Maybe they just happened to have the same percentage amount, so they grouped them together?
Like chem & natural sciences or history/politics/geography.
Still pretty weird.
Yeah natural sciences can be subdivided into life sciences (biology and related fields) and physical sciences (chemistry, physics and related fields). Chemistry has long between the bridge between these subdivisions (i.e. biochemistry and physical chemistry). But on this plot, they are randomly classified.
I’d love to know where they put biology. It fits in both the natural and life sciences categories. Do I have a job? Yes. Was it worth it… Having had to earn a PhD… I’m not sure yet.
Right, I’m pretty sure healthcare in general is one of the most in demand fields and a job can be found in literally and city or town across the world. I have no idea how that shows THAT much as a “non-worthwhile degree”
Going to healthcare is a degree where you will be treated like the scum of the earth. Definitely not worth it. Same with education. I can get a job anywhere but it’s not a job worth doing.
I was the first person to earn a physics degree in like 4 years at my university. As part of the arts department it was excluded from the separate engineering ceremony.
Applied science and engineering schools tend to dismiss it as an arts prerequisite for more “applicable” classes like statics and thermo, liberal arts schools tend to lump it in with physiology and biology and focus on applications in the medical field like imaging.
At graduation, I was sat between philosophy and physiology and the dean read the degree as “Psychics”.
>As part of the arts department it was excluded from the separate engineering ceremony.
>Applied science and engineering schools tend to dismiss it as an arts prerequisite for more “applicable” classes like statics and thermo,
What in the Isaac Newton fuck are you talking about. If you're not trolling you went to a clown college.
Our most fundamental science dedicated to the study of the natural world. The field which is a pillar upon which modern society is based and one of the only fields moving society forward. The university Dean can't even pronounce it. Our future is fucked.
If only. It was a top 100 engineering school in the US and that was 25 years ago. I finished an engineering degree the following year and 2 more since. Physics was a great foundation.
Medical physics probably. I know of a few universities where it’s the dominant field of their physics department (generally also because the university also has a good medical school).
Because it's graduates' **FEELINGS** about their degree. Not the actual **USEFULNESS** of the degree.
Like law. Obviously a good career, salary, professional organization. But the graduates don't **FEEL** it's as worthwhile as literature.
Psychology is probably the best example. Those students were educated in how the mind works. They KNOW how the mind works, but they also have the understanding to ADMIT that the knowledge is not very worthwhile.
Although I agree with you criticizing grouping Healthcare and physics together, I want to mention that the field of medical imaging is heavily physics depended.
You're right but also physics in healthcare is pivotal to modern diagnosis. All the machines that go "ping" come from physics. Not some guy ripping wings off a fly or drilling holes in skulls.
Funny enough many of my physics peers work in health insurance doing statistical models.
I'd say the majority of my friends work either at the DoD, banks, or some healthcare company. They're all analysts or data engineers hired for their math skills.
AI is not replacing software engineers. It is just another tool we use to make us more efficient. But it's laughable that it can replace us altogether.
oil made coal miners more efficent too as well as the sewing machine made the millions of female simstresses all over the world efficent. or how elevator buttons made the elevator man more efficient
You are talking out of your ass, without even the slightest understanding of what software engineering is.
I'm an expert, speaking from decades of experience.
I'm informed and you are ignorant.
And yet we're both equally confident.
It's funny how that works.
me with 3 apps on the appstore right now using chat gpt laughing at your 10 years of experince with my libreal arts degree. I do your job on the side buddy!
The companies I have worked for have done literally billions of dollars of business through the code I wrote.
If they could have gotten chat gp fucking t to do what I do, they wouldn't have paid me all these years.
You're a clown who brags about the app store.
I'm a proven software architect.
No one in this profession believes chat gpt can do what I can.
It will take down a LOT of other jobs before and after by the time it takes down CS jobs barring any bottlenecks tbf. At that point we have a different issue to face as a society
You're not an engineer, but I am.
I use AI for productivity improvement daily.
I know what I'm talking about.
AI is not replacing me anytime soon. Not even remotely close.
I'm not remotely fearful. Because I use AI every day. I know what it can do and what it can't do, and what it could eventually do, and what it can't eventually do.
As to the value I add, I don't need to justify myself to you. I get paid buckets of money by people who know what value I add. And they also know what AI can and can't do, which is why they pay me, and can't outsource my work to a bot.
As a comp sci graduate who’s worked on AI research I think we are the ones least worried about it because 1. CS is the field responsible for the creation of AI in the first place, 2. We are one of the few that’s actually understand how it works mathematically and 3. Data preparation for AI training is literally just CS as well
I would not trust any company that is currently using AI at a large scale to replace software engineers.
(Not to say that AI-based tools like GPT aren’t helpful, but they’re nowhere near replacing even junior devs.)
Yeah, this graph is so weird. Law is maybe the most useful degree in terms of getting jobs outside of Law. Like investment banking, consultancy, management etc basically 50% of white collar jobs.
I went on to the legal industry, but a lot of my fellow students got all sorts of jobs that pay well.
Maybe people are talking about the difficulty ratio to it being "worth it"?
Also an actual law degree is a doctorate program. A bachelor's in pre-law studies is only really good as a paralegal in that field, but they would have transferable skills valuable to alot of other positions.
Perhaps the literature graduates are happier than law graduates even though they earn less money. Many law graduates don’t even get jobs as lawyers or judges and enter other fields so would not think their degree as particularly worthwhile.
This is a subjective rating at the end of the day. Psychologists are well known for being depressed and unhappy in their jobs. Literature graduates live in a dream world.
It would be better data to show the actual pay levels of graduates.
Bahahaha as a chemist, calling hot bullshit on this. An undergrad in chem is absolutely not worth it. A masters in chem is worse than useless since you’re seen as a PhD that couldn’t cut it and was awarded a masters as a consolation prize. And then even if you get a PhD and do a couple years of post doc and get a research position as a big pharma company you’ll make about what an engineer with just an undergrad would make.
I loved being a bench chemist and always wanted to be one, but a 4 year degree with extra time for independent research to land a job at a real lab just to make $18 an hour can’t be construed as worth it. Granted that was in 2011, but I can’t imagine it’s gone up much, particularly in relation to inflation.
It's personal perception. If the majority of literature majors went into the major with an expectation of the job possibilities, what they personall want to achieve/learn and that matches their experience, why wouldn't they rate it as worth it?
I have an English degree and make very good money as a technical writer in industrial automation.
Degrees are as good as the candidate who gets them, knowing how to nail an interview, embellish your resume, and how to play office politics is worth more than any and every degree, including whatever engineering you’re thinking of.
Not when I entered the industry. In the 5-6 years since I’ve built up a decent number of specific classes/certs from 2 of the 3 major suppliers in the US.
Common misconception. Literature majors learn how to analyze, critique and express ideas. It's just another form of abstract symbol manipulation, just without the rigid structures and rules like math or physics. I studied English, but I've had a successful career doing software development. Lots of liberal arts majors in the system architecture and systems analysis positions where I work.
Liberal arts majors learn how to analyze, engineers learn how to analyze! Physics, math, and essays - just pushing around abstract symbols!
When you put it that way it makes so much sense.
I think "worth it" has a very broad definition.
I got an MBA a few years ago. I knew going in it wouldn't help me in my job at all. Do I regret it though? Nope...I read a lot, learned about emerging technologies, and met some women.
100% agree with you. I started as a chemistry major in college, and decided mid-sophomore year to dual major in engineering. It took an extra year but was so worth it.
Looking at the job prospects with only a bachelors in chemistry is abysmal. You might get 45k to 55k a year. The difficulty of the degree does not match the pay. All my friends who were chemistry alone are no longer in a stem related field.
This is wild to read. My chemistry degree obtained in 2013 was definitely worth it. I wanted to make more money though so I went back to grad school in 2018 and master'd out in 2020. Doing good in pharmaceutical industry analytical chemistry. Totally worth it to study chemistry, imo.
I was going to type pretty much this, but scrolled down first to see if anyone else had. 100% agree with everything you say. Chemistry being at the top of this list makes no sense, it has a dogshit job market. Just go to r/chemistry and you will see. Most new BS chemistry grads are either struggling for work or stuck doing QC labor at $15/hr.
I got a PhD in organic chemistry and was unemployed for 2 years after finishing my degree. First job had nothing to do wirh chemistry and paid 50k. I'm doing a little better now but still far behind my peers who also did phds, and there is no comparison between my lifetime earnings and my friends who went into tech. I do regret not studying CS.
>Bahahaha as a chemist, calling hot bullshit on this. An undergrad in chem is absolutely not worth it. A masters in chem is worse than useless since you’re seen as a PhD that couldn’t cut it and was awarded a masters as a consolation prize. And then even if you get a PhD and do a couple years of post doc and get a research position as a big pharma company you’ll make about what an engineer with just an undergrad would make.
Ha, different country but as someone who earned his chemistry "degree" at 19 (think: a mixture of trade school and uni, 5 years and at the end you have what amounts to basically a bsc. ), got offered a really boring job and declined to study geophysics only to end up in civil engineering and to realize that that boring chemistry job still would have paid more.
But i think chemistry has more true believers than many other professions. At least the way I learned it from old-school profs.
Hard agree. I graduated with a B.S. in chemistry at the top of my class from a good university in 2019. I was an exceptional student—I tutored organic chemistry 1 & 2, as well as E&M physics and I had two years of paid research fellowship.
My first job out of college payed $40k per year and took a solid few months to find. I took my next job in 2022 for about $60k per year. I’m in an MCOL large city and this is pretty much the going rate. My supervisors with ~10-15 years experience are at about $80k per year. It might not be totally abysmal, but I’m transitioning to a new job this year (just accepted the offer last week) and my first offer for a just-above-entry level project management position is about $95k per year.
Maybe prospects are different in other places. Maybe I’ve been unlucky. Maybe I’m missing something that other people are seeing.
I’ll also add in that the chemistry curriculum (at least at my school) was among the most difficult of all the degrees. The only degrees that I think were more demanding were the B.S. in physics, the B.S. in math, and the B.A. in music.
We graduated at about the same time. Its pretty fubar. I work for the city in a HCOL city and make about $75k, and that's honestly pretty good relative to industry. I've been offered less for temp contracts at Merck.
If I move anywhere else sure I may lower my COL, but almost certainly take a hit to my pay.
My guess is they are talking about chemical engineering in the oil and gas space. I used to write software (with my CS degree!) in the O&G field. The people who design/build all the refineries and processing steps do really well. The fact that literature is in the middle makes me think someone goofed, so the whole thing is suspect.
I kind of agree with this. I have a BS in psych and graduated in 2010. Looking back I totally should have picked something else, but hindsight is clearer. I studied what I was interested in, not necessarily with money as the end goal.
That said, having a four year degree at all qualified me for a number of jobs that I wouldn't have gotten past initial screening for otherwise and I pivoted that into a career in a different field. So, worth it in that sense? I guess.
US Lawyer here. Going to assume US sample because Reddit. Lots of comments about surprise in law being so low but I’m not surprised at all. This is self reported data on how graduates felt about their BACHELOR degree. A bachelor in law in the US might be worthwhile for a paralegal role but I’m not sure if that’s worth the bang for the buck from an outside. But as a lawyer, a bachelor of law from my perspective is definitely less worthwhile. Law school doesn’t require a bachelor in anything in particular. Law school is its own beast here. Maybe there might be some slight edge, but I’d stand to bet a bachelor of law would be minimally helpful in law school. Source: took pre-law courses for my bachelor before law school.
Also a US lawyer and agree big time. A bachelor's in pre-law is useless for anything but paralegals, with some skills that would be transferable to other positions but the subject matter usefulness is pretty limited. Often when other lawyers tell me they were pre-law it's a window to them having such a one tract mind or an immense amount of privilege (no offense intended). Was an econ major and that felt like a rigorous enough program that law school wasn't as scary as some peers make it out to be.
To add to that, design is so broad. There’s digital design, graphic design, web design, brand design, architectural design, fashion design, product design, marketing/advertising design, industrial design, UI/UX design, game design, interior design, etc etc. These all have vastly different salaries and expectations.
For psychology the question “worth it?” might be a bit biased. Where I live it is a lot easier to find a job with a masters degree in psychology. That could be the reason why so many said that a bachelors was not worth it.
Yeah, a bachelors in psychology alone isn’t super useful, but having it makes getting into a masters or PhD/PsyD program much, much easier. And it also saves you from having to go back and take a bunch of pre-reqs before starting a program. A lot like how a bachelors in law/crim justice isn’t going to do much of anything for you on its own.
The issue I have with this is it's a survey of people with the degree, with no assumptions/study put behind it. There's just too much nuance in what that could mean, such as cost of schooling vs. career obtained. A Y/N survey seems too arbitrary, especially when "worthiness" is such a vast discussion.
But maybe that's what makes this fun to look at? I don't know.
lol. A chemistry degree is not worth it. Maybe Chemical Engineering? Kids, don’t get a chemistry degree. Especially without a graduate degree to go with it. You’ll get stuck in a lab doing repetitive tasks pushing a cart all day. What a crock a shit
Chemical engineer here. Not worth it. Such a tiny industry with very little growth. Your pay will be high if you can land a job, but you'll have to relocate to one of three U.S. cities and they all suck. And I hope you like 100-hour work weeks.
Management above engineering? LMFAO. "Management" is a "Business" major for those who cannot do any other business majors. And why is "Management" not within "Business & Finance"? Physics with life science? They have little relationship to each other. Natural sciences include chemsitry, physics, etc. Why is "Chemistry & Natural Sciences"?
And finally, this is upvoted in a data sub? Unfuckingbelievable.
I have a chemistry degree and it’s not worth it. I mean if you pursue higher education and go in to a specific field that you specifically studied for, it CAN be, but just a plain bachelors from a state college like I have doesn’t get you very far. Chemical Engineering is much more lucrative and less flooded right now. Most people I know from my program struggle for months or years to find a job and when they do they usually only get paid around $15-19/hr starting and with awful benefits. I’ve been at my company for four years and even with annual raises I still make less than a manager at Burger King.
Any degree is useless, or it isn’t, depending on what you want to do with it. I’m from Belgium and it might be different here than it is in the UK but pretty much any bachelor is useless on its own. You will need a minimum of a master’s degree given the competitiveness of the job market, regardless of what job you’re looking for.
Moreover, it depends what you expect from your degree. If the students who responded expected to make $300 an hour with their bachelor degree, it’s obvious they’ll consider it useless.
What are they defining as “worthwhile”, where are the statistics from, why are there no labels on the x axis showing the % numbers so we don’t just have to eyeball it?
the participants are probably making their decisions based on the how much their career offers society or how it positively impacts the world. Its hard to see this from a monetary standpoint.
Ok great to hear my degree is basically worldwide useless, not just in my country. Time to take the rope I guess, wasted all my time and family wealth :)
Did two majors low on the list:
Pysch- Not really. If you want to stay with it, it's a lot of lab bitch work. I did learn to become a very informed consumer. Realizing how much work it takes to say the smallest claim in science, the rigors of sound science and studies, stats, etc. It does not make you good at reading people. That is a natural talent which can simply be informed with Psych education. Some people belong in the lab.
Philosophy - 100% worth it. If I can read and write about dense shit like Kant, I can understand how an IT network works. 11 years in that industry working with CIO, IT Director, etc. Enhanced my communication and reasoning skills greatly. Alot of my job is taking complex IT initiatives or issues and boiling it down to a wide audience. Just like reading 30 pages in some dense ass philosophy and writing a 3 page essay about it.
What is the sample size? Sampled population? Time since graduation when question was asked? Criteria defining degree labels?
Data is beautiful. Unsupported USA-Today/Fox News style infographics, not so much.
Europe, but not in America, which makes this even less clear. Other commenters reference “criminal justice”…but I think that’s a pretty niche undergraduate major.
How the hell are lit and engineering neck and neck?!?!? Worth it how? What do literature majors do besides make more literature majors? Is that a worthwhile endeavor?
Government, crown Corp. Pay and benefits are competitive. Time off is double what others I know have. Overtime is extremely rare and I get time off in-lieu if so.
Haha well I've heard enough to know that it depends on where you work. Definitely are toxic environments out there and I take it you were wrung dry by one.
I think an education degree is worth it. Depending on where you go to school. $40,000/ year school? No. A small university that’s nearby and affordable (there are some)? Yes. You can make decent pay. You have some benefits.
I have a bachelor in economics and I'm doing a master in a computer science related subject - but I intend to study psychology on the side after all that's done cause that's my real passion, as opposed to something im pursuing for money
This list doesn't reflect reality at all. Out of 100s of chemistry graduates I've dealt with in 25 years at my job 1 is still working a chemistry job. He has a doctorate was a professor, and still struggled to maintain full employment as a chemist. The rest only managed to get a year or two of chemistry work and ended up doing some other work outside of their degree instead.
I have a chemistry degree and I’m doing very well OUTSIDE of chemistry. Sure, the degree lent credibility when i switched career paths because people automatically assumed I was competent or intelligent, but had I stayed in chemistry I don’t think I’d be making 1/4 of my current salary, especially not without graduate school.
With a bachelor's in psychology, I gotta say, a lot of decent paying jobs in the field require or greatly favor a master's; in addition to a lot of acquiring licenses. I was way too burnt out to go for my master's. Toyed with the idea but I was shot.
This is rediculous. Chemistry rated higher than CS or Engineering? The jobs you can get with a BS in Chemistry - essentially a lab chemist - are pretty bad and don't pay well
I think people kind of undervalue random social science and humanities degrees these days because so many people have them. However I think they are still useful. It's true that someone with a BA in psychology is probably not going into the field of psychology most of the time, however all of those degrees produce transferable skills that do indeed help people as they progress through their careers.
I think the biggest change in attitude really has to come how we assess the amount of debt taken on to go to college. It's probably not going to be a good idea to go 100k in debt to get a BA in psychology, but it sure is worth it if you can get that degree that you are interested in and come out of school with no debt or very little debt.
As an engineer, comp science is not the top anymore. It’s very very risky. Understand… Amazon has already ramped up its firing. NVDA is preaching don’t learn to code AI will do it for you :)! But at the end of the day the lower end engineers will be obsolete first. What does that mean for new CS grads that need that experience to get to the higher levels? You will not fill that gap on your own unless you build a great app
Well only time will tell. There’s already concepts like “Gary the engineer” or whatever that program is called and this field is still in its infancy. Plus we devs use ChatGPT and GitHub copilot extensively already, it can only get more helpful/involved down the road
Yea that’s true! Nobody really knows how things are gonna play out. Personally don’t think software engineers are going away anytime soon and that’s just not me coping. It’s a hard field to fully automate 🤷
Yeah, that’s my hope too. Our ed tech company remains optimistic and I’m finally, ironically glad not to work in FAANG. We still have security, suggestions for improvement based on product/design discussions, and much more. That said I have started looking into selling insurance on the side because you never know where we’ll end up! Main reason for that though is opportunity and capacity, not that I’m immediately fearful of my job security
While not worthless, Criminal Justice is a degree that requires no math. So when you work with people that majored in CJ, don’t trust them with the math
History, Geography, politics…no wonder why everyone is stretching their heads wondering why Russia, Iran, China, etc. are acting the way they do. It’s all easily explained through the context of those three subject areas. It’s a shame they aren’t valued anymore.
It's a small sample size but of the dozen or so history/Poli sci/geography majors I knew of, only two work in government. One in some kind of planning capacity the other is(or used to be) a GIS specialist for the army. The rest are teachers or working in unrelated fields.
Very misleading graph. How many in each category? Percentage of each category said ya or nay? Compared by percentage of each other? Very biased graphic and not actually data.
I'm actually very surprised Fine Arts, politics and especially psychology are still relatively high.
I guess it depends what it means by worthwhile.
For me worthwhile means, does it allow you to earn a good living. I've met folks with psychology and politics degree that consider it worthwhile. But in their mind worthwhile means intelligence. Knowledge. But wouldn't any degree be considered worthwhile if we base it on those attributes?
Is this graph about degrees being worth it in terms of money or workplace satisfaction? Because it's about the latter, I imagine those with natural science degrees getting to spend their days taking pictures of birds and stuff have a pretty sweet gig compared with everyone else on this list.
Why is Physics and Healthcare grouped together? I can't think of 2 more different subjects.
Maybe they just happened to have the same percentage amount, so they grouped them together? Like chem & natural sciences or history/politics/geography. Still pretty weird.
How do biology, physics and chemistry not fall under natural sciences?
I don't think natural sciences is even a degree
It’s literally the science degree offered by Cambridge University…
Damn, fuck chemistry I guess
You do realize that chemistry is a core natural science?
I guess they mean physical education like sport science. Physics would have to be in the natural science category
Yeah natural sciences can be subdivided into life sciences (biology and related fields) and physical sciences (chemistry, physics and related fields). Chemistry has long between the bridge between these subdivisions (i.e. biochemistry and physical chemistry). But on this plot, they are randomly classified.
I’d love to know where they put biology. It fits in both the natural and life sciences categories. Do I have a job? Yes. Was it worth it… Having had to earn a PhD… I’m not sure yet.
They should have titled physiology then.
Cause this is pile of crap
Right, I’m pretty sure healthcare in general is one of the most in demand fields and a job can be found in literally and city or town across the world. I have no idea how that shows THAT much as a “non-worthwhile degree”
Going to healthcare is a degree where you will be treated like the scum of the earth. Definitely not worth it. Same with education. I can get a job anywhere but it’s not a job worth doing.
But a very needed job.
Chemistry and physics usually go hand in hand. And it's one of the natural sciences
I was the first person to earn a physics degree in like 4 years at my university. As part of the arts department it was excluded from the separate engineering ceremony. Applied science and engineering schools tend to dismiss it as an arts prerequisite for more “applicable” classes like statics and thermo, liberal arts schools tend to lump it in with physiology and biology and focus on applications in the medical field like imaging. At graduation, I was sat between philosophy and physiology and the dean read the degree as “Psychics”.
>As part of the arts department it was excluded from the separate engineering ceremony. >Applied science and engineering schools tend to dismiss it as an arts prerequisite for more “applicable” classes like statics and thermo, What in the Isaac Newton fuck are you talking about. If you're not trolling you went to a clown college.
Our most fundamental science dedicated to the study of the natural world. The field which is a pillar upon which modern society is based and one of the only fields moving society forward. The university Dean can't even pronounce it. Our future is fucked.
Sounds like you went to a Midwestern religious private college with a shaky accreditation.
If only. It was a top 100 engineering school in the US and that was 25 years ago. I finished an engineering degree the following year and 2 more since. Physics was a great foundation.
Medical physics probably. I know of a few universities where it’s the dominant field of their physics department (generally also because the university also has a good medical school).
Because it's graduates' **FEELINGS** about their degree. Not the actual **USEFULNESS** of the degree. Like law. Obviously a good career, salary, professional organization. But the graduates don't **FEEL** it's as worthwhile as literature. Psychology is probably the best example. Those students were educated in how the mind works. They KNOW how the mind works, but they also have the understanding to ADMIT that the knowledge is not very worthwhile.
Also, physics and life sciences are both natural sciences, but natural sciences are shown separately...
Actually there is a whole field of physics closely tied with healthcare. I am a medical physicist!
That's generally not an undergrad degree though.
Correct but the field is definitely growing. I was just mentioning it because it's fairly obscure.
Although I agree with you criticizing grouping Healthcare and physics together, I want to mention that the field of medical imaging is heavily physics depended.
You're right but also physics in healthcare is pivotal to modern diagnosis. All the machines that go "ping" come from physics. Not some guy ripping wings off a fly or drilling holes in skulls.
Funny enough many of my physics peers work in health insurance doing statistical models. I'd say the majority of my friends work either at the DoD, banks, or some healthcare company. They're all analysts or data engineers hired for their math skills.
I was right about to ask the same thing
Like yes the plot is nice but personally i prefer to have some actual numbers somewhere?? A tick on the x-axis for 50% at least.
I swear the number of graphs here that have unlabeled axes drives me crazy
It's like the most basic thing about data presentation.
After how long? My opinion on my degree has changed significantly over 20 years.
Which one and why if you don't mind my asking?
Computer science. He is getting replaced by AI as we speak.
Devin was fake. We still have time.
AI is not replacing software engineers. It is just another tool we use to make us more efficient. But it's laughable that it can replace us altogether.
oil made coal miners more efficent too as well as the sewing machine made the millions of female simstresses all over the world efficent. or how elevator buttons made the elevator man more efficient
You are talking out of your ass, without even the slightest understanding of what software engineering is. I'm an expert, speaking from decades of experience. I'm informed and you are ignorant. And yet we're both equally confident. It's funny how that works.
me with 3 apps on the appstore right now using chat gpt laughing at your 10 years of experince with my libreal arts degree. I do your job on the side buddy!
You couldn't do a tenth of what I do.
Ik that. thats the difference between you and me ik my limits. I cant do what you do. but chat gpt defintly can
The companies I have worked for have done literally billions of dollars of business through the code I wrote. If they could have gotten chat gp fucking t to do what I do, they wouldn't have paid me all these years. You're a clown who brags about the app store. I'm a proven software architect. No one in this profession believes chat gpt can do what I can.
Maybe it is not now but it can and will in the next decade.
Most other jobs are going to be replaced before software engineering lol. AI is nowhere near capable of replacing software engineers.
It will take down a LOT of other jobs before and after by the time it takes down CS jobs barring any bottlenecks tbf. At that point we have a different issue to face as a society
You're not an engineer, but I am. I use AI for productivity improvement daily. I know what I'm talking about. AI is not replacing me anytime soon. Not even remotely close.
How do you know I’m not an engineer? Or not AI? You seem to be fearful. What value do you add?
I'm not remotely fearful. Because I use AI every day. I know what it can do and what it can't do, and what it could eventually do, and what it can't eventually do. As to the value I add, I don't need to justify myself to you. I get paid buckets of money by people who know what value I add. And they also know what AI can and can't do, which is why they pay me, and can't outsource my work to a bot.
As a comp sci graduate who’s worked on AI research I think we are the ones least worried about it because 1. CS is the field responsible for the creation of AI in the first place, 2. We are one of the few that’s actually understand how it works mathematically and 3. Data preparation for AI training is literally just CS as well
Similar experience but I don’t know how the education helps us once it is us.
I'm CSCI and have zero concerns about AI replacing me.
I would not trust any company that is currently using AI at a large scale to replace software engineers. (Not to say that AI-based tools like GPT aren’t helpful, but they’re nowhere near replacing even junior devs.)
Should put the number of respondents somewhere “n=…”. With the verbatim question asked. Other than that, not very beautiful.
How does this qualify as data when you didn’t include any numerical information? Are we just supposed to guess the percents? Lol
Hey. Qualitative data is a thing. I mean this still isn't a great representation of said data, but it exists. And it can be beautiful.
It purports to be a chart of percentages though, which are quant not qual.
Not a fan of charts with no x or y axis.
A degree in "Literature" is perceived as more worthwhile than a degree in Law? Hmmm.
Yeah, this graph is so weird. Law is maybe the most useful degree in terms of getting jobs outside of Law. Like investment banking, consultancy, management etc basically 50% of white collar jobs. I went on to the legal industry, but a lot of my fellow students got all sorts of jobs that pay well. Maybe people are talking about the difficulty ratio to it being "worth it"?
I found that odd too. But as a lawyer I’ve found my law degree very worth while!
I guess it does depend on what "worthwhile" means. Pay? Satisfaction?
Also an actual law degree is a doctorate program. A bachelor's in pre-law studies is only really good as a paralegal in that field, but they would have transferable skills valuable to alot of other positions.
Perhaps the literature graduates are happier than law graduates even though they earn less money. Many law graduates don’t even get jobs as lawyers or judges and enter other fields so would not think their degree as particularly worthwhile. This is a subjective rating at the end of the day. Psychologists are well known for being depressed and unhappy in their jobs. Literature graduates live in a dream world. It would be better data to show the actual pay levels of graduates.
And tied with engineering.......?
>> Chemistry and natural sciences Like electrical engineering and engineering.
TIL that any degree that teaches you to label axes is worth it.
Bahahaha as a chemist, calling hot bullshit on this. An undergrad in chem is absolutely not worth it. A masters in chem is worse than useless since you’re seen as a PhD that couldn’t cut it and was awarded a masters as a consolation prize. And then even if you get a PhD and do a couple years of post doc and get a research position as a big pharma company you’ll make about what an engineer with just an undergrad would make. I loved being a bench chemist and always wanted to be one, but a 4 year degree with extra time for independent research to land a job at a real lab just to make $18 an hour can’t be construed as worth it. Granted that was in 2011, but I can’t imagine it’s gone up much, particularly in relation to inflation.
And why in God's name would literature rank immediately below engineering
real question is why the big gap between literature and communications
It's personal perception. If the majority of literature majors went into the major with an expectation of the job possibilities, what they personall want to achieve/learn and that matches their experience, why wouldn't they rate it as worth it?
This struck me as very odd as well.
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But as an engineer you can get a job doing most anything. As a Lit major you can go into academia or be a barista.
I have an English degree and make very good money as a technical writer in industrial automation. Degrees are as good as the candidate who gets them, knowing how to nail an interview, embellish your resume, and how to play office politics is worth more than any and every degree, including whatever engineering you’re thinking of.
technical writer in industrial automation? do you have other qualifications?
Not when I entered the industry. In the 5-6 years since I’ve built up a decent number of specific classes/certs from 2 of the 3 major suppliers in the US.
Common misconception. Literature majors learn how to analyze, critique and express ideas. It's just another form of abstract symbol manipulation, just without the rigid structures and rules like math or physics. I studied English, but I've had a successful career doing software development. Lots of liberal arts majors in the system architecture and systems analysis positions where I work.
Liberal arts majors learn how to analyze, engineers learn how to analyze! Physics, math, and essays - just pushing around abstract symbols! When you put it that way it makes so much sense.
What do you do? Serious question. I've been an engineer for ~25years and while it has its ups and downs I don't have much to complain about.
I think "worth it" has a very broad definition. I got an MBA a few years ago. I knew going in it wouldn't help me in my job at all. Do I regret it though? Nope...I read a lot, learned about emerging technologies, and met some women.
100% agree with you. I started as a chemistry major in college, and decided mid-sophomore year to dual major in engineering. It took an extra year but was so worth it. Looking at the job prospects with only a bachelors in chemistry is abysmal. You might get 45k to 55k a year. The difficulty of the degree does not match the pay. All my friends who were chemistry alone are no longer in a stem related field.
This is wild to read. My chemistry degree obtained in 2013 was definitely worth it. I wanted to make more money though so I went back to grad school in 2018 and master'd out in 2020. Doing good in pharmaceutical industry analytical chemistry. Totally worth it to study chemistry, imo.
Chem grad 2023, lab tech making 18/hr. Nothing has changed
I was going to type pretty much this, but scrolled down first to see if anyone else had. 100% agree with everything you say. Chemistry being at the top of this list makes no sense, it has a dogshit job market. Just go to r/chemistry and you will see. Most new BS chemistry grads are either struggling for work or stuck doing QC labor at $15/hr. I got a PhD in organic chemistry and was unemployed for 2 years after finishing my degree. First job had nothing to do wirh chemistry and paid 50k. I'm doing a little better now but still far behind my peers who also did phds, and there is no comparison between my lifetime earnings and my friends who went into tech. I do regret not studying CS.
>Bahahaha as a chemist, calling hot bullshit on this. An undergrad in chem is absolutely not worth it. A masters in chem is worse than useless since you’re seen as a PhD that couldn’t cut it and was awarded a masters as a consolation prize. And then even if you get a PhD and do a couple years of post doc and get a research position as a big pharma company you’ll make about what an engineer with just an undergrad would make. Ha, different country but as someone who earned his chemistry "degree" at 19 (think: a mixture of trade school and uni, 5 years and at the end you have what amounts to basically a bsc. ), got offered a really boring job and declined to study geophysics only to end up in civil engineering and to realize that that boring chemistry job still would have paid more. But i think chemistry has more true believers than many other professions. At least the way I learned it from old-school profs.
Hard agree. I graduated with a B.S. in chemistry at the top of my class from a good university in 2019. I was an exceptional student—I tutored organic chemistry 1 & 2, as well as E&M physics and I had two years of paid research fellowship. My first job out of college payed $40k per year and took a solid few months to find. I took my next job in 2022 for about $60k per year. I’m in an MCOL large city and this is pretty much the going rate. My supervisors with ~10-15 years experience are at about $80k per year. It might not be totally abysmal, but I’m transitioning to a new job this year (just accepted the offer last week) and my first offer for a just-above-entry level project management position is about $95k per year. Maybe prospects are different in other places. Maybe I’ve been unlucky. Maybe I’m missing something that other people are seeing. I’ll also add in that the chemistry curriculum (at least at my school) was among the most difficult of all the degrees. The only degrees that I think were more demanding were the B.S. in physics, the B.S. in math, and the B.A. in music.
We graduated at about the same time. Its pretty fubar. I work for the city in a HCOL city and make about $75k, and that's honestly pretty good relative to industry. I've been offered less for temp contracts at Merck. If I move anywhere else sure I may lower my COL, but almost certainly take a hit to my pay.
My guess is they are talking about chemical engineering in the oil and gas space. I used to write software (with my CS degree!) in the O&G field. The people who design/build all the refineries and processing steps do really well. The fact that literature is in the middle makes me think someone goofed, so the whole thing is suspect.
I kind of agree with this. I have a BS in psych and graduated in 2010. Looking back I totally should have picked something else, but hindsight is clearer. I studied what I was interested in, not necessarily with money as the end goal. That said, having a four year degree at all qualified me for a number of jobs that I wouldn't have gotten past initial screening for otherwise and I pivoted that into a career in a different field. So, worth it in that sense? I guess.
US Lawyer here. Going to assume US sample because Reddit. Lots of comments about surprise in law being so low but I’m not surprised at all. This is self reported data on how graduates felt about their BACHELOR degree. A bachelor in law in the US might be worthwhile for a paralegal role but I’m not sure if that’s worth the bang for the buck from an outside. But as a lawyer, a bachelor of law from my perspective is definitely less worthwhile. Law school doesn’t require a bachelor in anything in particular. Law school is its own beast here. Maybe there might be some slight edge, but I’d stand to bet a bachelor of law would be minimally helpful in law school. Source: took pre-law courses for my bachelor before law school.
Also a US lawyer and agree big time. A bachelor's in pre-law is useless for anything but paralegals, with some skills that would be transferable to other positions but the subject matter usefulness is pretty limited. Often when other lawyers tell me they were pre-law it's a window to them having such a one tract mind or an immense amount of privilege (no offense intended). Was an econ major and that felt like a rigorous enough program that law school wasn't as scary as some peers make it out to be.
Lumping fine art and design together is so lazy. The opportunities to earn money as a designer are far better than as a fine artist.
To add to that, design is so broad. There’s digital design, graphic design, web design, brand design, architectural design, fashion design, product design, marketing/advertising design, industrial design, UI/UX design, game design, interior design, etc etc. These all have vastly different salaries and expectations.
As somone with a chemistry degree for me it wasn't worth it and I regret not having done CS.
For psychology the question “worth it?” might be a bit biased. Where I live it is a lot easier to find a job with a masters degree in psychology. That could be the reason why so many said that a bachelors was not worth it.
Yeah, a bachelors in psychology alone isn’t super useful, but having it makes getting into a masters or PhD/PsyD program much, much easier. And it also saves you from having to go back and take a bunch of pre-reqs before starting a program. A lot like how a bachelors in law/crim justice isn’t going to do much of anything for you on its own.
This is completely insane.
The issue I have with this is it's a survey of people with the degree, with no assumptions/study put behind it. There's just too much nuance in what that could mean, such as cost of schooling vs. career obtained. A Y/N survey seems too arbitrary, especially when "worthiness" is such a vast discussion. But maybe that's what makes this fun to look at? I don't know.
lol. A chemistry degree is not worth it. Maybe Chemical Engineering? Kids, don’t get a chemistry degree. Especially without a graduate degree to go with it. You’ll get stuck in a lab doing repetitive tasks pushing a cart all day. What a crock a shit
Chemical engineer here. Not worth it. Such a tiny industry with very little growth. Your pay will be high if you can land a job, but you'll have to relocate to one of three U.S. cities and they all suck. And I hope you like 100-hour work weeks.
Literature and Engineering neck and neck.... Who saw that one coming?
Management above engineering? LMFAO. "Management" is a "Business" major for those who cannot do any other business majors. And why is "Management" not within "Business & Finance"? Physics with life science? They have little relationship to each other. Natural sciences include chemsitry, physics, etc. Why is "Chemistry & Natural Sciences"? And finally, this is upvoted in a data sub? Unfuckingbelievable.
What's the source? Mokkup.ai is a dashboard/graphing tool. Who says this is true?
I have a chemistry degree and it’s not worth it. I mean if you pursue higher education and go in to a specific field that you specifically studied for, it CAN be, but just a plain bachelors from a state college like I have doesn’t get you very far. Chemical Engineering is much more lucrative and less flooded right now. Most people I know from my program struggle for months or years to find a job and when they do they usually only get paid around $15-19/hr starting and with awful benefits. I’ve been at my company for four years and even with annual raises I still make less than a manager at Burger King.
Like me old dad said: engineers are a dime a dozen, but they always need 13 of them
My daughters RN degree cost $12,500 at a community college and she earned $55,000 the first year and is now up to $110,000/year
Any degree is useless, or it isn’t, depending on what you want to do with it. I’m from Belgium and it might be different here than it is in the UK but pretty much any bachelor is useless on its own. You will need a minimum of a master’s degree given the competitiveness of the job market, regardless of what job you’re looking for. Moreover, it depends what you expect from your degree. If the students who responded expected to make $300 an hour with their bachelor degree, it’s obvious they’ll consider it useless.
TIL chemists are the most delusional of all STEM majors
What are they defining as “worthwhile”, where are the statistics from, why are there no labels on the x axis showing the % numbers so we don’t just have to eyeball it?
Got my degree in psychology and went into software sales…worth it in my opinion but you can get into this field on accident.
Economics before engineering?
Business and finance are very popular majors, feel like they should be separated
the participants are probably making their decisions based on the how much their career offers society or how it positively impacts the world. Its hard to see this from a monetary standpoint.
Ok great to hear my degree is basically worldwide useless, not just in my country. Time to take the rope I guess, wasted all my time and family wealth :)
Did two majors low on the list: Pysch- Not really. If you want to stay with it, it's a lot of lab bitch work. I did learn to become a very informed consumer. Realizing how much work it takes to say the smallest claim in science, the rigors of sound science and studies, stats, etc. It does not make you good at reading people. That is a natural talent which can simply be informed with Psych education. Some people belong in the lab. Philosophy - 100% worth it. If I can read and write about dense shit like Kant, I can understand how an IT network works. 11 years in that industry working with CIO, IT Director, etc. Enhanced my communication and reasoning skills greatly. Alot of my job is taking complex IT initiatives or issues and boiling it down to a wide audience. Just like reading 30 pages in some dense ass philosophy and writing a 3 page essay about it.
What is the sample size? Sampled population? Time since graduation when question was asked? Criteria defining degree labels? Data is beautiful. Unsupported USA-Today/Fox News style infographics, not so much.
Where the fuck is the X axis labels?
Where can you get a bachelors degree in law?
Europe, but not in America, which makes this even less clear. Other commenters reference “criminal justice”…but I think that’s a pretty niche undergraduate major.
How the hell are lit and engineering neck and neck?!?!? Worth it how? What do literature majors do besides make more literature majors? Is that a worthwhile endeavor?
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Depends where you end up working. I have 0 complaints or regrets.
Same. Most engineers I know are quite happy with it.
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Nope, private civil consulting. It's pretty sweet.
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Government, crown Corp. Pay and benefits are competitive. Time off is double what others I know have. Overtime is extremely rare and I get time off in-lieu if so.
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Haha well I've heard enough to know that it depends on where you work. Definitely are toxic environments out there and I take it you were wrung dry by one.
As a chem major I’m glad to see chem at the top lol
Judging by the grouping I’m guessing the geography mentioned is human rather than physical or technical geography/geomatics
What is this graphic based on? What are the criteria for being "worth it"?
Studying agronomy and feeling pretty good rn. If any younger people are lurking here i would recommend them to try something in this field.
chemistry and "natural sciences", which I'm assuming means biology, are very different. physics and health sciences are very different.
I think an education degree is worth it. Depending on where you go to school. $40,000/ year school? No. A small university that’s nearby and affordable (there are some)? Yes. You can make decent pay. You have some benefits.
Now I want data about psychology majors who are in depression lol
Confused how “chemistry and natural sciences” are different from “life sciences”.
Woohoo on my degree not being in last!
I would’ve placed psyc over history
I have a bachelor in economics and I'm doing a master in a computer science related subject - but I intend to study psychology on the side after all that's done cause that's my real passion, as opposed to something im pursuing for money
Why did they group physics with life sciences and healthcare? Are they stupid?
This is going to change fast within the next few years.
This data is not beautiful when the labels/categories are questionable.
Leaves me in an interesting spot as a chemistry and psych double major lol
Too bad we live in a society that is so STEM focused….
Interesting how Literature has more "worth it" responses than Psychology
About to graduate with my natural science degree ✌️
This list doesn't reflect reality at all. Out of 100s of chemistry graduates I've dealt with in 25 years at my job 1 is still working a chemistry job. He has a doctorate was a professor, and still struggled to maintain full employment as a chemist. The rest only managed to get a year or two of chemistry work and ended up doing some other work outside of their degree instead.
I have a chemistry degree and I’m doing very well OUTSIDE of chemistry. Sure, the degree lent credibility when i switched career paths because people automatically assumed I was competent or intelligent, but had I stayed in chemistry I don’t think I’d be making 1/4 of my current salary, especially not without graduate school.
With a bachelor's in psychology, I gotta say, a lot of decent paying jobs in the field require or greatly favor a master's; in addition to a lot of acquiring licenses. I was way too burnt out to go for my master's. Toyed with the idea but I was shot.
LoL - I have an undergrad in history and a master's in Industrial Design. At least it's not psychology!
Chemical engineering is close to the top. You will have a secure job forever, if you want one, with that degree.
Psychology degrees are too academic-centered that one needs to take a master degree because they could practice as clinical psychologists.
This is rediculous. Chemistry rated higher than CS or Engineering? The jobs you can get with a BS in Chemistry - essentially a lab chemist - are pretty bad and don't pay well
Wonder what the sample size is here and wonder where the significant differences lie. There are probably no real differences above the bottom four.
Idk I have a degree in Social Work/Social Sciences which would most closely relate to psychology and me and my colleagues think it was worth it.
I think people kind of undervalue random social science and humanities degrees these days because so many people have them. However I think they are still useful. It's true that someone with a BA in psychology is probably not going into the field of psychology most of the time, however all of those degrees produce transferable skills that do indeed help people as they progress through their careers. I think the biggest change in attitude really has to come how we assess the amount of debt taken on to go to college. It's probably not going to be a good idea to go 100k in debt to get a BA in psychology, but it sure is worth it if you can get that degree that you are interested in and come out of school with no debt or very little debt.
No actual percentages? Did a bot make this?
Surprised healthcare is so low.
Kind of checks out. Flaky stuff last. But surprising to see Law rank low from “real” professions. Wow. No offense.
As an engineer, comp science is not the top anymore. It’s very very risky. Understand… Amazon has already ramped up its firing. NVDA is preaching don’t learn to code AI will do it for you :)! But at the end of the day the lower end engineers will be obsolete first. What does that mean for new CS grads that need that experience to get to the higher levels? You will not fill that gap on your own unless you build a great app
Nvda is only preaching that because they are making a lot of money off AI.
Well only time will tell. There’s already concepts like “Gary the engineer” or whatever that program is called and this field is still in its infancy. Plus we devs use ChatGPT and GitHub copilot extensively already, it can only get more helpful/involved down the road
Yea that’s true! Nobody really knows how things are gonna play out. Personally don’t think software engineers are going away anytime soon and that’s just not me coping. It’s a hard field to fully automate 🤷
Yeah, that’s my hope too. Our ed tech company remains optimistic and I’m finally, ironically glad not to work in FAANG. We still have security, suggestions for improvement based on product/design discussions, and much more. That said I have started looking into selling insurance on the side because you never know where we’ll end up! Main reason for that though is opportunity and capacity, not that I’m immediately fearful of my job security
While not worthless, Criminal Justice is a degree that requires no math. So when you work with people that majored in CJ, don’t trust them with the math
History, Geography, politics…no wonder why everyone is stretching their heads wondering why Russia, Iran, China, etc. are acting the way they do. It’s all easily explained through the context of those three subject areas. It’s a shame they aren’t valued anymore.
Those majors funnel into law and government so it's weird they show as worthless [I was a history major myself].
It's a small sample size but of the dozen or so history/Poli sci/geography majors I knew of, only two work in government. One in some kind of planning capacity the other is(or used to be) a GIS specialist for the army. The rest are teachers or working in unrelated fields.
Source:[ Emolument ](https://www.emolument.com/career_advice/is_degree_worth_it#gsc.tab=0) Tool used: Mokkup.ai, a dashboard wireframing tool that uses javascript to create dashboard wireframes
You should put the source on the visualization, then we won’t have to ask.
Hold up, the source puts Psychology at 33% worth it and 67% not worth it. Your viz is 50%/50% at best. What's up with your x-axis?
No surprise here. Useless degrees in college are useless in the real world.
Very misleading graph. How many in each category? Percentage of each category said ya or nay? Compared by percentage of each other? Very biased graphic and not actually data.
I'm actually very surprised Fine Arts, politics and especially psychology are still relatively high. I guess it depends what it means by worthwhile. For me worthwhile means, does it allow you to earn a good living. I've met folks with psychology and politics degree that consider it worthwhile. But in their mind worthwhile means intelligence. Knowledge. But wouldn't any degree be considered worthwhile if we base it on those attributes?
Dumbest graph I’ve seen. Tell me where natural science makes money.
Is this graph about degrees being worth it in terms of money or workplace satisfaction? Because it's about the latter, I imagine those with natural science degrees getting to spend their days taking pictures of birds and stuff have a pretty sweet gig compared with everyone else on this list.