Use averages to make a bad choice of a college major

Lily Tomlin used to say that if we could grow up to have the jobs of our dreams, we'd have a world filled with cowboys and ballerinas.

There's no shortage of studies showing the relative economic value of various college degrees. This morning's Boston Globe carries a Washington Post story that asks and answers this question again. What’s a college degree worth? Depends on your major.The story points out the average starting salary for graduates in selected fields.

Yup, it does. What's never mentioned in these articles is anything about the student's aptitude or abilities or credentials. The articles suggest that young people should do the research and make the best decision about lifetime incomes. It's simple math.

Average salaries give you just enough information to make a bad choice of college major decision or career. Dan Ariely noted, "Everyone, except for the very depressed, overestimates their chances when it comes to good things..." Further, as the number of people obtain degrees in these desired fields, the market can saturate and salaries can plummet. Take a look at what's going on with the number of law school graduates, as seen in Students Employed As Strippers’ Should Be Part Of A Law School’s Ranking.

I've seen plenty of artists who are working in technical or scientific professions. A few can blend these skills and build creative solutions. I've seen just as many who are terribly mismatched. They bring glory to neither their skills nor their profession. They can be a danger to others.

I've seen plenty of people accumulate debt and anxiety while studying for careers for which they are well-suited. Even though we have computers to do our math for us, programmers need to have superior math skills to tell the computers what kind of math to do. It's not simple math

Your poet-programmer who takes two or three times as long to solve a problem will be producing at an hourly rate of a barista. Folks who are that productive don't stay employed for long.

The same, by the way, works in reverse. I speak from experience. In a couple of days, I could learn how to strum a tune on the guitar or plink it out on the piano. Several of my grandchildren could achieve the same in about 20 minutes, having fun in the process.

The American myth is that anyone can be anything. It's a cruel myth. There are so many more factors that go into success and/or happiness.

• You have to choose, but that's not all you have to do.


• You have to work, but that you have to do.


• You have to have skills, opportunity, and good luck,  but that's not all you need.

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1. Choose a major based on what you're good at.


2. If you're not particularly skilled in something, pick what excites and throw in a few risky things as well.
   Don't worry about GPA. As a manager, I never ask for or cared about GPA. Some companies might care, but fewer than you think.


3. If you don't have skill or passion, but can afford it, stay in college, hoping that some spark might begin to glow.
   If you can't stay or if nothing happens, maybe it's not time.
   I didn't get my B.A. until my late 20s. I wasn't the oldest in my graduating class.  I had, by then, a definite career goal - a Ph.D. program followed by teaching.
   I crashed and burned two months in.
   I've since had a great life and career in a field for which I was never trained.

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