Don’t Regret Your Major
Nearly 2 in 5 American adults have major regrets.
That is, they regret their college major.
The regretters include a healthy population of liberal arts majors, who may be responding to pervasive social cues. Since 2011, in the shadow of the Great Recession, the number of new graduates in the arts and humanities has plunged. Meanwhile, nearly half of humanities and art majors have studier’s remorse as of 2021. Engineering majors have the fewest regrets: Just 24 percent wish they’d chosen something different, according to a Federal Reserve survey.
As a rule, those who studied STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — are much more likely to believe they made the right choice, while those in social sciences or vocational courses second-guess themselves.
There doesn’t seem to be much relationship between loans, gender, race, or school selectivity and your regrets. Though, as you may have guessed, the analysis of Fed data shows that the higher your income is today, the less you regret the major you chose back in college. You may read more below. https://wapo.st/3wVGIlN
One way to help eliminate this regret is to engage in formal career and aptitude testing before going to college. The goal of this comprehensive process is to open a person's worldview to all that is possible. 600 careers possible! It's the biggest decision to date that a young adult will make so investing in understanding how to make informed decisions is critical. In addition, hopefully eliminating money being wasted on courses a student doesn't complete due to not being successful or isn't needed at all due to college major changes. And by the way, it's never too late!
