ArtSci Angst

What are you going to do with that major?”

This seemingly innocuous question that friends, family, and strangers often ask of liberal arts students like myself, represents a large problem for those enrolled in Washington University’s College of Arts & Sciences (ArtSci). To put it simply, students feel
pressured by their parents, fellow students,
and themselves to know the answers to what the future holds. However, many Artsci students do not know exactly what they want to do after college.

This is perfectly okay. College should be a place where students explore different subjects and grow intellectually . The problem is that many students feel anxious about the potential career opportunities of many of the majors within Arts and Sciences, so instead of choosing a major they love, they choose a major that seems to be “safe,” one that will lead to a guaranteed job with good income.

In recent years this “major anxiety” has become worse. In 1974, 44 percent of college students considered “being very well off financially” to be an “essential” life outcome. According to a survey by the Chronicle of Higher Education, 84 percent of students in 2014 believed it was essential to be well off. Much of this shift could be caused by the rising price of tuition
and the recent recession. Some students have to worry about paying off student loans in a
time of increased unemployment. This change in student attitude, however, also reflects a broader trend of increased focus on getting good jobs after graduation. As a result of this trend, the liberal arts are coming under attack for being “impractical.” Increasingly students are criticized for choosing majors such as Anthropology or Philosophy that teach students important skills, but do not lead to obvious career paths outside of academia.

Students have become very concerned with choosing majors that give them a leg up in the job world, but they do not realize that, for most careers (other than a small subset that require specific training like medicine or engineering), employers care more about having a college degree and basic competencies like writing and social skills than the student’s major choice. According to a study by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, business executives care more about their new hires’ thinking, communication, and problem-solving skills than they do about their undergraduate majors. Jennifer Smith, Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, thinks that students learn all these skills no matter what major they pursue.

“Arts & Sciences is thinking more broadly on getting students to recognize and articulate the skills and competencies that they are gaining from the classes they are taking, with the idea that these competencies are already there and pointing students to classes (public speaking, writing, etc.) that are signals for skills that employers are looking for,” Smith said. “Students need to build internship and work experience
to be employable, and then they can study whatever they want.”

The College of Arts & Sciences does a great
job in preparing students for careers, but
has not effectively communicated the career benefits of the liberal arts to students. Of the 33 departments and programs within the College, seven provide no information about potential careers on their websites and 16 provide less than a paragraph of information. The College of Arts & Sciences gets information on the different careers that students go into after graduation through surveys, but does not publish this information.

“It is tough for professors to relate to career concerns. They stayed in school a long time and do not prioritize salaries so it is hard,” Smith said. “It is a communication problem. Artsci has all the resources, but they do not do a good job sharing the information.”

Students should call on the College of Arts & Sciences to provide data on the types of careers alumni go into after graduation to help us feel more comfortable choosing less obviously practical majors.

Dorothy Petersen, an advisor and lecturer in the economics department, said that it makes sense why students grow anxious about majors.

“People want to know what sort of jobs/grad schools are possible with major X,” Petersen said. “You observe a lot of ‘adults’ (parents, grandparents, faculty, family, friends…) doing things in the real world, but the information about how they got there is harder to come by.

And there is an understandable anxiety about whether you’re going to make it.”

Just as there are problems with the way the College of Arts & Sciences gives students information on the common career paths of majors, there are also problems with the student culture. College students need to learn how to feel uncomfortable. Students may not know what they want to do with their futures, but college is the place to explore all the different subjects that may potentially become their passions. Personally, I came to Washington University with an interest in the humanities and social sciences. As I have taken more classes, I have found a love for both economics and the Text and Tradition program, where we read classics from Western history such as The Iliad. I came in with an open mind and decided that economics was the right choice for my major, but I also want to get a minor in Text and Tradition. I love studying the humanities, but I feel that economics is closer to the way that I think. Had I come to college with a set plan about what I was going to do, I would not have found so many great humanities classes.

Joy Kiefer, Director of Undergraduate Research and a pre-med advisor, believes that students should choose a major through an exploratory process.

“Students must cultivate a path for themselves. They have to be willing to ask questions and
be willing to be uncomfortable,” Kiefer said.
“If you can relax and explore, you will end up with the necessary skills. Learn to be a unique combination of different things.”

As students, we should all take Dean Kiefer’s advice and learn to explore different majors, even if we don’t see the potential career paths right away.

Parents concerned with the potential careers
of their children also play a major role in
creating this culture of anxiety in the liberal arts. According to a survey by Inside Higher Ed., 50 percent of parents say that the most important reason for a child to go to college is to get a good job or to earn more money. The economics department at Washington University even started publishing information on the average salaries, placements, and career paths of alumni to help alleviate parental concerns.

“Some students are unhappy that parents push them into majors,” Smith said. “Some parents won’t even let their kids take certain classes.”

Clearly, some parents are becoming involved in their children’s choice of major in the wrong ways. In my opinion, parents can do a great job at helping students figure out what they are really passionate about, and their support can help students sort through their complex feelings about different majors. Parents should not, however, pretend that they are experts on the job prospects of every major or push students towards majors because they are prestigious or make a lot of money.

As students, we need to fundamentally rethink how we choose our majors. The College of Arts & Sciences needs to provide better information on the common career paths of different majors and learn to better deal with students concerns over their futures. Students need to realize that selecting a major is about choosing something they love and that their employability is based on skills that can be gained within and alongside any undergraduate major. Parents need to help students through the process of choosing a major, but they should not dictate what their children end up studying. According to Dean Kiefer the question should not be, “What are you going to do with that major?” but rather, “What gets you excited about that subject?”