Four myths about choosing a college major

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Students get plenty of advice about picking a major. It turns out, though, that most of it is from family and friends, and most didn't think that the advice was especially helpful. Maybe it's because much of the conventional thinking about majors is wrong.

Myth 1

For the big money, STEM always delivers

It's true that computer science and engineering top all the pay rankings, but salaries within specific majors vary greatly.

"Students and parents have a pretty good idea of what majors pay the most, but they have a poor sense of the magnitude of the differences within the major," said Douglas A. Webber, an associate professor of economics at Temple University who studies earnings by academic field. 

He points to one example: The top quarter of earners who majored in English make more over their lifetimes than the bottom quarter of chemical engineers.

But what if you never make it to the top of the pay scale? Even English or history graduates who make just above the median lifetime earnings for their major do pretty well when compared to typical graduates in business or a STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) field.

Myth 2

Women want to have it all

Women are now the clear majority on college campuses, making up 56 percent of students enrolled this fall in the US. They are also more likely than men to graduate.

But when it comes to selecting a major, what women choose tends to segregate them into lower paying fields, such as education and social services, according to a report that Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce will publish later this year. 

Just look at some of the highest paying fields and the proportion of women who major in them: business economics (31 percent), chemical engineering (28 percent), computer science (20 percent), electrical engineering (10 percent), mechanical engineering (8 percent).

"Women can't win even as they dominate at every level of higher education," said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Georgetown center.

Carnevale wouldn't speculate as to why women make their choices. But he notes that if the proportion of women in fields where men dominate increased by just 10 percent, the gender pay gap would narrow considerably: from 78 cents paid to women for every dollar men receive to 90 cents for every dollar men receive.

Myth 3

Choice of major matters more than choice of college

Students who graduate from more selective schools tend to make more money. After all, the better the college, the better the professional network opportunities, through alumni, parents of classmates and eventually classmates themselves.

These undergraduates are more able to pursue majors in lower paying fields because their networks help them land good jobs. 

Arts, humanities and social science majors are more prevalent on elite campuses than at second-tier colleges, where students tend to pick vocational majors like business, education and health. 

In all, more than half of students at less selective schools major in career-focused subjects; at elite schools, less than a quarter do.

"Students at selective colleges are allowed to explore their intellectual curiosity as undergraduates because they will get their job training in graduate school or have access to a network that gets them top jobs, regardless of their undergraduate major," Carnevale said.

They are also more likely to have two majors than students at second-tier colleges, who tend to be more financially needy and have to work, affording less time to double major.

One tip: Complementary majors with overlapping requirements are easier to juggle, but two unrelated majors probably yield bigger gains in the job market, said Richard N. Pitt, an associate professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University who has studied the rise of the double major. "It increases your breadth of knowledge," he said.

Myth 4

Liberal arts majors are unemployable

The competencies that liberal arts majors emphasize — writing, synthesis, problem solving — are sought after by employers. A 2017 study by David J. 

Deming, an associate professor of education and economics at Harvard, found jobs requiring both the so-called soft skills and thinking skills have seen the largest growth in employment and pay in the last three decades.

One knock on the liberal arts is that it's difficult to find a first job. But a study by Burning Glass Technologies, a Boston-based company that analyzes job-market trends, concluded that if liberal arts graduates gain proficiency in one of eight technical skills, such as social media or data analysis, their prospects of landing entry-level jobs increase substantially.

The long-held belief by parents and students that liberal arts graduates are unemployable ignores the reality of the modern economy, where jobs require a mix of skills not easily packaged in a college major, said George Anders, author of You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a "Useless" Liberal Arts Education. 

In his book, Anders profiles graduates with degrees in philosophy, sociology and linguistics in jobs as diverse as sales, finance and market research.

"Once CEOs see liberal arts graduates in action," he said, "they come aboard to the idea that they need more of them."

Do you have the same ideas?

Source: New York Times

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