Majors that Pay and Majors that Don't

By Philip Host on May 6, 2015

Chances are you are familiar with the economical hierarchy of majors. The exact order of this hierarchy is not settled, but by general consensus it would appear that business and engineering are near the top while literature and philosophy compete for a few dollars at the bottom. If, like me, you are pursuing or considering pursuing one of the less-than-lucrative subjects, you should understand what exactly it is that you are getting yourself into.

Every account of life as an English major that I have heard has consisted of encouragement from someone who has miraculously made it, laments from those who have despaired entirely, or consolations from people who have found respectable work outside of their major. In the last case, they typically stress that English or philosophy majors can often land jobs in business or administration as their choice of major shows an ability to think outside the box and a willingness to take risks.

But just as most business majors want to go into business, there is a not insignificant group of humanities students who want to work in their own field. Why, after all, would one abandon the passion that they stuck with and engrossed themselves in for four years more?

The answer, of course, is money. Now we all know that money cannot buy happiness. But it can buy food and clothing and airplane tickets. What’s more, money has a strong correlation to success, and while success does not necessarily bring happiness, repeated failure can certainly work against it. And let me assure you, if you are interested in a job in the humanities and you do not want to teach high school or younger, you are almost certainly in for repeated failure.

Rejection is the name of the game, and perserverance is the only rule. But perservence is easily preached from behind a podium. It is more difficult to embrace when you are skimming another rejection email, perched on a bed for lack of other furniture. If you want to succeed in the humanities you need to be endowed with not only talent but also incredible luck and often almost delusional levels of self-confidence. Until you succeed you will be subject to equal measures of respect and disdain from more succesful people in other fields. You will be frequently encouraged to rethink your life and you will have to endure countless sermons from the successful. And what will you have to show for it?

Enjoyment of your work, for one thing. This is crucial: in order to keep doing the humanities you have to really like it. This is true for all subjects, but other subjects often have outside benefits. Like steady pay. But if you do care about your work in the humanities for its own sake, well, that can be enough. If you can make it from day to day, from meal to meal, with the small consolation of seeing something you wrote published, even if you are not paid for it, and the infrequent boosts that someone else’s praise can give, you might be able to hold on to the very end. And then success would be no more than a bonus, nothing to get carried away about, just another comfort and, with any luck, not a distraction from your work.

Image Via Philip Host

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