Ask Lemmy

There are actually lots of surveys and studies done on this subject by schools, governmental, and financial institutions. They all have a pretty heavy stake in what degrees loans are being handed out for and whether that person will be able to repay it. There's really no need to speculate because there's lots of data out there.

https://www.inc.com/bruce-crumley/5-college-degrees-that-are-least-likely-to-land-new-grads-a-job/91248833

The NY Fed found people who earned diplomas in criminal justice are the most affected, with a 67.2 percent underemployment rate. They were followed by majors in performing arts at 62.3 percent, medical technicians at 57.9 percent, liberal arts at 56.5 percent, and anthropology at 55.9 percent.

Conservation. They waited till I had already been locked in to tell me that the only work you can get even with a degree is voluntary.

This one...

A Christian college’s courses for a “Marriage and Motherhood” bachelors degree - https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b32d0328-f530-4a66-a21b-b464d9c12f31.jpeg

My degree is "Technology Management" which is basically just the thing you get when you need a bachelor's degree but the specialty doesn't matter. I def wouldn't recommend somebody pursue it at the start of their career lol

I got my degree in Computer Science a decade ago, but never got my foot in the door. I feel like my degree is not worth the paper its printed on, recruiters only want experience, but I can't get experience because I don't have experience.

I spent the last seven years working an unrelated dead-end data entry job, but they kept increasing the workload until I couldn't handle it anymore. I've spent over a year sending resumes out into the void and haven't even gotten a single interview yet.

It might not be the single worst degree of all, but at least in terms of degrees you'd expect to be worth something, I think CS has the biggest gap between expectation and reality.

My girlfriend has a BFA in opera.

I think any bachelors’ degree is worth something. Getting work in the field you specifically are interested in can be the tough part though. Alternately, there can be lots of jobs, but none of them pay a living wage in the area you’re in.

You would need to have been in a very niche program to not have a lot of directly transferable skills. But even then, there are a decent amount of employers that would treat any bachelors’ as a sign that the applicant is more likely to be able to learn on the job through training.

I studied Anthropology 😂

alot, lib arts, studies, psychology if you arnt going to grad school dont bother with a job, because there is none. so many people i know went for psych while in college and gets mad when there isnt any. 1 of my cousin went to grad school for a PsyD and thats where the jobs are,. Also history, if you are thinking about only western history, its oversaturated, apparently asian history,,,etc is in short supply.

Philosophy.

Most arts degrees really. I think people mostly do arts degrees with plans to do a second degree in something more useful

Philosophy, History, English, etc.

Anything that really only opens up to teaching the subject you got a degree in, really. Not that I disrespect these, it just seems like they offer extremely limited job opportunities.

I expect the comments here to shit on liberal arts degrees, but both myself and my colleague have masters in liberal arts fields, undergrads in philosophy, and we work in Big Tech making what likely places us in the top 10% of incomes in our chosen locales.

Of course, it also means that we feel like we've completely betrayed any principles we have as we are soldiers in the march to make the world a shittier place, but that's the price we pay to keep our families fed.

With current job market probably computer science among them. Depending on country even chemistry or engineering can be a fail if there's no industry for that. From my perspective you can start something and by the time you have the degree the field is saturated, obsolete, whatever. Employers can be picky as heck in this economy. Posting fake jobs isnt helping too.

I think generically, the "worst" degree is one that is highly specialized, and overstaffed. People point at liberal arts, but the problem with it is there are a lot of people with those degrees and not enough jobs that use them effectively. You could get a hyper specific degree but if there are 10 people that work in the field and 10 jobs and isn't growing, or you could get a very broad degree that has 100,000 jobs but also has 100,000 people working in it and also isn't growing, you're just as out of luck.

You have to find a degree that matches what you're willing to do or learn with who is willing to pay you/grow. Even then, there's no done deals. 10 years ago Computer Science was one of the top degrees to get, now people are fleeing the programs.

Whatever the most marketable one was about ten years ago.

I think it goes this way

• Least: Probably a tie between most liberal arts majors. I can't rank them, but methinks none of these directly lead to employable skills 😂 (which sucks because I think they are wonderful for a well-rounded education)
• Really bad: "Pre-X" (pre-med, pre-law, ...). The majors themselves are honestly quite adaptable to most white-collar jobs. But their fields carry the stereotype of requiring a super-advanced (often doctorate) degree, so probably high chances of underemployment
• Bad: whatever major that was previously the part of a boom/bubble, so currently probably stuff like IT/data science. Great all-around majors that probably suffer from extremely lopsided demand-supply after the bubble pops

English

software engineering

One you can't back up in an interview without pulling up chatgpt, and only if you have no prior work experience.

After you've had a job for a year or two every degree question is just "did they get a degree," and even then rarely is there a care; the post-grad job performance is what matters.

This is coming from a Journalism major/English minor who got a job in programming a decade and change ago by getting an internship at a company that later hired them (I was familiar with Linux and cross-platform tools the CS majors wouldn't usually touch and which mattered to this company).

Of course, things are always changing. But fundamentally if you can't back up your BA/S it won't matter what it is.