Four Degrees with 0% Unemployment

[Indy Coug]

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2012/news/economy/1205/gallery.high-demand-jobs/?source=cnn_bin

[falafel]

Yeah, but you still have to be an actuary.

[Indy Coug]

Yeah, but you still have to be an actuary.

Hey, do you want a job or not?

[wuapinmon]

Hey, do you want a job or not?

I'd become a government one so I could make policy and regulation decisions.

[Blueintheface]

Where are the statistics that prove a good actuary will actually help a company mitigate risk?

[CardiacCoug]

A undergraduate pharmacology degree? Yeah that will take you places.

[TripletDaddy]

lol.

An actuary is basically supposed to predict the future

[Indy Coug]

lol.

Agreed. We are just supposed to accurately put a confidence interval around the future.

[BYUMizzou]

Who knew geophysics would be such a hot field and Colorado School of Mines would be such a hot school. Coming out of HS (in Colorado), I was offered a full ride scholarship to Colorado School of Mines. I basically ignored it because a degree from BYU would take me farther in life. After graduating with an Econ major and a stats minor, I was hit in the face with the fact that I had zero job ready skills, so I did what everyone else with Econ degrees did and went to law school.

I'm convinced that high schools and especially colleges (including BYU) are seriously dropping the ball when it comes to advising students. I never once was made aware of any services at BYU where they evaluated my academic interests and strengths and tried to steer me towards a degree where my schooling would translate into ready employment.

Instead I started off as a math major because I liked math, then switched over to computer science, got bored and switched to Econ, then added a stats minor at the last minute, with no concrete plan in mind and no idea what career path the majors could take me to.

I'm sure there's a counselor somewhere in the basement of the SWKT that provides some sort of guidance, but they sure as hell didn't tell anyone about it.

[Paperback Writer]

Who knew geophysics would be such a hot field and Colorado School of Mines would be such a hot school. Coming out of HS (in Colorado), I was offered a full ride scholarship to Colorado School of Mines. I basically ignored it because a degree from BYU would take me farther in life. After graduating with an Econ major and a stats minor, I was hit in the face with the fact that I had zero job ready skills, so I did what everyone else with Econ degrees did and went to law school.

I'm convinced that high schools and especially colleges (including BYU) are seriously dropping the ball when it comes to advising students. I never once was made aware of any services at BYU where they evaluated my academic interests and strengths and tried to steer me towards a degree where my schooling would translate into ready employment.

Instead I started off as a math major because I liked math, then switched over to computer science, got bored and switched to Econ, then added a stats minor at the last minute, with no concrete plan in mind and no idea what career path the majors could take me to.

I'm sure there's a counselor somewhere in the basement of the SWKT that provides some sort of guidance, but they sure as hell didn't tell anyone about it.

I don't know that something like this could be laid at the feet of BYU or any other university. The academic advisement office is just to help students take the corret classes for their majors and other graduation requirements - something they barely do adequately considering the number of curriculum changes (referring specifically to BYU).

While academic counseling could be improved, I think it's the student's or his/her family's responsibility to match interests, skills, and abilities with majors where there might be a job at graduation. In HS, History and English were my best subjects that I had strong interest in but my Dad advised me to use my Math abilities. I talked to a Univ. professor in my ward who taught Computer Science. So I started out as a CS major. After a couple of years in CS and admittance into the CS program at BYU, I again talked to several CS faculty because it wasn't really what I wanted to do. They steered me over to the Information Management program in the business college. After taking the business core classes, I was ready to apply into the IM program but was troubled that they wouldn't allow students to take any programming classes until their junior year. Meanwhile, I was getting top scores in the Financial Accounting classes. So I talked to my Accounting professor who also happened to be head of the department. Everytime I talked with faculty, I asked about employment prospects and career advice. And that is one of the few things I loved about BYU, was that faculty would take the time to advise students and seemed to appreciate that a student wasn't in his/her office just to try to raise his grade. I ended up majoring in Accounting and earned a CS minor as a graduate student. I did inquire about economics and was advised that I would need a graduate econ degree or MBA or Law school.

When my oldest kid applied to his current university, he had to declare a major on his application. In other words, admittance was based upon major. So HS students and their families probably need to figure this out. I have a HS junior going through this now and have gotten some very good advice on this board about possible career options like Medicine/Pathology, Pharmacology, Dentistry, etc. Also got some equally good advice about employment prospects (or lack thereof) in Law. In his public HS, he is in a clinical rotation program that has helped him to explore careers in medicine. So there are HS resources and programs available but one's milage will vary.

[taekwondave]

I'm convinced that high schools and especially colleges (including BYU) are seriously dropping the ball when it comes to advising students. I never once was made aware of any services at BYU where they evaluated my academic interests and strengths and tried to steer me towards a degree where my schooling would translate into ready employment.

Why the hell do you think I majored in English? Thanks BYU

[taekwondave]

No I take that back. I decided my second to last semester as an english major that I was extremely grateful to be studying what I was studying. I admit that there are no ready made jobs for English majors specifically (well, none that pay more than magic beans), but I've found in my job search recently that it's fairly easy to spin to employers that it means you have a strong, analytic mind, and frankly, I feel like a better person since discovering Shakespeare for real. Shakespeare is my new Bible. I honestly wouldn't trade him for anything right now. Just makes my life richer.