Are any majors really impractical? The truth is, college students don’t have to be pre-med or pre-law to land a job after being an undergraduate. In fact, at liberal art schools it’s common to double, triple, major and minor, or even create majors yourself. What truly matters the most is not your major, your minor, or even the school within the university that you study in. In terms of practicality and real-life applications of education, what you do with what you have learned as an undergraduate is what throws the punch in finding a career.
My biology professor opened one of her lectures with a radical viewpoint of her friend who’s a doctor. She asked him, if you could give one piece of advice undergraduate students, what would it be? He replied “study what you love, as an undergraduate I was a history major.” Even though it may be difficult to find the time to do both what is considered a “practical” major and a hobby major, there may be unexpected opportunities that emerge from studying what you love. For example, an anonymous Brandeis student plans on double majoring in psychology and theater. Even though theater is stereotypically thought of as an “impractical major,” this student conveys that theater is a major aid in communication and interpersonal skills. Additionally, theater can by combined with psychology for creative forms of therapy.
A really great resource that Brandeis provides is the link through the Hiatt Career Center that lists careers that can emerge from every personality type. If you visit Typefocus.com, you’ll be prompted with personality assessments, interest assessments, and value assessments. This is a really great tool to utilize when you want to explore your choices for your future that match up well with your beliefs. Typefocus determines your preferences based on extraversion, intuition, feeling, and judging. The career center page itself has some great advice about thinking about majors including things to think about when considering various majors like:
• Did you reflect on your strengths, skills, interests, and values?
• Are there specific extra curricular activities that you enjoy and seem to always join?
• What do you imagine your major to be like? Don’t be afraid to scribble down anything and everything.
• Reflecting back on the classes you’ve taken thus far, do you see a trend towards any one department?
• Perhaps you know or have an idea about what you want to do after graduation. What skills and knowledge would help enhance your role in that field? Does that correlate with any major(s)?
One thing to focus on when considering majors is that this learning process is continual. More and more students are going on to graduate schools, traveling with the Peace Corps, or doing other alternative plans. This is a time in our lives where we have the opportunity to learn about a huge scope of knowledge, and to limit oneself to certain classes or majors because it’s deemed “impractical” by society would mean severing opportunities.