Most useless majors

[JohnK]

According to Yahoo...

Agriculture
Fashion Design
Theatre
Animal Science
Horticulture

http://education.yahoo.net/articles/most_useless_degrees.htm?kid=1KWNU

Thoughts?

 

[RedX]

I kind of disagree on the Theatre and Animal Science. Theatre can probably help your acting skills if you ever want to become an actor or actress. Animal science can probably help you in your vet career or if you want to do things with animals in your future.

 

I kind of disagree on the Theatre and Animal Science. Theatre can probably help your acting skills if you ever want to become an actor or actress. Animal science can probably help you in your vet career or if you want to do things with animals in your future.

What is the likelihood of someone becoming a professional actor or actress though? Thousands of people go to school for it, but a good majority of them don't actually make it anywhere.

 

[Savinelli]

Agriculture

Complete and utter bs. Perhaps it's the fact that I live just outside of Boulder that may slant my view of the agricultural economy as a whole, but agriculture is booming. Think of how valuable an agriculture degree is to the tobacco or marijuana industry and think of the total gross revenue those products pull in.

Fashion Design

Once again I'm calling complete bs. As a whole the fashion industry has been on the rise, with more and more money being dropped into products yearly. Fashion is constantly changing, and thus jobs and positions are changing and will continue to be this way until the end of time.

Theatre

I'll agree on this one.

Animal Science

This career was killed by the increased number of students in this major. It was and still is profitable for the adept few, but as a whole Bel Rae killed this job set. I'll agree here as well.

Horticulture

I'll agree with this one as well. The majority of the research in this field has already been completed. Until a new strain of plant for commercial food is invented, there is no real need for the position.

Then again, this article fails to mention every other major that is dying as well. If we look at the Computer Science industry as a whole, we are seeing a dramatically increased number of students for the same amount of jobs as with previous years. The same scenario applies to most fields today.

 

[xx Sean]

What is the likelihood of someone becoming a professional actor or actress though? Thousands of people go to school for it, but a good majority of them don't actually make it anywhere.

Thousands of those actors and actresses don't become famous or renowned, that doesn't necessarily mean they don't make it anywhere. There are tons of smaller roles in movies, played by professional actors, who make a living for themselves. Yes, the majority will never make it big, but they still achieved something.

OT: My mom was telling me about this yesterday I believe, not surprised with a lot of those(agriculture in particular)

 

[SuF]

There are worse majors than this... If you look at the degrees they call most effective, psychology is there and all like 10 different psychology degrees have some of the highest unemployment numbers. They also have teacher listed and that again has some of the highest unemployment. It also has business as first even though everyone goes for that and thus it is becoming a harder and harder field to get into. Due to that I doubt these are the worst degrees, even if they are fairly bad.

 

[the_dealer]

I think they meant useless as in the least likely to get you somewhere in life, than the worst.

I mean - you don't need a business degree. You either have the aptitude, or you don't.

 

[NAG]

I disagree with Yahoo with Animal Science because if you wanted to work at an Animal Hospital (Vet) you would have many smarts about it.

 

[T V]

*phew*

As soon as I saw this I got worried I'd see "Liberal Arts" lol. I'm a little surprised to see Agriculture though

 

[Savinelli]

If we really look at any major, the majority of people do not use their major after college. So in a sense, all majors are useless.

 

[neo coolboy]

I would think that just a straight math degree would be there, because other than teach it there isn't much you can do with JUST a math major.

 

[Jovio]

I thought it would be psychology because everyone does it haha.

 

[x339]

There are plenty of majors that are far more "useless" then the ones listed here. For example, English. What are you going to use it for, other than becoming an English teacher? Another one would be Art History. Pretty much the only job you can get with an Art History is one at a museum. Same goes for Philosphy, although its cool, and might be a nice course to take for fun, no one is going to pay you to tell them the meaning of life.

 

[Swan]

I would think that just a straight math degree would be there, because other than teach it there isn't much you can do with JUST a math major.

That depends on what you combine your maths degree with. Mathematicians are actually very important people, and combined with physics or engineering they become some of the most qualified people on the planet.

 

[QuasiNoob]

Same goes for Philosphy, although its cool, and might be a nice course to take for fun, no one is going to pay you to tell them the meaning of life.

Actually, a philosophy major can provide excellent foundation for legal, clerical, and educational careers. Not to mention profit from books and articles, but most of those would only get published after you have a postgraduate degree (not necessarily in philosophy).

Personally, I would think premed/prelaw majors are useless. You don't need them to get into the respective schools and you're either going to re-learn everything or not use whatever you learned when getting the degree, with the possible exception of writing (that is, you could use the facts if you wrote books/articles).

 

[Imagine]

Many of these majors are just fillers/prerequisites for postgrad degrees.

 

[SuF]

I would think that just a straight math degree would be there, because other than teach it there isn't much you can do with JUST a math major.

Straight math degree graduates have some of the highest paying jobs with the lowest unemployment. Every large company wants them for all sorts of reasons but finance and tech REALLLLYYY want them.

 

[Berwin]

I think theatre could be potentially useful for someone who's going to law school in hope of being a courtroom lawyer. There's some charm, wit, and improvisation involved that might be easier to pull off having that prior experience in acting/theatre arts.

I think Renaissance History and Ceramics majors would be pretty useless.

 

[Sypherz]

I think Renaissance History and Ceramics majors would be pretty useless.

Okay. But those ones are very rare and specific. It would be like putting a major in hat making on the list.

 

Communications.