My undergraduate degree was in sociology, with a heavy focus on Marxist theory. By the time I finished I knew I didn’t want to go to graduate school or law school, which had been my vague plans going in. Eventually I made it into medical school; academic advisors will tell you that you need some kind of STEM degree to get into medical school, but Marxism worked for me, so I guess I’m happy with it. I definitely enjoyed it while I was studying it and it’s shaped many aspects of my worldview ever since.
No. My BA was International Affairs and I’m fairly happy with that choice. It gave me the opportunity to live and work in Europe for several years after I graduated and I currently work at an agency where my degree is somewhat relevant.
The only other major that interested me in college was Geography. Only because I took some of the intro courses (requirements), but the advanced courses had some pretty cool toys and lab work.
When I was in college in the 90s, the degree with the highest acceptance rate to med school was music. Of course, they were a small percentage of the total applicant pool. As you know, as long as you do your pre-reqs, your can major in whatever you want.
The oldest worked in libraries for about a decade, but recently quit to work on expanding her studio for teaching music to preschoolers.
The 2d is a quality engineer for a firm that builds satellites. He has written a couple of novels and created an RP game that he is trying to publish/monetize.
#3 studied microbiology, and has moved into product management in the genetic meds field.
Not really. I mean, my biology degree didn’t happen to be of much use in my journalism career, it’s true. But journalism is one of those careers where you don’t necessarily get a lot of value from majoring in it in college. And I did genuinely enjoy studying biology. That said, my journalism career hasn’t been quite as glamorous as I had hoped, and I can’t help but wonder if even the minimal value of a journalism degree could have been that extra push I needed to really go places.
That’s brilliant!
I was lucky enough to go to a tiny liberal arts college, so got to “try” a lot of different classes…
…and activities. Got to be in music groups and the choir without being a music major, got to be on sports teams without being a jock, and worked on the newspaper without being a journalism major.
I just told this story yesterday: I walked into the college newspaper office on the second day of classes my freshman year, and said “I’ve never written for a paper, but I’ve always wanted to. What would I have to do if I wanted to eventually be a reporter?”
“Well, I’ve got a deal for you. We desperately need a Managing Editor, and since part of your job would be assigning stories, you could give yourself whichever stories you wanted to write.”
“Okay!”
Nice!
I’m bumping this thread to report a new CNBC article, “The top 10 most-regretted college majors”:
This article reports on a Georgetown University study. The results given look somewhat different than those from the Washington Post article cited by the OP.
This article suggest people often regret their choice of university or college major or loans or whatever. I generally do not, but of course knowing what I now know I would have done some things differently.
I regret going gung ho for an education major from HS on. I started college as, ostensibly, a Junior because of the number of credits I had. When i started the teaching mentoring program my second semester, I realized that I couldn’t teach kids that didn’t want to learn. But by then, trying to do a complete change of major would cost too much. I ended up leaving after 2.5 years, one semester away from graduating because I didn’t have the money to continue. I would have done things VERY differently in HS if I’d known then what I know now.
It’s also why Hubby and I aren’t pushing our kids to go to declare what they want to do with their lives (CtE is a Junior). Go to free Community College, figure things out there, THEN worry about what to major in, if they even want further college at that point. As long as they aren’t planning on living off the Bank of Mom & Dad for the rest of their lives, we support whatever decisions they make.
Communications. I regret nothing. It’s been completely useless professionally, but I had a good time learning it.
Remarkably, only two of those “ten most regretted majors” are in subjects typically stereotyped as being “useless for career purposes”: namely, liberal arts/general studies, and English language and literature.
The others are in fields that are
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either specific-career-focused or generally career-oriented: namely, journalism, communications, education, marketing management/research, and medical/clinical assisting; or
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straight-up social sciences or STEM: namely, sociology, political science/government, and biology.
All of which sound like majors that a lot of students end up in because they don’t really know what they’d rather be doing, which I would guess is a key factor in regretting one’s major choice.
I regret nothing.
Somewhat. I wish I’d gone for more Journalism and PoliSci classes, though a learning disability re: languages probably means that a diplomatic job would be impossible-ish. I haven’t used my English degree much at all apart from writing for fun and the occasional newsletter for the neighborhood. I’d encourage people to perhaps either specialize or try lots of things before settling on a major.
Right, ISTM it’s more about the aftermath of “you HAVE to go straight to college and get a degree in SOMETHING” — If you were really not ready for those decisions (or to sustain a decision that you’d rather not) it’s not the degree’s fault (and not entirely yours either).
ETA: Poli Sci and Bio are respectively the “default undergrad” for potential future applications for professional school in Law or in one of the Health Professions. Lots of people figure out only halfway through it that this is not where they really are headed.
I do and I don’t regret the choices I made.
I was privileged to have my full way paid by my parents at a very prestigious school. I’m forever grateful for being graduated from there without any student debt. But I’d been given the standard, terrible “just-major-in-anything-you-like” advice, and took it. My career’s OK now, but it would probably have been much smoother with far greater lifetime earnings if I’d majored in something rigorous, instead of the bullshit social science I chose for its reputation as an easy major. Even then I graduated with a gentleman’s B-, and wish I’d applied myself a lot more. I was a fool.
However, I did get to take lots of electives, and am quite well rounded. I snagged a great man pretty much on the basis of my bookshelves. 
Yeah, “just major in anything you like, it won’t make much difference to your career in the long run” is pretty terrible college advice.
Paradoxically, “major in whatever subject you’re deeply interested in, you will find a way to make a rewarding career out of it” is quite good college advice, although superficially it sounds much the same.
Extracurriculars and friendships and transition to adulthood aside, the ultimate purpose of college is to learn how to identify and engage with mental effort in specific ways that you love, that broaden and deepen your understanding of things you’re genuinely interested in. It may not ultimately matter much what subject(s) you choose, but it matters profoundly how you chose.
I was pre-med in college, because most of my family did something medical (men were doctors, women were nurses or CRNAs).
I lost the drive to be a doctor my senior year, but only needed two more classes to graduate with a BS in Biology. Ended up with an assortment of careers, ending with teaching graphic design at a local college.
Students would often ask me what my major was, then sneer and say "Well, what good was that?"
I’d reply that I learned how to learn, and to have a love for it. And that means I’ll always be challenged, and never be bored.
And (by then I was on a roll) being stepped in the Scientific Method means that I realize that Science doesn’t care what you believe, and in fact, not believing anything before you begin an experiment (or any project) prevents a lot of “Well, I really want this to go this way, so that’s what I’m going to expect.”
Then I applied that to religion and politics and relationships, and threw in the Waylon Jennings lyric: “Be careful of something that’s just what you want it to be.”
Where do you stand on the tendency of the rate of profit to fall based on the changing composition of capital?
Um, asking for a friend.
LOL I could have given a much more detailed answer to that question 30 years ago! In general, the rate of profit always declines over time unless new kinds of investments are opened up, principally through war (manufacturing weapons and then rebuilding the stuff you blew up with them) or technological innovation. Recent decades have seen the increasing importance of advertising (manufacturing demand) and speculative financial bubbles in keeping the increasingly unstable system afloat. Capitalism will destroy itself! (It’s taking longer than we thought)
(Checks forum) bit of a hijack. If anyone wants to argue the point, start a thread in the appropriate forum and I may participate.