decent job" with respect to wages and working conditions?
2. Does she intend to stay in a high cost of living area?

I have 3 friends who studied flavors of economics. All 3 have found jobs with sufficient income to support themselves (only 1/3 via the food service industry).

I also have a former boss with a psychology degree. He entered a skilled construction trade after graduating but subsequently found value from his degree as a people manager in the construction industry.

Would she have any interest in geography / GIS? While not the most "marketable" degree it does lead well towards some interesting local/state/federal government positions.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by Mr. Potter »

Several of my friends have kids who have graduated (Private) college with awesome degrees like Theater and Child Development. They are working as Nanny’s now and living at home. At the time I suggested Dental Hygiene, that’s what my wife does. That advice was met with a resounding who would want to dig around in someone’s mouth…. 80k plus or $50/hour your choice, huuuuuge demand, but what do I know, being a Nanny sounds kinda fun.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by oldfatguy »

fitawrari wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 11:58 am Because of this, I will like to suggest to her college majors that often lead to solid career outcomes.
Do you have any expertise in this area? I would presume not, since you are asking for opinions from strangers.

There are people who do this for a living. Refer your niece to work with a guidance counselor/career counselor at her HS and/or college.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by Ollie123 »

Double majored in psychology and business. Neither is particularly useful, though business offers a clearer path forward at the bachelor's level. Amusingly enough for this board, finance was basically the bottom-tier "concentration" at my business school and was widely known as the thing you majored in if you were too drunk to pass anything else.

I knew neither was going to be my stopping point and was just a stepping stone, though I debated endlessly what the next stone would be. Ended up following the psychology path. I do quite well with a PhD in it (> 150k, will likely be > 200k by this time next year and I'm still in my 30's in a low-medium COL area). That said, I'm an exception and not the rule and had to work very hard to get here. I dabbled in computer science and was damn good at it if I may say so (highest grade in the 100+ person "weed out" class), but it only took a few rounds of late night coding for me to decide it would be a miserable career. Have mixed feelings on not sticking with it since I'm pretty sure I could have sleepwalked my way to a job paying 200k vs having to bust my butt to get there, but c'est la vie.

I largely agree with the above. It sounds like she is hesitant about graduate school so I would NOT recommend psychology. I do think there is value in choosing a pragmatic degree. If she is up for the work, double majoring with one pragmatic "fallback" pragmatic degree and one "fun" degree is a good approach - that's essentially what I was doing and I knew a number of other folks in college who did the same. That said, you need to figure that out quickly since it can be tough to squeeze in the courses.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by Glockenspiel »

mjg wrote: Sun May 07, 2023 3:43 pm
One hundred percent this.

The trades. Welder, electrician, plumber.

Listen to some Mike Rowe podcasts (The Way I Heard It).

Be making six figures within two years. No college debt.
In my estimation, most trades workers beat their body up and don't make it in the field until retirement age, unless they transition to more of a company ownership/office role. That, and there are good studies that show people with physically demanding jobs live, on average 3-4 years less than those in other professions.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by Glockenspiel »

MrNarwhal wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 7:15 am
Would she have any interest in geography / GIS? While not the most "marketable" degree it does lead well towards some interesting local/state/federal government positions.
This is a great career. Skilled GIS people are in really high demand in large engineering consulting companies, federal/state government, environmental analysis, water resources analysis, demographic/income-type studies for developers, etc.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by Tirebiter »

Glockenspiel wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 9:09 am
mjg wrote: Sun May 07, 2023 3:43 pm
One hundred percent this.

The trades. Welder, electrician, plumber.

Listen to some Mike Rowe podcasts (The Way I Heard It).

Be making six figures within two years. No college debt.
In my estimation, most trades workers beat their body up and don't make it in the field until retirement age, unless they transition to more of a company ownership/office role. That, and there are good studies that show people with physically demanding jobs live, on average 3-4 years less than those in other professions.
My second-hand experience confirms this. I've had two close friends work in physical trades. Both were making six figures in their mid-twenties. Both started having physical problems related to work in their mid-thirties.

It's a better path than making $30k and having $100k+ worth of student loan debt, but it has its downsides too.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by Tamarind »

Glockenspiel wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 9:11 am
MrNarwhal wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 7:15 am
Would she have any interest in geography / GIS? While not the most "marketable" degree it does lead well towards some interesting local/state/federal government positions.
This is a great career. Skilled GIS people are in really high demand in large engineering consulting companies, federal/state government, environmental analysis, water resources analysis, demographic/income-type studies for developers, etc.
This is a good point about different flavors of "good job". I would be unsuited to work w this kind of large/slow employer, regardless of technical skills, but it's incredibly stable work likely with superior benefits and low chance of layoffs. Folks reasonably differ about whether government work, or work for a megacorp, is good work, because it's good for some folks and not for others.

But many college students don't know their work style preferences yet to take that into consideration.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by strummer6969 »

Glockenspiel wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 9:09 am
mjg wrote: Sun May 07, 2023 3:43 pm
One hundred percent this.

The trades. Welder, electrician, plumber.

Listen to some Mike Rowe podcasts (The Way I Heard It).

Be making six figures within two years. No college debt.
In my estimation, most trades workers beat their body up and don't make it in the field until retirement age, unless they transition to more of a company ownership/office role. That, and there are good studies that show people with physically demanding jobs live, on average 3-4 years less than those in other professions.
Plenty of studies show increased cardiovascular and other risks of desk jobs. I've seen very few healthy office workers in their 40s/50s.

Trade workers don't keep doing the grunt work once they acquire skill. They eventually move up in the company or start their own and hire apprentices.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by stoptothink »

Tirebiter wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 12:18 pm
Glockenspiel wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 9:09 am
mjg wrote: Sun May 07, 2023 3:43 pm
One hundred percent this.

The trades. Welder, electrician, plumber.

Listen to some Mike Rowe podcasts (The Way I Heard It).

Be making six figures within two years. No college debt.
In my estimation, most trades workers beat their body up and don't make it in the field until retirement age, unless they transition to more of a company ownership/office role. That, and there are good studies that show people with physically demanding jobs live, on average 3-4 years less than those in other professions.
My second-hand experience confirms this. I've had two close friends work in physical trades. Both were making six figures in their mid-twenties. Both started having physical problems related to work in their mid-thirties.

It's a better path than making $30k and having $100k+ worth of student loan debt, but it has its downsides too.
There are trade-offs to everything. Are you more likely to suffer overuse and acute musculoskeletal injuries from a trade than sitting at a desk all day - certainly. But, you're probably at a higher risk for metabolically-related issues sitting at a desk. Who knows whether a trade is a realistic option for OP's niece, but there are certainly A TON of people who would be better off (all around) learning a trade than going to college and the number is growing (maybe not now with college admissions trending downward).

I can think of half a dozen individuals in my own family who did exactly what their teachers always told them and went off to college (despite being poor high school students), got into a whole bunch of debt before graduating or graduating with a degree with little value, only to realize in their mid-20's that higher education wasn't for them and are now successful in trades. The key is to be honest with yourself and have honest people around you (parents, teachers, friends) who are willing to tell you that higher education may not be your best option.

The most egregious example is my my youngest sister: significant learning disorder, was held back two years and then had to go to a continuation school to graduate. All her teachers and counselors told her was she had to go to college, and that was what she was legitimately trying to do until my step-father (a high school teacher himself) found out. He had several heated arguments with her high school counselor. My sister was able to get a full tuition scholarship to a local tech school for welding. She's taking night classes while an assistant manager at a T-mobile store. She's already making $40k/yr as a 20yr old (nearly what her 28yr old sister, with a masters degree, is making as an elementary teacher), totally supporting herself and she'll have opportunities to make double that when she finishes her welding courses. I can't even imagine where she'd be if FIL hadn't stepped in.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by oxothuk »

A secondary benefit of the trades is that she may have better odds for meeting a future spouse. Colleges are about 60% female these days.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by Yellowjacket1 »

I would suggest she consider biology. For her first year, it would give her a good basis for moving into healthcare. She might consider transferring to a nursing school after her first year. Due to various medical issues, I have been able to talk to a LOT of nurses. They ar very much in demand and expected to continue to be in demand for the foreseeable future. If nursing isn’t her thing, she could consider physical therapy, or various healthcare technicians such as cardio, pulmonary, etc. if she wanted to earn good money quickly, she could be a traveling nurse, or technician. They were the majority of those whom I encountered and generally enjoyed traveling to other places while earning good money.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by joe8d »

Valuethinker wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 6:47 am
AlaskaTeach wrote: Sun May 07, 2023 9:23 pm Just using my own experience, I really enjoyed the Psychology courses, as they overlapped with Management courses. By the time I finally graduated at the age of 27, I was taking a Bachelor's degree program in a non-traditional program for adults. I was required to document my experiences and competencies in the work force and write a paper based upon the experiences. It was a 70 or so page paper. That was the "Capstone course" for the adult degree. I had to concentrate on three areas or so. I chose Psychology, Business Communications and Business Management.

Right after college I became a restaurant manager for 8.5 years and then found my niche as a teacher, in an alternative certification program.

If I had it to do over again in today's environment of high tuition and fees, I would find the degree program that would have exposed me to the most different kinds of people, and get the degree as quickly as possible, while at the same time doing a "minor" in Military Studies. Iow, join the Guard, go ROTC/SMP and graduate with a commission in the National Guard or Army Reserve. The government would pay for loans through the Student Loan Repayment Program. Retiring as early as age 38 from the Guard enables a person to receive health insurance benefits - either free or almost free when the Guardsman retires from the military at age 60.

I say this because I served in the Texas Army National Guard starting senior in high school and finished at age 27. I went ING, which is Inactive National Guard and then IRR, Inactive Ready Reserve.

A person who has a "boring desk job" during the week can do all kinds of fun stuff on the weekend in the Guard, like shooting a machine gun, getting troops lost at North Fort Hood, Texas, camping in the woods, etc.

That poor 2nd Lt. who got us lost at Fort Hood must have been sick to his/her stomach. We drove around for hours and finally found the place, got off the truck, shot M203 grenade launchers and Light Anti-Tank weapons for about an hour and jumped back on the truck to go back home.

You can't get that kind of leadership experience at a young age in many places, I would think.

This is all good re leadership experiences. At least for an outdoors-oriented person
However my (non-US) impression was that 9-11 was a game changer. After that, as part of the War on Terror, just about everyone with National Guard or Army Reserve status found themselves mobilized at some point, and in most cases rotated through either Iraq or Afghanistan, and sometimes more than once? Years out of their lives (besides high levels of danger and stress, of course).

Now right now the USA does not have those sorts of commitments, and political leaders would be wary of re-entering into them. However there's plenty of international flashpoints. As I understand it, the US military is now highly configured around using its "Reserve" units in times of crisis to fulfil essential functions.

But the point is that when they say service, they mean it, and it can be really disruptive of one's life, and put one behind one's peers significantly because of the length of deployment.

I may just not understand how the system works. But this is the impression from someone outside the USA (but interested in issues of military readiness).
:thumbsup
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by toomanysidehustles »

dmon wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 9:51 am
fitawrari wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 8:39 am
Unfortunately UC Santa Barbara doesn't have business school as I think marketing would have been a good fit for her.
Communications, which UCSB does offer, can lead to a career in marketing.

Dan
I have a communications degree, which i then took a sales position right out of college. Was a sales director in my late 20's making a decent low 6 figure salary.

If I was presented with a do-over, I probably would skip college and go right into sales. If you know how to listen, talk with people and figure out their needs then sales is a great way to make good money. No college needed.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by Glockenspiel »

Yellowjacket1 wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 9:06 pm I would suggest she consider biology. For her first year, it would give her a good basis for moving into healthcare. She might consider transferring to a nursing school after her first year. Due to various medical issues, I have been able to talk to a LOT of nurses. They ar very much in demand and expected to continue to be in demand for the foreseeable future. If nursing isn’t her thing, she could consider physical therapy, or various healthcare technicians such as cardio, pulmonary, etc. if she wanted to earn good money quickly, she could be a traveling nurse, or technician. They were the majority of those whom I encountered and generally enjoyed traveling to other places while earning good money.
Agree. My wife is a nurse practitioner. Nurses are in such high demand. You can easily make $35-45/hour as a new grad right out of school, depending on your state and hospital system. During COVID, travel nurses were making $5-$10k per week of work. Getting a nursing degree also keeps the option open of going to grad school to become a nurse practitioner (NP) or registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA)

My wife makes almost $70/hour as a W-2 family nurse practitioner.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by DBNH34 »

livesoft wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 8:46 pm
strummer6969 wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 3:15 pm ...
3. There are far more students with liberal arts degrees than there are job openings for them in professional careers.
...
But there are plenty of jobs for college grads with liberal arts degrees. I know I interact with them many days: Managers of stores, front-desk people in businesses and offices, sales reps, phone reps, customer service reps, restaurant staff, ... If everybody had a professional career then who would be working in all these other jobs?

I think the niece is not going to have any problems and may not even want a career working.
You forgot Starbucks Baristas. Odds are very high that that young person at Starbucks serving up Double mocha frocha, half caf, skinny, no foam, triple soy lattes has a degree in gender studies or womens' studies.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by stoptothink »

toomanysidehustles wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 10:35 pm
dmon wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 9:51 am
fitawrari wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 8:39 am
Unfortunately UC Santa Barbara doesn't have business school as I think marketing would have been a good fit for her.
Communications, which UCSB does offer, can lead to a career in marketing.

Dan

If I was presented with a do-over, I probably would skip college and go right into sales. If you know how to listen, talk with people and figure out their needs then sales is a great way to make good money. No college needed.
My wife was making 6-figures in tech sales before she had a degree. If you have that type of personality and can deal with the ups-and-downs, there is probably nothing with a higher-earning potential and lower barrier to entry than sales.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by DBNH34 »

stoptothink wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 12:41 pm


I can think of half a dozen individuals in my own family who did exactly what their teachers always told them and went off to college (despite being poor high school students), got into a whole bunch of debt before graduating or graduating with a degree with little value, only to realize in their mid-20's that higher education wasn't for them and are now successful in trades. The key is to be honest with yourself and have honest people around you (parents, teachers, friends) who are willing to tell you that higher education may not be your best option.

The most egregious example is my my youngest sister: significant learning disorder, was held back two years and then had to go to a continuation school to graduate. All her teachers and counselors told her was she had to go to college, and that was what she was legitimately trying to do until my step-father (a high school teacher himself) found out. He had several heated arguments with her high school counselor. My sister was able to get a full tuition scholarship to a local tech school for welding. She's taking night classes while an assistant manager at a T-mobile store. She's already making $40k/yr as a 20yr old (nearly what her 28yr old sister, with a masters degree, is making as an elementary teacher), totally supporting herself and she'll have opportunities to make double that when she finishes her welding courses. I can't even imagine where she'd be if FIL hadn't stepped in.
You nailed it. K-12 schools drill it into the heads of kids that they cannot possibly be successful in life without a college degree which is a steaming pile of elephant dung. There are a lot of plumbers, electricians and other tradespeople with no student debt making 3-5 times what your average college grad with a gender studies degree and 50-100K of debt at 4-7% interest is making. There is a certain elitist, snobbish portion of our population that looks down on the trades and advances the narrative that having a college degree makes one a better person. Being a college graduate myself I know that this is not true.

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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by Robin1234 »

I have put multiple daughters through college and now the last one is entering college. This is a difficult topic.

A part of me, and some of my friends too, think College should be for education and you should pursue what you like and not bother about college reputation etc. The word I hear is "College Experience".

Yet another part of me thinks Colleges are overpriced/over-hyped even the UC s. I was aghast looking at the mansion the UCSD chancellor lives in. They sure know how to use our money.

My thought is choose a major that at least pays you for the fees and time that you put in to your education.
No point paying $150,000-$250,000 for 4 years of college, only to find you have meager job prospects or jobs that have meager financial prospects.

If a kid is uncertain about what they want to pursue, or they'd like to explore, they can go to City College for the first few years, then transfer and graduate from a reputable college.

As far as doing well in life is concerned - folks in non marketable, non-vocational majors can come out ahead if they get guidance, have energy, initiative, and some good luck. I met a Real Estate agent in LA who seemed to have a far more modest education that I did, but was financially far more successful than I am. Yet if I had to redo college I would still pick my major again because of it's future job & financial prospects.

In fact I told my kids if you like you can skip college and we can instead use that money to buy a home for you, or just plain invest it for later. You just go find a job to stay afloat or pay the mortgage. After all in their early years they can even rent portions of them home. Why sink so much money and get bad returns.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by JBTX »

fitawrari wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 8:39 am My niece got admitted to a few Cal State and UC schools and she decided to attend UC Santa Barbara.

I talked to her yesterday and she told me she is unclear about what she wants to study. She put psychology when she was filling out the application form but she is worried about job prospects for a psychology major. I brought up Psych D (doctorate) but she immediately responded by saying too much schooling.

She told me she is not into engineering, basic sciences or computer science.

Unfortunately UC Santa Barbara doesn't have business school as I think marketing would have been a good fit for her.

I suggested economics and, after explaining what it is and the type of jobs econ majors tend to get, she is open to it but not enthused about it. I am also not sure she will like the quantitative nature of economics.

She doesn't come from money (low wage immigrant parents) and she is keen on majoring in something that will get her a decent job right after graduation.

Please help.

Here is a link to the list of majors: https://my.sa.ucsb.edu/catalog/current/ ... elist.aspx
It looks like this is largely a liberal arts school. Apart from the engineering, the assumption is typically you will go on to a graduate school, could even be MBA, law school, med school.

If she is wanting to work after undergrad I think she chose the wrong school, based on the listing of majors.

Not knowing her interests, which appear not to be quantitative, I’d suggest somewhere that has health care Options. Nursing. Behavioral therapy. Etc.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by bendix »

alfaspider wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 8:17 pm
MMiroir wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 2:33 pm I have posted the following on BH before to great amusement by other posters. The information is dated but the relative incomes by major would still be applicable today.

Image

I shared this information with one of our kids when she was deciding on what to study. She loves history and was considering being a history major, but after careful consideration, she decided to purse a dual degree in Economics and History. She loves her many history classes, tolerates the math intensive economics classes, and is very happy that she has a summer internship lined up with a major investment bank in a large financial center.

It is very possible for kids to study what they love in college and to earn a remunerative major even they are not the same subject.

You have to be a bit careful of that data because it often excludes students who went on to graduate school. Many of the lower paying sort are mostly undertaken in preparation for graduate or professional school.
I look at this and wonder to which degree these stats are skewed by location. Like a student of money matters may have a high likelihood to end up in Manhattan and surrounding areas or San Francisco. Likewise CS might have to make do with the money in the Bay Area and other engineers may end up in Boston. So these graphs do show high incomes but probably even higher cost of living. Not for all, certainly, but maybe for many. I am wondering if a mid-tier income degree in a low cost of living area, say Indianapolis or Cincinatti etc. wouldnt afford a higher standard of living.
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Re: Help my niece choose a marketable college major

Post by MMiroir »

bendix wrote: Wed May 17, 2023 9:15 pmI look at this and wonder to which degree these stats are skewed by location. Like a student of money matters may have a high likelihood to end up in Manhattan and surrounding areas or San Francisco. Likewise CS might have to make do with the money in the Bay Area and other engineers may end up in Boston. So these graphs do show high incomes but probably even higher cost of living. Not for all, certainly, but maybe for many. I am wondering if a mid-tier income degree in a low cost of living area, say Indianapolis or Cincinatti etc. wouldnt afford a higher standard of living.
No doubt some of the variance is due to location. I have told this story before, but I used to work at a large multi-national financial consultancy, and the median earning of professionals in the firm varied greatly by office. NYC had by far the highest median income levels, with Los Angeles and Chicago being next highest about 10 to 20 percent less than NYC. After than, there was a wide range of major cities like Philly, Washington, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, and SF that had median salaries 20 to 50 percent less than NYC. The smallest cities in our network, like Kansas City, St. Louis and Detroit had median salaries about a half to third of NYC's median.

Office sizes were also directly proportional to salaries. The high median income offices all had 20+ professionals, and office size went down as median salaries declined to the point that the lowest earning offices had only one or two people on staff. Given these factors, in our field there were many more opportunities in larger metropolitan areas than smaller ones.

These type of "network" effects are also in place in the software industry and why the Bay Area, Seattle and increasingly NYC are major tech hubs. Employers want to be were the employees are, which draws more employees, which in turn draws more employers.
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