Former college president on choosing a major: Avoid this big mistake

December brings talk of college football playoffs and the start of basketball season. The Thanksgiving holiday might have included a visit home from your college student, and that can be a terrific family time. With or without a visit, there will be lots to talk about, including decisions about second semester (quarter) classes.

Some students, especially sophomores, are beginning to zero-in on a major. Though these academic choices don’t generate college-sports-level media coverage, they’ll have a much more significant effect on your student’s current and future life than the question of who wins the next big game.

Selecting a major can create anxiety for students and their parents

When students begin thinking seriously about selecting a major – or even just their next-term schedule – parents can become anxious. Understandably, they may worry that selecting the “wrong” classes or course of studies will diminish their child’s future job prospects, driving down the expected “return on investment” for a college education that they may be struggling to pay for.

First-year parents, who most likely were heavily involved in their student’s academic choices during high school, can also feel perplexed about their new role in their college-student’s life. (How much involvement is too much?) And these challenges can be even more pronounced for parents who did not attend college themselves.

Thoughts on selecting a major from former college president

Let me offer some thoughts about all this, in hopes of lowering the anxiety level and pointing toward helpful things college parents can do.

Let’s begin with a comment that might sound familiar. Not too long ago, venture capitalist Katherine Boyle tweeted:

The decline in liberal arts degrees bodes well for society on almost every dimension. College students now know that majoring in Book Club won’t get you a great job. This is progress.

Katherine Boyle

Her observation threw fuel on an already fierce debate about the value of studying the liberal arts rather than, say, computer science, business, or other academic areas often regarded as more “practical.”

As the president of a national liberal arts college from 2003 to 2020 (and a philosophy professor for fifteen years, earlier in my career), I encountered similar sentiments many times. But this discussion seems to grow more intense every year, as each new undergraduate cohort faces ever-greater pressures to realize the maximum economic value from the steep undergraduate tuition and fees their families are paying, as well as the significant loans they may have taken on.

What is the value of a liberal arts education?

Boyle was responding to a report that, while the number of U.S. students pursuing four-year degrees in computer and information sciences rose 34 percent from 2017 to 2022, the number of English majors fell by 23 percent, and the number of history majors fell 12 percent. (The New Yorker, 2/27/23)

Her facts are right. But her conclusion is dead wrong. There’s a much more beneficial way for both students and parents to think about the choice of a major and, especially, the “value” of a liberal arts education (including the contributions of the arts and humanities). As a liberal arts graduate herself with a B.A. in Government, Boyle should have known better.

First of all, people tempted to think like Katherine Boyle should remember this projection: On average, today’s college grads will change careers – not just jobs, careers – up to nine times over their working lives. Ten years out, they might find themselves entering a field that wasn’t even imagined when they were in school.

Fewer than one-third of college grads end up working in an area related to their major

Given the accelerating rate of technical, economic, and social change today’s graduates will live through, why would we pressure young people to choose a course of studies that may set them up for only their first job?

Succeeding in our rapidly evolving professional world will place a premium on the cognitive abilities associated with liberal arts education. These include: critical thinking, insightful reading, creativity, empathy, intellectual flexibility, curiosity, effective communication skills, the ability to access knowledge across a wide range of fields, and (most important of all!) the capacity and disposition to continue learning.

Research shows that heads of large and small companies alike highly value these skills, and indeed, a surprising number of Fortune 500 CEOs themselves earned degrees in the arts or humanities.

Furthermore, as New York Times columnist David Brooks has argued, cultivating these abilities also provides the best insurance against being replaced by Artificial Intelligence. (New York Times 7/31/2024) The good news: these skills can be developed along with most any major – provided students take full advantage of the general education and elective courses that are part of the curriculum in any college or university.

Students who select a major based on a combination of interest and ability perform at higher levels

Third, studies suggest that students who select a major based on a combination of interest and ability – what they want to do and are able to do well – rather than short-term employment goals, perform at significantly higher levels, both in college and afterward.

This is no surprise to psychologists, who’ve long understood that intrinsic motivation eats extrinsic motivation for breakfast. We human beings consistently perform better when we are positively engaged in our work – when we take satisfaction from the activity itself. (Very Well Mind, 5/3/2023)

To be sure, I would never dissuade students from pursuing a “practical” major, provided they’re enthusiastic about that field. The world certainly needs more scientists, computing specialists, engineers, ethical business leaders, and others. That academic work – and related post-college careers – can be enormously satisfying.

But it’s a profound mistake to choose one of those majors primarily because it appears to guarantee future prosperity.

And since current employment conditions often make lousy predictors of future trends, that “guarantee” can be illusory. Today’s “sure path” to a high-paying career can easily become tomorrow’s ticket to redundancy. For instance, the tech industry was disproportionally hit by layoffs in 2023. The legal profession underwent a similar experience about a decade earlier, when the number of law school graduates significantly outpaced available positions in law firms.

Choosing a major solely on the basis of potential financial return is like investing for retirement by playing the slots

Trying to choose a major solely (or even primarily) on the basis of potential financial return is like investing for retirement by playing the slots. Moreover, in today’s world, the narrower a course of undergraduate studies, the shorter its useful life is likely to be.

Finally and even more importantly, addressing our biggest societal challenges – climate change, political hyper-polarization, the opportunities and challenges associated with AI, etc. –will require significant input from people with expertise beyond what STEM or business degrees provide.

For example, avoiding the worst-case scenarios for powerful new AI technologies will require people to bring perspectives from ethics, politics, history, sociology, psychology, and other relevant fields – even literature. As Brooks and many others have argued, those “soft” majors will continue to be critical, both for employers and for society at large.

Taking all of this into account, here’s my best advice for college parents

First, encourage your student to select a major in which they both have had success and that inspires a passion for learning, which they can carry with them into future endeavors. If it’s a “practical” major, great! But if it happens to be a branch of the humanities, social sciences, or the arts, don’t be afraid that pursuing that preferred major will make your child unemployable.

There are simply too many examples that show the exact opposite will likely turn out to be true–especially if they cultivate the classical liberal arts cognitive abilities referenced above along the way.

Second, the most effective pathways from undergraduate school to immediate post-college employment lead through internships. This can also be true for fields that require further post-graduate study: for example, medicine, law, architecture, etc. Every college or university today understands this, and virtually all of them have offices or career development centers dedicated to matching students with internships (increasingly, paid ones), regardless of their major.

So, encourage your child to check out those opportunities at their school early on in their college career. (Freshman year is not too early.) Among other things, an internship provides a great way to test-drive a professional area to see if turns out to be as appealing, in fact, as it appeared from the outside. If it does, that experience may well lead to a post-college job offer (or a successful medical, law, or professional school application). If it doesn’t, then that’s an important lesson learned, and your student can turn their attention in a different direction.

A parents primary role is to listen

Finally, a parent’s primary role in this process is to listen, maybe ask a helpful question from time to time (for example, “Do you know what jobs some of the grads who chose that major are doing today?”), listen, perhaps offer a few helpful suggestions along the way (e.g., about internships), listen some more, and always offer support.

My main point is that a college student needs to make and own these critical life choices, and not make them based on parental expectations or, worse, pressure. Furthermore, don’t be surprised if your student changes their mind, maybe more than once. College should be a time of exploration and discovery, and sometimes that journey is not a straight line.

Students should resist calculations of what appears to be required in today’s job market.

Our colleges and universities could do a much better job of helping students appreciate the enduring benefits of the cognitive skills highlighted above. But until they do, it’s up to students themselves (with the encouragement of their parents!) to intentionally seek out ways to develop them, while resisting cold-hearted calculations of what appears to be required by today’s job market.

In this spirit, here’s a great question for any college parent: What could your student achieve if they knew they have your absolute confidence and support? None of us parents should ever waste an opportunity to convey that level of faith and encouragement to our children.

An undergraduate education represents, quite literally, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to realize the double benefits of studying in a field that sparks a genuine intellectual passion and preparing for a future that will reward the broad cognitive abilities that an effective college education should instill. This isn’t “Book Club.” It’s rigorous preparation for a life that’s intellectually rich and – given our ever-evolving professional world – can be financially rewarding, too!

More Great Reading:

How to Speak to Your Teen About Picking a Major in College