I do not personally. But 25-45% of students do, at least according to this. That said, the majority of students are presumably pleased with their choices, and the gap between different subjects is actually surprisingly small at under 20%.
No regrets, but I would have chosen differently had I known at the beginning what I knew by the end (in terms of my own interests and abilities). I had two majors and a minor: I probably would have kept the first major and the minor, but changed the second major.
“This” is paywalled, so I have no idea what is on the list. FWIW I took both my BA and my MA in history, a major often derided, but 6 years after graduating with my BA and 2 years after graduating with my MA I am a tenured professor teaching at a local community college and I don’t regret my choice of education one bit.
What you get out of college depends on what you put into it. If you spent 7 years partying while slowly chipping away at a BA in philosophy, graduating with a 2.1 GPA and having made no connections, then yeah you might think college was a waste of time because it’s really hard to take advantage of that degree. If you go into it with not only a goal but a game plan that includes networking, tutoring, volunteering, and taking advantage of clubs and school orgs that expose you to different people and gives the world a chance to see your capabilities then you’ll likely come out of the experience with a pretty solid foundation as well the necessary elements to land a decent job / begin a meaningful career.
I went to college when I was 29 and spent my college years writing for the student newspaper and tutoring. This gave me a solid enough resume that I was able to land a job as an adjunct prof teaching GED classes as soon as I graduated. I got hired into FT when I was halfway or so through my MA, and made tenure the year after I finished grad school. I utilized my time in school planning for a specific end game, and it worked.
I know many people who spent their time in college not networking or doing anything to bolster their CV and every one of them now do something that requires no college degree of any kind while simultaneously are saddled with enormous debt. I can only shake my head.
College – and education in general – is a means to an end. It opens doors that otherwise might remain closed. Which doors those are and how far they open depend a great deal on how you tackle the whole college experience.
Yes and no.
I was nearly certain with how my life, post college, would play out and for the most part it’s playing out exactly how I assumed it would.
I didn’t want to go to college, but this was the late 90’s when the question was “where are you going to college”, not “are you going to college”.
I started out as a comp sci major. The first comp sci class I took was a complete waste of time. After the first few classes, I asked the teacher if I could get the homework from a friend in the class and turn it all in at the end. After I told her what I’d been doing in HS, she agreed. I skipped the rest of the semester, came in for the exam (absolutely stinking like pot, to the point that people mentioned it to me), and walked away with a B.
At some point I talked to my counselor and it turns out my first Comp Sci Class should have been a 200 or 300 level class due to my AP credits from high school. Unfortunately, it’s not offered the next semester so I’d have to wait until the semester after that to take it. Would have been nice if he caught that before I took the class instead of after I finished it.
I was annoyed about that, and to this day still somewhat bitter that they messed that up. In any case, I took two physics classes with the intention of changing my major to physics. Again, my counselor dropped the ball on that one. The two classes I took where identical, except one was algebra based the other (that I took the next semester) was calc based. Like the comp sci classes, I’d essentially have to take a semester off from physics to get back on track since that’s when the next class I could take would be offered.
At this point, between the comp sci and physics “majors”, I had so much math under my belt, I decided just to run with that and get a math degree.
Considering I’m doing book keeping for my family’s small business, it’s a pretty useless degree (accounting doesn’t really require any knowledge of differential equations or multivariable calculus).
At this point I remember almost nothing of the math I took. I’m not sure I’d recognize a differential equation if you put it in front of me. I asked a homework question on here while I was finishing up my last math class. Once in a while I read through it again and don’t understand any of it.
I would have liked to have finished the comp sci degree, if for no other reason because I enjoy programming. But there’s very little that I would have learned in those classes 20-25 years ago that would have much relevance today, at least not at the hobby level. Luckily, with what’s left of my knowledge of BASIC combined with google, I can usually play around with open source code without too much trouble. I’m not sure I could write something from scratch, but if I need to change a few lines of code for a 3D printer or arduino, I can do that.
Here’s the study in question for anyone bafflingly unable to google their way around wapo’s fake paywall:
No, I’m still appreciative of my college major (linguistics and psychology).
My college degree was in History. I found the subject interesting and have no regrets. It was heavy on research and writing, which also served me well in law school and as a lawyer. All my kids who have college degrees are working in their field and have expressed no regrets.
BTW, I think I was providing some of the data for this study. I graduated college in 1988 and for a decade thereafter regularly participated in a mail survey by the Census Department that asked questions about what I was doing for work and how much I was being paid. I think they were generating statistics on how much various college graduates earn.
Mine was English Literature. No regrets. I didn’t particularly care what my major was. I just wanted to get a degree and go out and explore the world, which is what I did, as a photographer. My degree has never been important in anything I’ve done post-graduation, other than showing that I was able to finish college. It may have helped me get my first job, but nobody’s ever given a crap for the last 20 years. I went to what may be termed an “elite” school, so that’s got a little pull and cachet, but it’s, at the end of the day, unimportant. What was important is me going to that school and falling into a journalism/newspaper crowd and getting interested in photography. I would not have had that career if I went anywhere else for school, I think. It was serendipity. Now … I probably could have made more money doing something else, but I’m comfortable and I have shit tons of free time, so I’m pretty happy with my choices.
I have 3 degrees, an Associates, a Bachelorette, and a Masters.
The Associate in Police Science was pointless. They taught me more in 8 weeks at the academy than what I learned in 2 years getting that degree. At the time having at least a 2 year degree was not mandatory for my field. Today it is and that is ridiculous.
Much of what was taught while getting my degree in Sociology is outdated due to some changes in theory and mores.
My degree in Criminal Justice Administration has been useful only for bragging rights.
One of my sons makes over 400K a year and he’s never seen the inside of a college classroom.
I’m fine with my bachelor’s (international politics.) But I wish I’d gone with MBA for my first master’s, rather than choosing military studies.
My 2nd master’s is MBA right now, but I could have already been doing my master’s in human resources management right now.
Not in the slightest. B.Sc. in biology and have spent my entire career working in that field. Mind you, of the dozens of other biology graduates I know, only one other was able to manage a career in biology. Some of them might regret their major.
I’m happy with my major and degree, a BA in “Natural Science”. It let me sample multiple scientific disciplines without having to go super deep in any one of them. It was loaded towards physics, molecular biology, basic and organic chemistry, but let me get away with just a year of Calculus while I could add in stuff like astronomy, botany, physiography, russian history (taught by a prof from the Naval Academy!), perception/cognition, human sexuality, immunobiology research projects, and some literature courses. I got to skip the whole physical chemistry, theoretical physics, and upper level maths which I would have needed for something like a straight biology or chemistry or physics degree.
It was really just a stepping stone towards getting into med school, but I learned good basic science skills as an undergrad which served me well afterwards.
I don’t regret my B.Sc.Pharm., but that’s mainly because I decided a decade ago to retire from active practice. If I was any younger, I probably would, in part because not only is the degree worthless in its field, but it also very effectively prevents one from getting a job doing anything else.
It’s a shame that we ask 18-year-olds to decide on a major. I suspect if it was possible for everyone to wait 10 years to go to college, the decisions would be very different.
I’m not sure I entirely “regret” it, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve often wished that I had taken the other path.
As I’ve related in other threads, I was set on becoming a meteorologist from about age 6, until age 17. After looking at the course requirements for a degree in meteorology, I chickened out when I saw the level of math and physics required, and decided on a business degree.
I have a bachelor’s and a master’s in marketing, and those degrees have provided me with a very good career; but, in the past few years, I’ve become burned out by the pace of working in a large marketing/advertising organization, and increasingly find myself wishing that I’d gone for meteorology (which is still an interest and hobby of mine).
Even waiting a year or two helps people make more informed decisions. My brother and I both took Gap Years, decades before that had a buzzword, and had no regrets. The maturing brain is one reason why most people don’t graduate with the degree they initially started out pursuing.
Example: I recently reconnected with an acquaintance I hadn’t seen in a few years, and when I last saw her, her very bright daughter was a couple years into a chemical engineering degree. She is about to finish a double major in international business, with a subspecialty in supply chain issues, and Spanish. Neither were on her radar a few years ago.
My brother, BTW, started out majoring in (his words) required classes, and my BFF’s daughter is doing the same thing right now as a college freshman.
I don’t regret my major for my bachelor’s degree. But, it did not, nor do I believe that most degrees prepare you for a career or a job. Sure, it provided quite a bit of foundational knowledge, but what it did do, is develop me to become a learner, which I believe most degrees do. If you are able to complete a degreed program at most colleges or universities that is quite an accomplishment. What I learned to do my job and advance in my career, I learned on the job.
I have a business degree with a major in accounting and I do regret not taking more psychology classes, which would have been more helpful in my early days of negotiating.
At one point early in my career, about 7-8 years after graduating, I considered going back for my MBA, as I was working with a lot of MBA’s from Harvard, Columbia, Wharton, Texas, Booth, etc. My boss at the time, a Harvard undergrad and MBA, told me it would be a waste of my time, and that I could have taught in most of those programs.
I am very happy with my education and my career. I think I did fairly well for public school educated kid from a lower middle class family. I picked my major before I started college, mainly because I had friends whose parents were accountants/CPA’s and they lived in nice houses and drove nice cars. It was my goal to be more successful than my parents, and that’s what they wanted for me as well.
The article notes that the survey “includes those who attended college but aren’t currently enrolled.” That raises some doubt about the utility of the survey–it could, for all we know, include people who dropped out for any of a multitude of reasons and were disenchanted with university for reasons having nothing to do with their majors.
It also doesn’t say much about why people were disenchanted. Didn’t like the subject? Didn’t get a dream job? Just hated university? Given that at many places, arts and humanities and social sciences are the largest faculties, and that many people really don’t know why they’re going to university, the numbers aren’t surprising.
I’m proof of your point. At 18 I majored in Journalism because I hated math & Journalism was the only major which required not a single math class. I dropped out after my freshman year because I wasn’t actually interested in Journalism & I was bored. A few years later I tried again & chose Business, which required a remedial math class. Happened into an excellent professor, realized math was fascinating & eventually got a degree in math/comp sci.
I knew several people who started in one major & switched because they discovered they loved a subject they took only to fulfill requirements (‘core’ courses all students are required to take designed to expose students to a variety of disciplines). I think it’s rather sad that we now expect students to decide their future right out of high school because much of the value of college is exploration of different fields (how many people have any exposure to Geology, for example, in high school?). I realize college costs today make this less practical, but that exploration is something
students need now more than ever.