Am I going to be unemployed when I graduate with my professional writing/English degree? A fair number of people would say yes. The corporate world is not a friendly place for liberal-arts majors. There seems to be an unceasing mindset coming from society that majoring in something not easily marketable is akin to shooting yourself in the foot. As I speak to the people around me also majoring in the humanities, I’m far from the only person who is concerned about their career path after college.
We have a good reason to be worried. The job market for English and other liberal-arts majors is shrinking every year. For every success story of the English major that makes it in the workforce, there seems to be hundreds of untold stories that involve failure and unemployment.
Along with that, we frequently hear that STEM-related fields (science, technology, engineering and math) are the only majors actually worth pursuing. Anything else is a waste of time and money. We absolutely need these majors in our society, but not everybody has the ability or the passion to pursue them.
Putting the cherry on top of the entire issue, college is absurdly expensive. As liberal-arts majors, we are putting ourselves into thousands of dollars of debt in hopes that the investment pays off in the long run. And if it doesn’t? It’s too bad for us, because debt never goes away.
As such, to the average person, majoring in liberal arts seems like an incredibly bad idea. However, in spite of this, there are countless numbers of students in the USA currently majoring in English or philosophy or some other kind of "undesirable" major. What keeps us going?
It's passion. Passion is the thing that drives us. It's the love for words or the adoration of music or the habit of wanting to digest as much literature as you possibly can. If you have an unadulterated love for the field that you pursue, the debt and the fear become worth it. Sure, the worry about our future may reside in the back of our minds, but we know that with passion and dedication, we can eventually make it.
If you have no passion, interest or love for your major, I would argue that pursuing it is an incredibly bad idea. You can dedicate your entire life to a job in science or math and get paid well, but if you absolutely hate it, what is the point? I propose that it is better to make a small paycheck while doing what you are passionate about than making a huge paycheck doing what you don’t care about in the slightest.
It is often said that you should work to live, but I emphatically disagree. If you’re working eight hours a day at a job that you despise, you’re wasting a large percentage of your life simply in the name of making good money. If the majority of your week is spent working in misery, no big paycheck is worth it.
I am by no means attempting to say that if you major in STEM, you’re making a mistake. If you truly enjoy what you’re doing, then you should absolutely keep going on. However, if you’re stuck in a field that you despise in the name of making money, I would consider changing your path while you still have the chance.
So to all of my fellow English, writing, music, philosophy, history or other various liberal-arts majors out there: Keep on keeping on. The world needs passionate majors of all kinds.
