What Your Major Realistically Says About Your Future, The Pros and Cons

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The major you choose in college is one of the most important life decisions you can make, aside from whether or not you consider “You don’t need a condom, I’m on the pill,” exciting news or cause for alarm.

Your major sets the stage for the possibilities of the rest of your life. Some majors open the doors of opportunity, while others shit uncertainty down your esophagus. Before you choose, you should know what your future holds…based on time-tested stereotypes and absolutely no research whatsoever.

English

Likely Outcome: Mediocre community college teacher.

Pros: You get to give A grades to hot students in exchange for “extra credit.” You get summers off.

Cons: No one will ever take you seriously and you’ll always be in the lowest tax bracket.

Business

Likely Outcome: Peon at the bottom of a massive pyramid scheme. Midlife crisis imminent.

Pros: You’ll be the first of your friends to get a “real job.”

Cons: There are no office hijinks, The Office lied to you. Also, your daily routine will be an insufferable grind. After wasting years of your youth climbing the corporate “ladder” you’ll realize it’s a step stool that’s just high enough for you to hang yourself from.

Engineering

Likely Outcome: You’re rewarded for picking a useful major with copious amounts of money, a lifetime of job opportunities, and many Asian friends.

Pros: Your skills are in-demand and you’ll get paid very well.

Cons: The demanding coursework will probably make college suck for you. You’ll be slaving away in your Analytical Methods of Mathematics lab instead of having adventures with alcohol and unprotected sex. The engineering jobs that pay the most are the ones that design guided missiles and robot death machines. You’ll have to choose between a fat paycheck and your soul.

Journalism

Likely Outcome: You imagine yourself becoming the next Tom Brokaw or Woodward and Bernstein, but more likely you’ll write an often liberal, rarely viewed blog. Enjoy renting for your entire life, but don’t worry, you’ll justify it by claiming it’s the “Bohemian” lifestyle. Hey, whatever you need to tell yourself to make the inevitability of your 83-year-old, dead, undiscovered body being consumed by your cats in a studio apartment less sad.

Pros: You’ll be your own boss and you’ll get to work from home.

Cons Your home is a shithole. You aren’t good enough to write for major syndications. No one actually reads your stupid blog that alternates between posts about cats and gun control, you’ll probably have to turn to live webcam shows and work for tips from strangers who masturbate while you put strange things into your butt, all under the ironic stage name Anderson Pooper. Or, even more demeaning, you’ll apply for a job with TFM News, probably still under the name Anderson Pooper.

Psychology

Likely Outcome: Grief counselor, therapist, or, if you’re lucky, a TV rehab doctor.

Pros: You’ll have a job that helps people.

Cons: You’ll be disappointed when you realize that psychologists can’t write their own prescriptions. You’ll listen to people unload the depressing bullshit of their miserable lives all day long and you’ll be forced to see a psychiatrist to help you cope. He won’t be able to do much because he knows just about as much as you do… absolutely nothing… but at least he can give you those sweet, reality-suppressing pills.

Accounting

Likely Outcome: Wealthy.

Pros: You’ll have a stable job that pays well. You’ll learn about intricate tax loopholes and how to launder money.

Cons: No matter how successful you are, no chick in a bar will ever be impressed when you answer the question, “So, what do you do?”

Marketing/Advertising

Likely Outcome: A leech on the butthole of humanity, but you’ll at least FEEL important.

Pros: Your college coursework, which will consist of multiple classes about Twitter and Facebook, will be easier than Kim Kardashian’s unborn hooker baby.

Cons: Literally anyone can do your job. You learned nothing useful in college.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

Pre-Law

Likely Outcome: Successful attorney (10%), unsuccessful attorney (40%), working a non-lucrative, non-legal job while paying off massive debt (30%), hobo (5%), suicide (15%)

Pros Your parents will be proud of you. You’ll impress women when they ask what you do for a living, because women are stupid.

Cons So, so much.

Pre-med

Likely Outcome: Doctor, Dentist, Veterinarian, or Nurse… in descending order of how much you suck.

Pros: Med School is one of the most respected career paths available. You’ll help humanity while making an excellent salary. You’ll also get to add “Dr.” in front of your name, which is like fishing with atomic weapons at a bar.

Cons: You’ll be a student forever, get sued into oblivion, and Obamacare will bastardize your hopes and dreams of getting out of debt. If you want to survive, you’ll have to specialize in a niche like urology… After all, the world always needs cock doctors.

Philosophy

Likely Outcome: Functioning alcoholic.

The pros and the cons are the same. You’ll either write a groundbreaking novel or you’ll drink yourself to death and fade into obscurity. Either way, you’ll be drunk, and you won’t give a single fuck.

***


    1. Beowolf

      Halfway between business and Accounting. We get good, reliable jobs that don’t pay as much as the accountants I would guess.

      12 years ago at 4:31 pm
    2. southerncostas

      Depends on what you do. Finance works out great for IBD and private equity which pay way better than accounting.

      12 years ago at 8:54 pm
    3. Hazin_and_Ragin

      Thats why I double majored in Accounting and Finance, got my MACY passed CPA now in law school to be a Tax Attorney. But Finance does pay the most way more than engineering fuck what these idiots say go talk to people at Goldman.

      12 years ago at 10:01 pm
    4. The North Won

      Unless you go to an Ivy, or have connects at a major public, there is no way you’re just gonna “go talk to people at Goldman.”

      Congrats on the MAcy though, as an undergrad with the same *hopeful* career path I’ll tip my hat.

      12 years ago at 11:41 pm
    5. Hazin_and_Ragin

      I know two people who work for Goldman one in NYC and one in Colorado but nope didnt go to an IVY.

      12 years ago at 8:02 am
    6. Dwight D Fratenhower

      Im an engineer.
      Engineering is just like any other field, there are a lot of drones out there. Most engineers, along with most of everyone, sit at a desk all day and do repetetive work that is far below their intelligence. However, the best jobs in engineering are better than the best jobs in almost any other field. The pay is astronomical, and the work is incredibly interesting. Engineering is where 90% of the cutting-edge work is done. Very few lawyers get to carve out ground-breaking legislation, but most engineers hold several patents, a sizable amount design or produce really cool technology, and a select few work on things that would seem too unbelievable for sci-fi

      11 years ago at 12:50 am
  1. guywhowearssperrys

    Wearing sperrys.

    Likely outcome: you’ll be frat as fuck
    Pros: They are so fucking comfortable
    Cons: The smell of your feet will clear a room faster than incendiary comment sucks dick

    12 years ago at 3:41 pm
    1. incendiary_comment

      You could be wearing, sperrys, khakis, a polo, and costas and you still wouldn’t be frat!

      12 years ago at 3:46 pm
    2. The Prodigy TFM

      We already figured out that you are the same person so you’re actually just talking to yourself right now…. it’s a little sad.

      12 years ago at 4:38 pm
  2. WtF_

    Your ability to write funny columns without sounding like a 15 year old has improved greatly.

    12 years ago at 3:41 pm
    1. WtF_

      Also I’d like to point out that becoming a vet is actually very difficult, since it requires you to understand the physiology of many different animals instead of just humans. And I’m pretty sure you make bank.

      12 years ago at 4:00 pm
    2. Douglas MacArthur

      It’s not easy I’ll give you that, but have fun making less than half the salary of a doctor with just as much debt.

      12 years ago at 4:15 pm
    3. Tallapoosa Snu

      actually it’s not that far off doctors salaries in some places. I wouldn’t wanna do it, but a general vet makes almost as much as a GP in the suburbs. And just like doctors, if you specialize, you make more money. Equestrian vets can easily make two or three times what the ones that give your dog its shots makes.

      12 years ago at 6:01 pm
    1. OneRowdyGentlemen

      Not trying to be that guy, but I’m Pre-Med and it’s teeeechnically not a major.

      12 years ago at 11:38 pm
    2. Kappa Significant

      ^^Well you are being that guy. I’m pre-med too and seeing as the column used it as a major I figured I’d just use it as well.

      12 years ago at 9:47 am
  3. ShitGeedsSay

    Well, that didn’t create any happy thoughts about graduating as I read this article, even if you left out finance. Thanks.

    12 years ago at 3:48 pm