Useless Courses , Majors and Degrees?

Post Reply New Topic

Young peoples' employment in Europe is no picnic right now, except maybe in Germany.

If you are from a rich family with good connections: Study what you are interested in.

If you are not from a rich family: 1) You can study to get a degree that is wanted by companies. 2) You can study something, to get the degree that you are interested in - but better learn a basic job before it.

So if you want to study philosophy or whatever, I would do it. But first I would get some practice in normal office job or such things. If you have a rich family and connections you will easily find a job with the degree you want, and even if not then its not that bad if you need some time to find a job.

But if you dont have rich parents with connections, and want to study something out of interest, with a for companies or economy "worthless" degree, its better to have a minor job meanwhile, because without connections it can easily take some years to find a propper job for the degree you have.

To study something you are interested in, is never worthless in my oppinion, but if you are on your own you need an emergency plan. With my degree for environmental engineering I also needed 6 months to find my first propper job, meanwhile I could work at McDonalds because I already had some experiences with similar jobs, because of working in school holidays and additional to school. A friend of mine studied music. After she was done with it and had her degree she needed to years to find a job she was interested in, and in the meantime she worked as a waitress.

So I can only tell you to go for your dreams, but if you are not privileged: Have an emergency plan. XD A useless course is for me one, that I am not interested in, because it wastes my time. Better working for some months now and then at McDonalds or callcenters until finding a job I am interested in, instead of learning something that I am not interested in to waste my whole life with working something that I am not interested in.

totally useless
a degree in Russian with a minor in biology.
and
a degree in communication science disorders and deaf education.
I've not been able to find any job.

I'd like to add meteorology and atmospheric sciences to this list. I'm stuck with a bachelor's and a master's degree in meteorology that has pretty much no value in the real world. While I have no regrets and enjoyed studying it, it was an absolutely worthless pursuit careerwise as there are very few jobs in meteorology and atmospheric science.

The National Weather Service is not hiring due to the sequester and there is very little funding for research as a lot of that money comes from the government as well. Even before the sequester, meteorology was a very difficult field to get into as it's highly specialized and there are way more people with newly minted degrees than there are positions available. From what I've heard, it's not unusual for there to be 200 or 300 candidates vying for a single opening. The key to getting in is knowing the right people.

This is also the problem with a field that is highly dependent on the whims of politicians and funding from the US government. In a bad economy, funding tends to dry up, as do opportunities.

Given that a meteorology degree requires about as much math and physics as an engineer, I should've studied engineering or computer science in college.

this aspie imagines that the first college that links up with state businesses in a quid-pro-quo arrangement [IOW you train 'em in what we as businesses need, and we'll hire 'em] will have students beating down the doors. at least that is what would happen in a better nation.