Worthless Major?

I was watching one of the morning shows today before going to work and there was a story on the Princeton Review’s latest ranking of the top colleges in the country. They talked about dorms, teachers, parties, all of that stuff. This got me thinking about my undergrad days. When I was applying to schools, I just wanted to get into a nice place that was far away from the northeast. I grew up in the NYC and still rep it today, but I wanted to get away. I wanted no part of schools in New York, Boston, the entire New England area and Connecticut. Philly was a possibility, but nothing came of it. I ended up going to a school that had warm weather, beautiful girls and free SEC sports, I was down. You mean I can go to the Florida football games and Kentucky basketball games for free! Where do I sign up?

I also gave y’all a link about the 10 most worthless majors: http://www.holytaco.com/2008/06/03/the-10-most-worthless-college-majors/

My ultimate major at Vandy was number four, but at least I didn’t major in Latin, Film or Religion. I studied Latin for six years before college and wanted no more of that. There are only so many ways you can read about Claudius or Caesar. Homer was solid though. I really don’t like films then or now, so that was out. Religion, I question my faith on my own. Paying thousands of dollars to do it back then wasn’t happening.

When I first entered college in 1999 (wow, its been a few years!), I had to frickin clue what I wanted to major in. I was excited to go to a good school in a nice city and everyone was nice. I wanted to be a lawyer for some reason. I guess it sounded cool and it got my family off of my back. Actually, lets take it back a few years to get a concept of why I ended up majoring in English in college and how it was pointless.

The first career that I remember actually wanting to have was an engineer. My mother worked at an architecture firm and I got to talk to some of those guys and their jobs sounded cool. Plus, they got to work on lighted tables, who didn’t want that as a kid? OK, maybe only me, but you get the idea.

I wanted to design sports stadiums. I would sit at the dump known as Shea Stadium where my beloved Mets played as a kid and even then I knew the stadium stunk. I would wonder why they’re weren’t seats in right center or why there were some bad seats with terrible angles to home plate, things like that. I decided that I would design revolutionary stadiums with roofs that could be retractable. The scary thing is that I was thinking this stuff in like 1988 right before the SkyDome opened in Toronto with the first retractable roof. I’m not saying I’m a genius, but I should have gotten a patent or something.

However, I started to not like math and geometry and that’s kinda important for an engineer, so that career was out.

Next, I moved on to wanting to be a surgeon that would perform procedures on athletes. I figured that athletes get hurt all of the time and need someone to take care of them. However, once I found out how long medical school is, I was out. I liked helping people but I didn’t want to be in school until my late 20’s.

BTW, I’m 27 and in grad school now. Real smart on my end.

However, wanting to help people still stuck with me and I decided around high school to be a psychologist. They always seemed to help people when they were down and I was always told that I was a good listener, even though I didn’t really pay attention to them.

So, I headed to college with the intentions of becoming a psychologist, probably for athletes. Sports have always been a central theme in these career decisions looking back on it now.

I registered for Psychology 101 and sat in a big lecture room with around 100 of my closest friends and didn’t understand a darn thing. I remember stuff about cognitive dissonance and maybe one or two other things. I talked to psych majors and they told me that the major gets better but my desire wasn’t there.

I then decided to get into sociology because I wanted to go to law school. I worked at the Vandy law school library and enjoyed myself there. I liked talking to the law students and I would actually read about the cases they were studying, which excited me. It was recommended that I study sociology as an undergrad to prepare for law school.

However, I was in an entry level sociology class and I still remember the teacher’s name, which I won’t reveal here, and I didn’t like the class at all. I was a sophomore by this time and I couldn’t imagine myself doing this for two and half more years.

At Vandy during that time, you had to declare your major by the end of sophomore year and I was getting stuck. I took some English classes and had some of the prerequisites taken care of in that major. I really couldn’t afford to stay at Vandy more than four years so I needed to pick a major that I could finish in that allotted time. That’s how I decided my major.

For years, I thought that this was an unwise choice and it kinda was. I really should have majored in Communication Studies, which I ended up picking up a minor in, because those were the classes that I really enjoyed. I liked taking courses in public speaking, rhetoric, communications, and things like that. I wasn’t interested in poetry, British literature and other things that I did with my major.

Was the major worthless? It’s mixed for me. My job now entails me having to use the skills that I learned as an undergrad. I have to edit published materials and write as a public relations director for an athletic department.

The reverse of that is that I’m in graduate school now for sports administration to learn things that I could have done as an undergrad. That’s not the school’s fault because the English professors were great or the major’s fault, that’s on me.

If I knew that I wanted to be a sports executive as an undergrad, I could have majored in business and then interned at the athletic department or a professional team like the Titans, Predators or Sounds, all of which were present when I was in school.

Now I get to interact with those people as a grad student today. Life is a cycle man.

However, going through all of my experiences made me find what I really liked. If I stayed an engineer since I was eight years old, I would wonder about some other careers. I’ve had the fortune to work in so many different fields that I know what I like and don’t like.

And I think that should be the general message taken from articles that talk about worthless majors or the top colleges in the nation. I had no clue what I wanted to do as an 18-year old and still have doubts today. I hope the kids entering college today give themselves a chance to change and be unsure.

If you know you want to be a doctor as a teenager and target a school that will prepare you best for that, props to you. However, I know a lot more people who were like me.

What are your thoughts on your college major and has it helped your career or not? I would like to hear your responses to this.

For now, here’s some Minus the Bear and Pantera that I was listening to while writing this post. Bands on the opposite end of the spectrum. After reading this post, that shouldn’t surprise you. Enjoy.