STEM students might make more after college, but here’s why I’m sticking with my marketing major
Originally published at linkedin.com on October 19, 2016.
Within the first years of your college career you get used to answering two common questions: your name and major; it becomes a staple of your identity. As a freshman or sophomore, it is usual to reply with “I’m an intended health major” or “Pre-Business”, for example. Reason is, you need to take prerequisite courses and maintain a competitive grade point average (GPA) to be able to declare a major by your third year.
But choosing a major is not solely based on your academics. There are many other factors, one being “how much would I get paid for majoring in this field?” As I began my years at the University of California, Berkeley, various mentors from different fields have helped me realize the importance of base salaries that I had not quite understood before. Additionally, Glassdoor recently conducted a study showcasing the 50 highest paying college majors. Not surprisingly, STEM majors dominated the top of the list. However, the base salary differences have not stirred me away from doing what I want to do in the future: marketing and advertising, at a median base salary of $45k.
First Generation College Students And Their Pursuit Of Happiness
Being the first person in my family to go to a university in the United States, I had no relatives to seek college advise from. My parents — a taxi driver and a seasonal field worker — gave me the only advice that they could: “do what makes you happy.” With no vast knowledge on income ratios, my parents always advocated that I do something that I could see myself enjoying on a daily basis rather than a title — it is this advice that I have heard other fellow first generation students say they too have received.
And the advice has stuck with me. Aside from getting my general education courses done, I find myself seeking keywords on course descriptions before enrolling in classes. Whether the classes I really want have two hour gaps in between, scheduled very early in the morning, or any other inconveniences, I stay with my schedule because it consists of classes that I need to major in in a field that I am truly passionate about.
Getting A Major You Want Is Harder Than It Looks
The problem is, you cannot always do what makes you happy — that is just how the world works. University logistics, college transfer applications, and other processes are few of the asterisks that incoming students may not be aware of that may create a detour in their education. The National Center for Education Statistics reported that “about 80 percent of students in the United States end up changing their major at least once,” but what were the reasons for students changing their major?
The quote suggests a type of consent from the student’s behalf: from this quote, we might imagine that the student thought that “that specific major was not for them,” that it did not fit their lifestyle, thus the change. But many freshman enter universities as undeclared or undecided, giving students some time to try out various classes, mostly prerequisite courses with new concepts that they might not excel in within their first attempt.
Additionally, there is the aforementioned college transfer applications within the same university. To better illustrate the example, let us consider University of California, Berkeley itself. An undeclared/undecided freshman will be enrolled in the College of Letters and Sciences. From here, the first-year has the opportunity to take prerequisite courses and then transfer to a college of their choice within the university to obtain a degree not offered under the college they are currently enrolled in. To allude back to UC Berkeley: an undeclared student in the College of Letters and Sciences looking to major in business would have to apply to Berkeley-Haas, UC Berkeley’s School of Business, which boasts an acceptance rate of 36% for undergraduate UC Berkeley students, and a 5% for transfer students. So what happens to the other 64% of rejected UC Berkeley applicants? They switch onto other majors.
So neither passion nor financial interest really matters when choosing a major. It is mostly your academic achievement that is really what allows you to choose a major, but also restricts you from following a specific major, as any other job would prefer those better qualified, in their eyes.
Do We Have A Choice Of Majors?
Looking at Glassdoor’s study had no real impact on my decision of my current major. At most I said “Well, I guess that’s how much I’ll start off with.” Each student’s perspective is, of course, variant on the culture and ideology that their family or peers have encouraged. Perhaps some students have been pushed to computer science because of the market demand, perhaps it is for the high pay, or perhaps they themselves enjoy coding, it is up to them. But it is also worth noting the detours that university logistics impose on students.
Passion or financial interest is not enough to declare your major, there are more hurdles you must jump over once already at the university. In my experience, students do not just choose to change majors. There is usually a backstory — their GPA was not high enough, they did not fulfill a course, or their application was denied.
To those with their dream major, congrats! To those chasing another major, good luck.
Got any thoughts to add? Tweet me @juliangumbo or comment below!
Julian Gamboa is a UC Berkeley graduate with a focus on marketing. Julian was selected as a LinkedIn Top Voice for Marketing and #Social Media (2017) and a Course Instructor of the marketing and digital publishing course Digital Marketing Today at the Haas School of Business. He is also the founder of Digiviewpoint, a millennial publishing account.
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