Illustration courtesy of Casey MarleyCasey Marley - Contributorcamarley@uab.edu
It's the end of the summer semester here at UAB. As finals week ensues for those still in Birmingham for the summer term, UAB anxiously awaits the arrival of its new freshman class. The question awaiting those freshmen: What will you major in?
College majors have been a debated topic in this country for nearly 50 years. This changed in 1967 when the then governor of California Ronald Reagan created a "major" precedent in the name of saving money: cutting funding to programs that do not have a direct tie to job outcomes or only fulfill “intellectual curiosity” — learning for the sake of learning — according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
This change of thought in the world of higher education has stuck.
"Any degree that you could enter the occupation without a degree in that field is kind of useless,” said Tye Campbell, a math teacher and UAB graduate living in Colorado.
However, the determination of what makes a major "useless" varies from person to person.
Campbell went on to say that degrees that are easily self-taught are not worth the student’s investment.
"A business degree is fairly useless, a fashion design degree is pretty useless, and a communications degree is kind of useless," he said, asking not to be judged after stating his opinion.
Others, such as Blaythe Steuer, a junior finance major at UAB say that most “not-STEM degrees” can be described as a "useless major."
For college students pursuing studies in the humanities, this label has left them with creating an automatic defensive response.
“Most people asked if I planned to be a teacher with my English degree. I never got that response when saying I was getting a business-management degree. I simply, after figuring out myself a little bit, educated them about the exciting world of professional writing and all the opportunities out there. They still didn't get it, but oh well,” said Haley Rhinehart, a 2015 UAB graduate who now works as a producer for a local news agency.
"I do think that we could do a better job against pushing back against some of the presumptions behind these assessments of majors," said Matt King, Ph.D., a philosophy professor at UAB.
He says that part of the basis of majors being defined as “useless” is that “the powers that be” have turned college education into a requirement for job placement.
“Once we've sold university education as a requirement for a career for life after graduation […] once you set it up as a requirement, you're forced to sort of make good on why it's a requirement,” he said. “And I think one of the easiest ways in which we're tempted to do this is to say and to show some type of empirical connection between course of study and [...] starting salaries. Or something really cold or impersonal like dollar amounts.”
While noting that this is “natural line of thought,” King says that this points to a larger question: What is the purpose of college?
According to a California based survey, almost 60 percent of college students in 1971 wanted to gain a “better philosophy on life” through college. By 1987, this number dropped to less than 40. Comparatively, “being well off financially” was less than 30 percent of college students’ main goal in 1971, jumping to almost 80 percent in 1987, showing the historical shift from a liberal arts focused higher education system to a vocational-training higher education system.
Joyce Stallworth, Ph.D., a recently retired education professor and Provost for Special Projects at the University of Alabama, believes that intellectual development and financial success can be married. A vocal proponent of planning and practicality in approaching college education, Stallworth encourages both students and parents to strategically think about their college education.
"I'm just concerned that so many of our students are not getting the information that they need to make the best decisions in terms of choosing a major,” the 25-year veteran educator said. “It cannot be a major or a field that's considered less rigorous...and 'something that I can get through' and then what?”
However, Stallworth notes that the key to being a successful major is planning.
“I think [with] all majors you need to do some planning,” she said. “I think even those that have a higher percentage of employability after graduation have to plan. Engineering majors, I've known some who are not careful in that process and ended up in positions that they didn't think they would end up in, so I wouldn't say, just because you are an engineering major you don't have to look at employment and all of those things for planning.”
While noting that some majors have more lucrative starting salaries than others, the education professor does not wish to “indict any selection of majors.”
“I am suggesting that young folks consider seriously what their college experiences will be and plan for that. And don't be taken by surprise when you finish matriculating,” Stallworth said.
Anna Franks, the Creative Director of UAB Digital Media, an in-house creative agency that produces student-made content, summarized her thoughts on the subject of “useless” majors: "Any degree is useless if the student is not passionately pursuing the subject.”
