Popular Majors Seem Jobless

For those of us graduating anytime soon, the real world is a scary place.

But, just because there isn’t a 100 percent rate of employment for my fellow creative writing majors and me doesn’t mean it should be eliminated.

A terrifying report from the Associated Press came out last week, describing steps China is taking to combat unemployment. Evidently, any program in higher education that experiences a 60 percent or higher rate of unemployment over two consecutive years will lose government funding or be eliminated all together, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“The surge of collge [sic] grads, while an accomplishment for the country, has contributed to an overflow of workers whose skill-sets don’t match with the needs of the export-led, manufacturing-based economy,” the article stated.

One of the endangered majors in China is biology, simply because demand doesn’t yet equate to the supply in the country.

However, this action by China’s Ministry of Education has caused many in America to question the unemployment rate of recent grads here at home.

A list of the 25 most unemployed majors in America compiled by CBS News showed that clinical psychology, miscellaneous fine arts, U.S. history and library science topped the list, with a 19.5 percent unemployment rate for psychology majors.

At UMW, an estimated 16 percent of students major in social sciences, 10 percent major in psychology, eight percent in history and five percent in liberal arts, according to the College Board.

UMW: Where great, unemployed minds get to work.

But, not entirely. While liberal arts jobs may not be sweeping the nation, the best part about being in a creative field is just that: we can create.

The danger that I see in China’s actions is that in order to regulate the unemployment rate, they are potentially suppressing talented students’ right to learn what they want. Any English major who suffered through a general education math or science requirement would know that being forced to major in a higher employed field would be miserable for not only the students, but the professors as well.

However, within the humanities fields, education matters far less than ability and experience. If you go to Georgetown University for journalism but can’t write a news article, good luck getting a job. Employers don’t care as much about where you went to school or what you studied, as long as you can prove to them that you are capable of doing the job you are applying for.