Your major is important

This analogy of coffee and pineapples will tell you why.

Do you ever find yourself wondering what your future will be like after graduation? With all your time and money spent on education, what’s giving you the best bang for your buck and is a job even guaranteed with it?

Many students spend time debating which part of their education matters most: their major, school, or GPA. Although it’s true that all three factor in your future, I believe that a specific one may be more significant than the rest.

My bosses are fervent coffee drinkers and I’ll admit that the amount of time I spend predicting their drinks are abnormal, so I’ll use coffee as an analogy to explain why your major plays a substantial role in your decision.

In this situation, the type of drink in demand represents your major, the school you attend represents the brand name of the drink, and your GPA represents its rating. To follow along, I’ll use two majors as examples: coffee is equivalent to computer science while a pineapple drink is equivalent to psychology.

A good majority of people claim coffee as a necessity, while a fair amount indulge in it. Whether or not you fit in any of these categories, one thing’s for certain: coffee is high in demand. In contrast, a pineapple drink is less popular than coffee. Still in demand nonetheless, but statistically, most people would choose coffee over pineapple juice as their go to drink.

Although pineapple drinks are popular and have famous companies with high ratings that sell them, coffee still holds the ranking for having a higher amount of consumers — name brand or not.

The pictures above show the starting salaries of undergraduates that come from 2 different schools with 2 different majors. Students who graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology received a starting salary less than students who attended a less prestigious school, in this case, Georgia State, but graduated with a computer science degree — a degree that’s higher in demand than psychology.

Similarly, a store brand cup of coffee such as, Great Value has a better chance of doing better in the market than a can of La Croix’s piña colada. Keep in mind though, that there are always anomalies. Different opportunities, circumstances, attitudes, and work ethics can always change the course of your future, no matter how slim or large the chances are to being successful.

When choosing your major, be aware of your future possibilities. Consider which major will be better for you in the job market, will help pay off your student loans, and will eventually lead you to live the life that you want. Know that I’m not telling you to drop botany for accounting, but understand that with every decision you make, there will be consequences and that choosing your major will affect a considerable amount of those consequences.

Whichever beverage you choose to sip on, trust that you made the right decision and remember to enjoy it!