Your college major is thought of as the gateway to your intended career of interest that will equip you with the skills necessary for the workforce. Recently, however, this notion has been challenged. With economic downturns and shifting supply and demand, sometimes it simply isn’t feasible to rely on the title of your major to land you a well-paying job.
In a Forbes post by Sarah Stahl, leading millennial career coach, she explains six reasons why your college major has little bearing on your career success. Your college degree, Stahl explains, is merely a “prerequisite for the competitive workforce” what you actually major in is irrelevant. Of course highly specialized majors: engineering, architecture, computer science, where there is more technical training are important because you are streamlined into those specific careers.
Majors are fungible and aren’t carved in stone. It is quite common for students to change their major or tack on another one mid-way into their college career.
There are many articles with lists of the most lucrative majors, but to say certain degrees pay more is not an entirely accurate statement. There are certain fields that yield a higher return on investment, but your major doesn’t necessarily need to correlate with that industry. For example, to attend law school, you don’t need to attain a specific major as a prerequisite; you could very well be a music major and end up a patent lawyer.
So what do the industry professionals and employers of today truly value? Experience, internships, volunteer work and jobs teach you important skills that are transferable to the real workplace environment. These experiences the traditional classroom can’t always teach.
In a survey conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, 93 percent of employers cite “critical thinking, communication, problem-solving” as more important than a candidate’s undergraduate major. Journalist Jeffrey Selingo revealed in a New York Times post that his former roommate, ABC World News Anchor David Muir, told him that many of his colleagues were in fact, non-journalism majors. Muir had then come to conclusion that “the curiosity and willingness to adapt are more important than what the degree is in.”
Soft skills are so highly valued that liberal arts graduates are being put to good use in Silicon Valley. Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield didn’t major in computer science or electrical engineering—he majored in philosophy. Butterfield stated that by crafting his writing and argumentation skills, he became more coherent and realistic in his goals.
Employee Anna Pickard, the editorial director at Slack, majored in theater but soon ditched a life of fruitless auditions for a fulfilling job in tech. Since creativity cannot be learned, artists, writers, designers and salesmen are finding that they are highly sought after in science and tech.
Another major component to landing a good job is networking. If you can hustle and schmooze with industry professionals and maintain close relationships with helpful professors, these alliances can increase your prospects in the job market. Getting your name in the minds of as many important people can work in your favor, especially when you are trying to stand out in a pile of a thousand resumes.
In 2013, The College Salary Report released data on job prospects/salary based on attended university and major. One woman interviewed stated that she was an average student in college, but when her aunt took her to a career fair, landing her a $19/hour internship at Lockheed Martin, she went on to work at Honeywell and Northrop Grumman. Another former student at a “non-name school” in Tennessee participated in a student ambassador program and an “Imagine Cup” contest, which led him to a job at Microsoft.
Despite the notion that majors are your “choice of career training” there is little evidence to prove that there is a strong connection between college majors and exact career trajectories. It seems at the end of the day, it’s not what your degree makes of you, it’s what you make of your degree.
