Every year, high-school students and their families spend an inordinate amount of time on the college search, but comparatively little on the search for a college major. Perhaps that’s why a quarter of all freshmen change their major by the end of their first year, according to UCLA’s annual Freshman Survey, and half of first-year students say they plan to switch their field of study.
College officials, of course, think that the specific discipline students pursue matters little to their ultimate success because so many people end up working in fields unrelated to their college major. Students are often told how hard they work in college and how they apply their learning in the real world matter more.
Indeed, a design exercise on the future of undergraduate education, led by Stanford University’s Institute of Design, or d.school, recently suggested that instead of majors, students should declare a “mission” to help them find meaning and purpose behind their studies.
But majors don’t seem to be going away anytime soon. In fact, students keep getting more of them to choose from. Colleges have sliced and diced academic disciplines in many different ways in the last two decades to create clusters of new majors. From 2000 to 2010, the number of majors on campuses increased by some 20 percent, according to data collected by the U.S. Education Department.
And at least two recent studies add to a body of evidence that suggests majors do matter, at least when it comes to employment and earnings.
Certain majors graduate with more of the complex-reasoning skills needed in today’s workplace.
Students who major in mathematics and science, for instance, make larger gains in learning complex-reasoning skills than do those who study business or helping and service fields, such as social work, according to the results of the Collegiate Learning Assessment Plus. The test, which is given to freshmen and seniors, measures the gains made during college in critical thinking, writing and communication, and analytical reasoning.
Moreover, college graduates working in jobs related to their undergraduate majors are more satisfied.
Eduventures, a higher-education consulting firm, found in a survey of some 5,000 alumni of an unnamed major research university that those employed in jobs “extremely similar” to their field of study in college were more than twice as likely to be highly satisfied with their jobs as those working in jobs unrelated to their majors.
How often do graduates end up working in fields unrelated to their major? Frequently, it turns out, at least at that major research university. And those students are not only less satisfied, Eduventures found. They also would be less likely to seek a degree at their alma mater in the first place. Previous studies by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce have found that earnings differ greatly by major.
But you can also find evidence that broader skills trump the major.
Of course, for every study on this subject there is always a counterargument. A recent survey of employers, by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, found that they overwhelmingly agree that the ability of workers to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is much more important than their undergraduate major.
But since not all majors are created equal, perhaps colleges should do more to highlight the differences—for students choosing what to focus on, and for employers.
Jeffrey J. Selingo is a contributing editor at The Chronicle and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. Follow him on Twitter @jselingo.
