What Your Major Realistically Says About Your Future, The Pros and Cons
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.
I’m in engineering and the work load has not held me back from alcohol fueled, unprotected sex. Just do the work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and you won’t miss much in that respect. As for trading my soul for a fat pay check, that’s not a problem. I’ll assist in blowing up people I’ll never meet for a 6 digit salary immediately following graduation. I’ll just tell myself it’s in defense of the greatest god damned country this planet will ever see.
12 years ago at 3:48 pm^Couldn’t agree more
12 years ago at 5:58 pm^^Great name.
12 years ago at 7:19 pmAnd women think you are the smartest human being in the world. It’s pretty amazing.
12 years ago at 11:00 pm^I doubt anyone has ever mistaken a UTA student for smart.
12 years ago at 10:23 amGetting a six figure salary to design the machinery used to kill America’s enemies. Yea I’ll take that.
12 years ago at 8:41 pmExistentialist piece of shit.
12 years ago at 3:49 pmRageTheory should not get paid for this column.
12 years ago at 3:56 pmAre you a journalism major?
12 years ago at 4:16 pm^i’m gonna say he’s philosophy
12 years ago at 10:19 amBeing poor and unsuccessful NF
12 years ago at 3:57 pmBeing rich and unsuccessful. TFTC
12 years ago at 4:51 pm^this guy. 3/5s of a funny post
12 years ago at 10:30 pmPhysics: Likely Outcomes: Professor, High School teacher, Research.
12 years ago at 4:02 pmPros: PhD pulls in the money and you get to see the cool shit before everyone else or live at college forever.
Cons: Competing for grants and funding for your entire life… against people who are equally smart or smarter than you
Add in high frequency trading at ren tech, getco, or citadel.
12 years ago at 4:04 pmmajor: ag
12 years ago at 4:07 pmpros fuck you
cons fuck you
likely outcome feed and clothe america
Poli Sci?
12 years ago at 4:11 pmStarbucks cashier/barista whatever the fuck they’re called. Next.
12 years ago at 4:24 pm^ False.
12 years ago at 7:36 pm^False.
12 years ago at 10:57 pmUsually falls under Pre-law
12 years ago at 11:03 pm^this
12 years ago at 10:16 amWhat about 18th Century South American Female Literature?
12 years ago at 4:19 pmLikely Outcome:
12 years ago at 4:29 pmBillionaireLesbian.Thank you both. I laughed out loud.
12 years ago at 7:21 pmYou can’t just categorize occupations and majors like this. You can do all the hard work you want, but that will only get you so far. The bottom line is that there are incredibly successful people in almost every field, and the only thing separating them and the rest of the world is luck – luck to be given the skills and/or placed into the position to become that way.
12 years ago at 4:25 pmIt’s based off of stereotypes and generalizations and is meant to be funny, you boner.
12 years ago at 4:49 pm^For once I can see eye to eye with this guy
12 years ago at 11:52 amAfrican American studies. FaF
12 years ago at 4:50 pm