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10 worst college majors for your career

I managed to get a good photo job with my BFA in photography. I work as a staff photographer for the Air Force.

ToddB
 
nonsense

They write this nonsense to sell advertisement. If one has a passion for a certain thing what should s/he do, become a bean counter and drag through life doing something really boring? Name me one legendary photographer who had a Harvard MBA. I've seen a million dentists with shiny new Leica M3s who didn't know what all those knobs were for. And never will.
 
If we want a degree in Canada, we have to go to university, not college. Glad I cleared that up... I feel much better. Anyways, I do have a BFA, which is affectionately referred to here as a Bachelor of $%#! All. After graduating, I got an assistant curatorship at the Kelowna Art Gallery... and I got it mainly because of my degree, and my studies in art history. Learnt a lot of about the business side of art, which is not my cup of tea. So, it wasn't a complete waste of time.
I also have a Bachelor of Education... which at one time pretty much guaranteed you a teaching job... now? Nope. Not in my province, anyways. Feel badly for new teachers. Many have to leave for other parts of the country, or other countries.
 
I got a job towards the end of undergrad getting a BFA. Better yet, it is a darkroom job.
 
I got a job towards the end of undergrad getting a BFA. Better yet, it is a darkroom job.
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Funny, when I graduated with my BFA, I was pretty much anti-photography. It's not art. Within a few years, oh how wrong I was!
 

At least in the US, the distinction between college and university is that a college stops at the Bachelors level, whereas a University offers advanced degrees (Masters and Doctorate).

I've heard another meaning for BFA - Bachelors of Farting Around.

Another degree which is in actuality very useful but is often disrespected is the English degree. Having a BA in English Literature means that A: you can write and communicate effectively, and B: you know how to research. For those who haven't sat for such a degree, they think it means you know how to quote Shakespeare and ask if you'd like fries with that burger in a grammatically correct manner.
 
With the sole exception of those two learned professions (medicine and law), a college degree in any field is essentialy an admission ticket. It proves that, for four or five years, the holder could take crap. And, therefore, is qualified to take crap in any work position that might be offered. Same as always.

Photography-related positions have never been particularly remunerative. BFA degrees have therefore not resulted in especially high returns-on-investment (ROIs). Kiplinger's list reveals nothing new.
 
I remember the advise the Music Department gave my son about majoring in music:

Only major in music when you can't imagine your life without being a music major.
 
One of my classmates at law school had the best training of all.

He had been a bomb disposal expert with the Canadian Military.

He was great when the stress and tension got high.
 
The fact is that, within about five years of graduation, something like 80% of all art majors hang up their tools and move on to something "safe." The attrition rate is probably unlike any other field of study.
 
I never liked college. Students who learned from books (not doing). Teachers that were taught by teachers that learned from books, and on and on. To me, these days, college is for people getting a skill to go into the old work force. There's little to no emphasis on turning out a more ethical, smart, caring, compassionate person that can actually think for themselves. That's why things are the way they are in this world. With nothing more than an 11th grade education I managed to become the marketing director of one of the oldest ballet companies in America, worked for presidential candidates, and a lot of other neat stuff. Probably the only valid degrees are those in law and medicine because you have the potential to help others in those fields.
 
seeking employment in the arts, or any kind is is to accept a life that is likely to be lived with lower remuneration than a life employed in almost any other field. Many who go to university in Canada, get a Bachelors degree in anything and then march over to a college to get a certificate or apprenticeship in some other field or trade that will put food on the table.

Going for a university degree is of course not supposed to be about "getting a career" My BA sure did not improve my Job prospects! It is more about learning how to learn, so that you can tackle an interest and find out what that interest is all about, even or especially if the only way you can find out about that interest is by spending months visiting libraries
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I would really disagree with that notion that book-based learning is useless or somehow invalid. Part of the problem with the current system is that to go into the workforce, too many career fields are requiring a four-year university degree as a minimum qualification, when in fact a two-year program or a vocational training background would be more than adequate. As a result, you have two different models of training being forced into each other. Students who should be getting advanced practical training and who do not thrive in an academic/theoretical/analytical environment are being forced into spending four years and an ungodly amount of money to get a degree that is inappropriate because it doesn't prepare them for their chosen career path. Real universities aren't there to teach job skills - they're there to put people on the path to enlightenment. The path to enlightenment has its own real, definite value, especially for those who want it. For those not interested, expecting to be prepared for a practical profession by attending a research university is as effective as putting lipstick on a pig - the net result is a waste of your time and money and annoying the pig. Conversely, it's just as bad to take someone who wants to investigate the world from a theoretical/analytical perspective and send them to automotive repair school. Same pig, different lipstick.
 
I'm currently on my 3rd year of Business Administration. Infact, I think I've learnt much more in the way of having to put myself into the world (commute, move, interact with people, etc) than I do in many courses.
At least I've picked up an undergrad that is very versatile, but I still have to put up with another year of courses I might not be that interested in.

Infact, in 3 or 4 courses I've had about Human Resources and Business in general classify college education as that.
Still many courses to me are just putting up with stuff I find little usefulness to.


Again, what university did to me was to move away from the microclimate of my town; explore, meet new people, interact with the world, and so on. Sadly I cannot get credits for all the thoughts, observations, and learning I do in my time moving from and to campus every day. It is how I attain some self improvement in these areas, and I found a feeling of humanity. Otherwise, this humane aspect of thought isn't very emphasised.
I attend a good university where most of us students have quite a high academic level. Infact, one of the major goals of many are just grades. I have found an interest in interacting and learning about people, and being rather humanist. (And ASAP I'll be taking these type of courses)

I worked as an assistant on my High school administration office, when I was 16 in 2011.
Now, a friend, 20 years old and 3/4ths of a degree completed, has found a job very similar to the one I did.
I found amusing that I used to do that job perfectly as a High Schooler and for sure didn't need any amount of degree. Just some finesse learnt on the field.

In short, nowadays (as Ralph Says), one is expected to have a kind of superior education in the form of a degree. People are shoved into it. I entered university fitting perfectly the profile of student, but nowadays don't feel that well adjusted to this system. Thankfully our universities are private and don't strain personal and family finances.
 
I think statistics say that most people have about 3 different careers in their lifetime.
 
The problem is that being a great photographer isn't enough. If you want to be a successful photographer, you MUST be a great business person as well.
 
A college education should not be about learning career, but about learning to use types of libraries to learn more in greater depth. For example while I graduated as an Electrical Engineer, what I really learned was how to research libraries such as engineering, physics, mathematics, optics, chemistry, biochemistry, medical and law. All of which I used extensively over my career for various work assignments and projects.
 

In my career now, as a 57-year-old software developer, I support an accounting system for about 100 hospitals and 10,000 users. I do exactly what my final major (Computer Science/Business Admin, interdisciplinary) was pointed at. As has been pointed out, very, very few people work for 30-40 years in their major. However, I do every day also use my prior English major, and especially the liberal arts eduction, to keep the several thousand users that I support, in business. It takes all of the skills that TheFlyingCamera talks about to do this. God love the liberal arts.
 
Prof_Pixel said:
The problem is that being a great photographer isn't enough. If you want to be a successful photographer, you MUST be a great business person as well.
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So true; if you can't sell yourself and your photography, you'll not be successful in earning a living. Note I'm talking about being in business for yourself - not being employed by the government/studio/big name photolab etc.

And too many times I see "professional" photographers lowballing, which is a vicious cycle - cut your fees to beat the competition, next bunch cut their fees to beat you (and your competition) - suddenly you're out of a job.

Being able to sell yourself and your work/abilities is difficult, but sticking at it and charging a rate that takes *everything* into consideration (CODB) - will eventually give you peace of mind. One caveat: never rest on your laurels - you have to show you can do better than Joe Blow up the street, and often that means switching it up, to keep you inspired and your current (and potential clients) interested.
 
ozphoto said:
And too many times I see "professional" photographers lowballing, which is a vicious cycle
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Professional supermarkets do the same thing. It's unfortunate but it's business. You just need to price yourself at a point where you can attract business and earn a living and not worry too much about others.

I did see an example of extreme undercutting on TV last week though. In the UK, we have a programme similar to Judge Judy. The case involved someone who was hired to do some tidying and landscaping in a garden. He was charging £300 for three weeks work for three people. That is £33 (about $50) per week each!

Some things are obviously so low as to be unworkable!


Steve.
 


Ouch!!!!
 

I would love to hear how the modern internet, airplanes, cars, your TV, the machines that those "valid" medics use to save your life and the rest would be done without people spending a few years in university studying electronics and physics and chemistry and the rest. I'd love to know how those medicines and pills you take would exist without the students who learned from books and teachers who learned from other books and teachers and who are now PhD students and researchers in biomedicine.

In the past (like 100 years ago) when the human race knew a lot less you could stumble upon a discovery like a new drug or how to make a rudimentary flying machine. Today things are so complex and advanced it is impossible. You don't have to have a degree to be a millionaire property developer but if you were a millionaire property developer you most certainly wouldn't hire a self-taught architect that doesn't know how to correctly calculate how tall a building can get before it collapses of its own weight.

You may have not attended college and ended up a marketing director but that says more about certain professions (like sales and marketing) than others. Medicine, law, engineering, science are things that you don't just do with an 11th grade education and some books from the local library no matter how good you are. Having a brother who studied art and now makes a very good living out of it the main value of an art-related degree is not so much the knowledge but the connections and environment you get by other like minded people.

I suppose these are all professions that do not help others or they are people that cannot think for themselves. Do tell us, how do you, as a marketing director help others compared to someone spending years of research coming up with a new drug?

There are snobbish people with degrees who can't see the value of being self-taught and there are equally snobbish self-made people that think everything can be learned in the local library...
 
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