For many college students, the choice of their major is not just a matter of shaping a course of study but shaping a future after graduation. The perception, at least, is that students majoring in business are more likely to graduate with jobs, and better paying jobs at that.
Alexis Colopy, an art major, buys that perception.
“Employers line up to see what kind of students are in the business school,” she said. “It’s not as easy for people like myself, regardless of the work we might do.”
But is there any truth to this perception that majoring in business, rather than in, say, English, will more likely translate into a high-salaried job with benefits after graduation?
Not really, said Matthew Brink, director of Career Development at Saint Joseph’s U. Although frustrations may occasionally run high in departments within the arts and humanities, Brink said he doesn’t believe one’s choice of a major is always a determinant of future income.
“It’s understandable why the perception exists, but it [getting a job] has more to do with the career cycle than the major of that student,” said Brink. “A student’s pursued career field is not always reflective of his or her major. We often have students from a business-related major want to pursue a career in the non-profit industry. They will have no advantages over a sociology major going into the same industry.”
According to Katharine Brooks, Ed.D., director of the Liberal Arts Career Studies at the University of Texas and author of “You Majored in What? Mapping Your Path from Chaos to Career,” some majors are naturally pre-professional, thus more likely to land a student a job relevant to his or her major.
“Those majors, such as engineering and accounting are, of course, more likely to find employment which is directly related to their education,” said Brooks. “The farther away from a specific career path the major is, philosophy for example, the more likely the graduate will find a job that doesn’t specifically require that major.”
This spring, the Career Development Center released statistics on the class of 2009 of Saint Joseph’s that presented the number of survey respondents from each major and the average salaries of the students from the different majors. Accounting, finance, and marketing were among the majors with the highest number of respondents as well as the highest average salary. Brink believes that one factor influencing this data is the timing of different organizations’ hiring cycles.
“Certain fields have early hiring cycles while others have an on-demand system,” said Brink. “Some finance and accounting firms are so large and profit-making that they have employees who go to schools to look at college candidates. Other smaller staffed organizations hire immediately when a position is vacant because the loss of productivity is more heavily felt.”
The survey was conducted between March and November 2009. Brink said he believes that the timing of the survey may not have given prospects of certain career fields a sufficient amount of time to obtain a job.
Accounting, finance, and marketing are also among the most popular majors at Saint Joseph’s U., helping inflate the numbers, he said. St. Joe’s is not alone in its difficulty in obtaining and deciphering such statistics, according to Brooks.
“Career services personnel across the nation struggle with the best way to collect this data,” said Brooks. “Salaries are generally self-reported: I get to tell the surveyor how much I earn. Quite frankly, I can make it up and no one will know.”
Payscale.com, a company that maintains an online database of employee salary data, took on the daunting challenge of collecting relevant information about college majors. The 2009 Payscale College Salary Report confirms that engineering majors will fare better than social workers when it comes to jobs and salaries.
The top five majors from a list titled “Best Undergrad Degrees by Salary” include aerospace engineering, chemical engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering and economics. The bottom five include majors in Spanish, music, theology, elementary education and social work. In the middle of the pack are majors in philosophy, biology, history, health sciences and English.
These statistics were collected by colleges themselves, and according to Brooks, there is no way to prove their legitimacy.
“The data can be influenced by people who either want to brag about their great salary or title, or by those who are angry that they are unemployed,” said Brooks, Ed.D. “I once tried collect similar data. The two Philosophy majors of the class earned $2,000 and $80,000 respectively, accounting for a mean of $41,000: a completely meaningless figure.”
Until a formula is devised to prove or disprove this notion, the perception will exist that certain majors more easily allow students to obtain jobs once they graduate. Employment is only one aspect to one’s selection of a major, however, and according to Brooks, it is important for a student to take everything else into account.
“If you’re pursuing a major that doesn’t have a direct career path, then it’s important to focus on what you enjoy, what your strengths are, and how your major has taught you to think,” she said.