About college majors. A lot of people blame students for choosing impractical majors [View all]

[pnwmom]

like humanities, instead of more vocational majors, like engineering.

Aside from the whole issue that we SHOULD have some required humanities and social science courses to educate a responsible citizenry (what a concept), what a lot of people don't realize is that students' often don't get their choice of majors -- the lucrative majors tend to be the most competitive ones to get into, with many more students applying than slots available. Yet our whole society has been pushing students to believe that a college degree is critical -- so students who can't get into the engineering or computer science program switch into arts and sciences.

And the best path isn't always clear in any individual's case. One of the most successful young graduates I know majored in political science because his GPA wasn't high enough to get into engineering. But he's doing very well in high tech marketing. An engineering grad, OTOH, took more than a year to find a job, at a pay level significantly below what he'd expected to be paid.

This economy is terrible for jobseekers at every level and in almost every field. But please don't berate young graduates because they were too stupid to take the right major -- there just aren't enough of those technical slots for all the students who want them, and they're often filled by international students who will pay higher tuition. And humanities and social science majors still have options -- it just takes more time and effort to find them.