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Despite Economy, Experts Still Advise College Students to Major in What Interests Them
In a July 11 news article from the Star-Telegram (Fort Worth), university professors and business leaders offer their opinions for incoming college students about choosing a major in a recession economy. Despite high levels of unemployment and a renewed interest among college students in fields like nursing, health care, engineering, and computer science—all predicted to have positive job outlooks in coming years—experts still advise students to study what they find interesting, rather than choosing based on job prospects. In addition, the employers interviewed in the article reveal that they’re more interested in students’ broad educational experience, rather than their specific major. “It’s not necessarily your major, but how you prepare,” one career-center director explained. “One of the things I have always said is liberal arts teaches you how to learn…When you go out into the work world, you’re going to have to continue to learn.”
Important liberal education outcomes like critical thinking, communication, and ethical decision-making also ranked high in employers’ lists of must-haves. As the recruitment manager at a large health care company explained, “…when we interview, we really want to look at situations [the interviewee was] put into in the past, the actions they took, and what were the results… [Are they] communicating clearly and earning people’s trust? And thinking before they act?” It’s also important to employers that college graduates be able to tackle complex, real-world problems, explained a recruiter from a large government contracting firm. “Most of what we do is problem solving, and you get people with different kinds of skills together to solve the problem.”
Read the entire article here. See other data on employers’ views about important college outcomes on AAC&U’s Public Opinion Research Web page.
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