A hard dose of reality

When I was young, we were told that education and hard work pays off and with both you can achieve the American dream. I learned a long time ago (within a month after graduating with my MSLS, when I started selling bagels for a living) that what I was told was simply not true. And I think it will be far harder for today's college students and recently grads. In short, whereas I've always contended that we Gen Xers got a bad rap and card hand compared to the Boomers, the Millennials are getting the shaft.

25 college majors with the highest unemployment rates

This is the same list I wrote about awhile ago, but with a full 25 on the list. Library science is number 4, at 15% unemployment. And of course, considering you really need a master's level degree in library science to get a job, that means more outlay.

There is also 25 college majors with lowest unemployment rates to look at.

Wow, I got all sorts of hits on this...at least I didn't major in psychology

Because apparently that is the kiss of death as far as getting a job....

The 11 Majors with the Highest Unemployment
History (albeit US--I was strictly European), library science, and linguistics are all on the list (I do not technically have a linguistics major, but I was one class short.)

I am apparently anathema should I be on the market again. Ugh.

Thanks to Vanessa Irvin Morris for the link!

I started out a science geek

I took college-level chemistry in high school, including organic (over the summer). I came three points short in by-passing the first two semesters of college chemistry, plus lab, and started out my college career in a dual biology and sociology major, interested in oecology and how people interact with their environment.

I had soaked up all that chemistry, physics, biology, and even had survived calculus, when I realised I was terribly burnt out on science. Then my animal biology lab teacher chloroformed a white rat we'd been playing with all semester in front of me and dissected it.

The next semester, I switched to history and sociology. I'm not saying history was easier--it's more than memorising dates, you know, but it was less intense, less full of ups and downs. And I found it much more interesting than I did the practice of science, which when you get down to it can be tedious, repetitive, and really, with the burn out I'd lost the spark I'd had for it. Instead, I threw myself into studying people--their history, their languages, art, etc. I went on to get a degree in history, sociology, and honours (a Great Books programme), went back and added a classical civilisation major and a Judaic studies minor, and then spent years in the ancient and mediaeval history graduate programme. Granted, I'm not working in that, I'm working as a librarian, which benefits from all sorts of backgrounds. :)

I do still love science--much like I love technology--but I prefer to be an armchair scientist, rather than making it my life's work. But I did find this interesting:

Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It’s Just So Darn Hard)

Studies have found that roughly 40 percent of students planning engineering and science majors end up switching to other subjects or failing to get any degree. That increases to as much as 60 percent when pre-medical students, who typically have the strongest SAT scores and high school science preparation, are included, according to new data from the University of California at Los Angeles. That is twice the combined attrition rate of all other majors.

For educators, the big question is how to keep the momentum being built in the lower grades from dissipating once the students get to college.