Wells Fargo recently made headlines when it ran advertisements to promote its upcoming Teen Financial Education Day. One advertisement shows a picture of a teenage girl with text that reads, “A ballerina yesterday. An engineer today,” and another one says “An actor yesterday. A botanist today.” When I saw the ads, I thought they both depicted good career moves, moving from extremely competitive fields that rarely pan out or pay well, to careers where you could easily find a job and make good money. However, Wells Fargo quickly pulled the advertisement and issued an apology after outrage from the arts community on social media.
As a senior studying civil engineering, I am naturally biased toward STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) degrees and I believe that choosing to study to become an engineer was one of the best decisions I ever made. My degree landed me three internships throughout my college years and a job offer before I’ve even graduated. While I am fortunate for the opportunity, securing jobs before graduation is pretty common among engineering students. At the upcoming Engineering Career Fair, hundreds of companies from all over the country will be looking to hire undergraduate students with engineering degrees.
I’m sure there are students who study art, theatre, film or music that land jobs before they graduate, but it is significantly harder simply because there isn’t as much of a demand. Don’t take my word for it though, a 2012 study from Georgetown University showed that majors in the arts and humanities had some of the highest rates of unemployment or underemployment while STEM degrees had some of the lowest rates. Obviously there are many other degrees you could obtain that fall outside of STEM that lead to good careers (journalism, business, economics, education) but few can compare to STEM degrees in terms of employment and average salary.
Now, I realize that math and physics don’t excite most high school students and, to be honest, I didn’t really care for those subjects in high school. I never had a passion for engineering, and I wasn’t even particularly good at math. I was much more interested in history and politics than I was in calculus, but the job prospects for history or political science degrees turned me away from pursuing a degree in those fields. I didn’t want to be another millennial who wasted four years and thousands of dollars just to end up back at my parents’ house because I couldn’t find a job.
If you think the scenario I just described is dramatic, consider that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the most unemployed age groups in America are 20- to 34- year olds. Also, according to the Pew Research Center, for the first time ever the most common living arrangement for 18–34-year-olds is living with their parents. Unfortunately, many of these millennials had the misfortune of trying to conduct a job search during the Great Recession, but a bad economy only furthers my point that students should be working toward degrees that lead to jobs.
In my opinion, part of the problem is that, from the time we are kids, most of us are told we can do anything and we should follow our dreams or passions. Parents and teachers, however, should be more practical and encourage students to earn degrees that will get them a good-paying job. This may sound pessimistic, but it’s better than drowning in student debt while being unqualified for good jobs leading to unemployment or underemployment. I think as a society we should encourage future college students to obtain degrees that are sought after by employers so they can become productive members of society.
