Badin vs. Versailles
Law Enforcement Memorial Day
American Idol 2012 finale
Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > July > 19 > Entry
Top 10 college majors
A nod to the teacher/blogger Chem Jerk who’s quiz pointed me to this list.
Before you click “continue reading” quickly jot down your prediction for the top 10 college majors. Then see how close you are to the real list. I’ll even get you started with big hint — journalism is not in the top 10, but both of my college majors are.* And another major closely associated with this blog is on it TWICE.
Here’s Princeton Review’s list with the most popular major first:
Business Administration/Management
Psychology
Elementary Education
Biology
Nursing
Education
English
Communications
Computer Science
Political Science
Some quick observations:
—For an “undesirable” profession known for a lack of respect and low starting pay, teaching is surprisingly popular.
—There’s a noticeable lack of science and engineering on this list. About 10 years ago, I wrote a story about how biology, a long-dissed “boring” major, was surpassing physics as the most popular science major thanks to the sudden explosion of exciting biology-related research in genetics, forensics and other areas. It appears that trend has held.
—Do we really need that many people with expertise in psychology? If so, what does that say about America?
*At the University of Dayton I double majored in English and communications with a concentration in journalism because UD did not have a separate journalism department.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Colleges and Universities
Comments
By Karen
July 19, 2006 10:22 PM | Link to this
Oldprof writes: “but people who are close to higher ed. would not consider this data to be particularly newsworthy, we already knew it.” Since you already knew it, the rest of us didn’t need to know?By ChemJerk
July 19, 2006 7:34 PM | Link to this
Two quick points. (1)Education is a popular major because of the low admission standards of schools of education. (2) This is only anecdotal, but my experience says that psychology is a fall-back major. I knew plenty of physical science majors who switched to psychology after struggling with freshmen science lecture courses.By Oldprof
July 19, 2006 7:20 PM | Link to this
So much to quibble with, including your improper pluralization of the discipline “communication” (we don’t study educations or business administrations, do we?). But overall, this is common knowledge—for example, these results have been mirrored in the Ohio Board of Regents’ annual performance report for higher education, year after year. Now, while we’re casting doubt on the wisdom of a psychology major, why don’t we also ask if we really need that many English majors, or political science, or even business (given that the heads of more than half of the Fortune 500 don’t have business degrees). As for Arkansas producing just one physics teacher—a few years ago, I understand that Ohio produced only about a dozen fully-qualified math teachers (to meet the demand for many dozens of them in-state). There’s more to this list than can be discussed fully here—implications for student counseling and for curricula in general—but people who are close to higher ed. would not consider this data to be particularly newsworthy, we already knew it.By Dave
July 19, 2006 5:37 PM | Link to this
Psychology is not a bad major. An employer is always glad to see that you have stuck with something for 4 years, and psych implies you are interested in people. Potentially you are a good candidate for supervision. And teaching can be very satisfying, and there is quite a demand for teachers. I know the money will never make you rich, but I have quite a few neighbors who would love to earn as much as a teacher.By Mary
July 19, 2006 3:25 PM | Link to this
It would be good to compare this list to the top 10 college degrees in demand and the starting pay, and assess a little supply and demand. As far as psychology goes, I used to hear people went into psychology to try to understand their own quirks as well as the quirks of others. Nevertheless, I think it would be an interesting field, particularly if they ever get around to the biological science connections of brain chemistry - but psychiatrists and other medical doctors do not seem to understand the brain either. A few years ago, I think the Dayton Daily News ran a George Will commentary that included some insights from the previous eduation secretary. It was pointed out that education schools in Arkansas had just graduated one major in physics education while graduating 1000 to teach physical education.