What's the college major that's most "useful" in the real world?

[Superrock]

you have to define "useful"

Does useful mean you'd use your major the most in practice or as a form of credentials to get you to the next step? Credentials is usually more helpful than the actual knowledge itself in order to get to the next step in the first place.

To me this question is too generalized because, depending on what field you decide to work in, some majors are better than others while some majors have a broader spectrum of fields than others. An english major can be applied to lots of different places but a research technician will probably look for a specific major of study when they hire.

Job security should be a major concern because tons of jobs will be outsourced to India like some types of engineering and accounting. Basically, you should hopefully make sure what you can do can't be outsourced.

 

[Howard]

Engineers can do anything.

 

[patentman]

Originally posted by: Legend

Originally posted by: Farang
No offense to engineers who enjoy their work, but that seems to be the dumbest major for most people to get into. They see the starting salary and their eyes light up. In reality the salary of an engineer isn't hard to obtain in other disciplines, and it is really quite pointless to go that route just for the money or for its percieved "usefulness."

Take my brother for example. He graduate with a business degree. He had the brains to be an engineer but business suited him better. First year out of college, he has already earned a $56,000 comission on top of a $26,000 salary in the commercial real estate business. There is no doubt in my mind that he will be making well above six figures within three years. Meanwhile engineers are flatlining at around $60,000.

My other brother majored in mechanical engineering. He went on to get is MBA and is now working for Intel. His starting salary was $80,000. He will not top out like engineers usually do, instead his salary will rise higher and higher.

I guess what I'm trying to say is finance/economics/business degrees are much more useful than anything technical. Myself, I'm a political science major, but that is just because I'm not too interested in my starting salary and have other priorities.

Engineers don't flat line at 60k. I just started at about 60k and I live in an area where the cost of living is dirt cheap.

Engineers that don't attempt to grow in business and stick with bachelor's technical jobs usually flat line around 80k. Engineers that grow into business and management make much more.

Engineering is, bar none, one of the best technical jobs you can get. You still get to use your brain to think in a technical way and make a decent living. Most scientists cannot say that, but they live in the lab and generally do not care.

 

[herbiehancock]

How do you define useful in the real world? Job opportunities upon graduation and beyond? Useful to whom? Your question is much to ambiguous to really be answered in a simple statement about one degree......from a personal aspect, useful would be vastly different to each and every person asked the question. From a "real world" standpoint......what's your definition of useful.....your criteria for determining useful?

From a purely "get a job when you graduate and have a job for life" usefulness.........very few degrees from college qualify. Engineers can and do get laid off......too easy in this country to outsource for that pool of talent.


I'd say by that narrow definition I put out above.......the medical professions are the only ones you can graduate from with a degree, have a job lined up months before you graduate, and really never have to worry about ever having a job.

And I'm really not speaking of becoming an MD......more like what's probably the most in-demand degree right now in the med. arena.....nursing. Jobs are just waiting to be filled with the nationwide shortage only getting worse every day.

Others would be occupational therapists, physical therapists, radiological technologists......and the list goes on.

Pharmacists.........well, good degree, but unless you plan on opening your own shop....jobs can be tight in some areas. Just drop in any pharmacy, no matter the chain---WalMart, Eckerds, PharMor, and all the other chains. See all the people scurrying around behind the pharmacy counter? Probably only one or two are actual pharmacists...the rest are pharmacy technicians. Law only requires one licensed pharmacist to be on duty at any time......typically two are so one can relieve the other for meal breaks or whatnot. But some chains only staff one licensed pharmacist and use techs for all the other positions. Really cuts costs and job opportunities.

Just random thoughts.............

 

[Pacemaker]

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: kaymin
Comp Sci - hardly. You learn all this conceptual crap that is a complete utter waste of time and impossibly hard. You can easily teach yourself java or C sharp much faster and skip the BCNF crap.

Yeah, the most useful are the 'professional' majors i guess - like nursing, medical, pharmacy and law. I wouldn't count engineering though since that covers so much area.

But seriously, do something you like.

If you want to be a bad web-app code monkey the rest of your life, go ahead and teach yourself whatever flavor of the month web language.

Once you get into real software development, you actually apply concepts.

I agree. I learn programming languages fast because I know what they should be able to do, so I really only have to look up commands and syntax. I started the job I currently work at without a real working knowledge of either of the programming languages they typically used (VB and C#) and in less than a week I was impressing the boss with my grasp of C#. Later I fixed a bug in a VB application even though the last basic language I used was QBasic.

Although college isn't the end all and be all of learning these concepts, it is a good place to learn them.

 

[Uppsala9496]

The most useful degree is a degree. It doesn't matter what it is in.
I have a degree in History and a degree in Political Science. Neither one of them has anything to do with my job. Without a degree however I wouldn't be doing what I am doing.

 

[DaShen]

The college of hard knocks.... j/k

Originally posted by: Sukhoi
One that you enjoy.

BINGO