College Majors that Universities Shouldn’t Offer and Students Shouldn’t Take
The first question that many students and their sponsoring parents will ask about the choice of a major is, “will you get a job?” Typically followed by that question is, “how much money can you make?”
People asking such questions tend to miss the point entirely about a four-year college education. The college curriculum shouldn’t exist merely to make reliable money (even though it increases the chances of finding solid employment). After all, there are plenty occupations that provide a good wage with good reliability. If you are really interested in job security and a middle-class income, but lack the academic ability to go to a good college, then a college education might not be the best choice for you.
But a proper college education provides the opportunity to develop a person’s mind to think more deeply about whatever subjects he thinks about, even after he graduates.
Unfortunately, many lower-tier colleges don’t exist for this purpose. They have turned into businesses, thinking of money before education, regardless of their non-profit status. They accept students who have no place in higher education – not because these students are bad people, but because they simply don’t have the academic talent and achievement to succeed in college at the college-academic level. They spend ridiculous amounts of money on academically-unnecessary buildings and programs, from the swimming pools at every dorm building to spending million-dollar salaries on sports coaches.
Part of this greed-driven travesty is the offering of inauthentic majors. These majors are simply easier versions of genuine majors, offered to students who know they don’t have the college-level academic skills to graduate with a real major. Thus, instead of majoring in economics, these students can major in business or marketing. Instead of majoring in biology, these students can major in nutrition or health. These are easier versions of the real majors, majors that require hard work and true college-level academic talent to succeed in.
These majors allow these lower-tier colleges to accept many inadequate students, claim a higher graduation rate than they could otherwise, take their tuition money, and repeat. It’s a fraud upon the value of a college degree, and it’s a fraud upon the unwitting students who have put their trust in these poorly-accredited institutions.
A real, genuine major forces the student to think deeply about the subject of study. The student’s mind thus deepens and his intellect grows, as he must understanding the nature of whatever he is studying. He is now capable of his own intellectual discovery and deeper comprehension.
In contrast, an inauthentic major rarely goes beyond route memorization of facts discovered by someone else who did think deeply.
The following majors are strongly suggested for students to avoid. In brackets are the major that a student should take instead, if he or she is still interested in studying that area of academics.
Business [Economics] Communications [Psychology] Design [Comp Sci/Eng, plus a minor or double-major in Art or Psychology] Education [Any real major, plus a minor or double-major in Psychology] Environmental Science [Biology]
Gender Studies or Feminist Studies [Sociology/Anthropology] Informational Tech [Comp Sci/Eng]
Marketing [Psychology, plus a minor or double-major Economics]
Nursing [Biology] Nutrition [Biology]
Note: this list is not comprehensive. (After all, some colleges are quite creative in coming up with nonsense majors).
Not only are these majors inadequate to prove oneself academically, employers will rarely take most of them seriously. Such majors really end up becoming a waste of time and tuition in the vast majority of cases. In fact, if you are really interested in obtaining a degree in such subjects, find a two-year college degree with the same program. It will save you a lot of valuable time and money. For example, considering obtaining a degree in Accounting at a two-year college as an Associate’s degree, rather than at a four-year college as a Bachelor’s degree. Same thing with Nursing, and so forth.
Rather than attending a lower-tier college and/or obtaining a garbage major, why not actually develop your college-level academic skills while in high school, and then continue your education at a higher-tier college with a real major? The rewards are great, both personally and financially.
