I’m in my last year of college and for some reason, I decided to design my own major, and I feel like I made a mistake, I’m looking at jobs RN and feel like no employer is going to understand it at all. And that I don’t really have much in demand skills? (FYI - it’s a BA in community development, so kinda like urban planning but more expansive, my major Combines Social Work, Business, and Sustainability)

In y’all experience, does a college major matter much in the long run?

  • OceanSoap
    2·
    10 months ago

    The answer is yes and no.

    I worked a lot of different jobs with no degree at all, out earning a friend of mine who got her batchelores in fine art, sculpting specifically, and who also worked a bunch of different jobs (that didn’t gave much to do with her major).

    We both went back to college around the same time. She got her masters in interior architecture, and I got my AS in industrial design and drafting for manufacturing.

    I got a job first in a civil field that doubled my previous salary. She got a job soon after in an architecture field a dollar less than me per hour.

    I got promoted at 8 months with a pay raise of $4. Now I make $5/hr more than she does.

    All this to say, it matters what you get your degree in, to an extent. My friend and I both use CAD for our jobs, but her masters hasn’t paid out as much as my Associates has so far.

    I think she enjoyed sculpting a lot for her BA degree, but faltered a lot on what to do with it. It’s a degree you have to really figure out how it can become applicable in regular jobs, because “sculpter” jobs are few and far between. She also wasn’t willing to move to places like LA or NY which might have had more opportunities for her skill set.

    So yes, in a way it matters, but also not really very much.

    It’s cool that you got to create your own major, I would have lived to do something like that.