Dear skeptics, naysayers, and otherwise uncreative minds who criticize me for my choice in major.
Did I ever ask for your opinion? Whenever I tell people that I am majoring in anthropology, I am almost always greeted with “Oh, what are you going to do with that degree?” It is possible that they are asking out of genuine curiosity, but the condescending tone that asks, “Why are you wasting your time and money on something so impractical?” seems to suggest otherwise.
So what am I going to do with my degree? The truthful answer? I don’t know. But that’s okay. Because I don’t have to know right now, and quite frankly I would be terrified if I could plot out the next forty plus years of my working life simply based on what I decided to study when I was 18. Times have changed. Back in the '70s and '80s, people could go to college, get a degree, get a career within their field of study soon after graduating with said degree, and go on to marry, have a two-story house with a white picket fence and live out the American dream. Not today, though. Today the job market is extremely small, students are graduating with mountains of debt, and the value of a bachelor’s degree seems to be decreasing, with more and more employers requiring a minimum of a master’s degree.
While the concept of the future is daunting for millennials, to say the least, I would like to offer my opinion as a potential reassurance. It doesn’t matter what you get your bachelor’s degree in. Want to study philosophy, now’s the time! How about fermentation sciences, go for it! Pursue what you are interested in. You will have a better college experience, better grades, and a better outlook on life that just might help you land a job.
In my opinion, while bachelor’s degrees are still certainly important, the specifics are less so. With a bachelor’s degree, you have a fairly versatile, well-rounded education that can allow you to be employed in a wide variety of fields; even ones that do not align completely with what you majored in during college.
So, if you genuinely want to hear about my plans for after college, I would be happy to share them with you. But if you want to criticize my field of study, as well as my personal ability to make decisions regarding my own life, here’s what I have to say to you:
