Home College The Ugly Truth About Your Major

The Ugly Truth About Your Major

College is a time when us youngins’ explore our interests over the educational spectrum. Whether we enter college with our desired major in mind, or discover it by taking every course in the catalogue, our choice of major reveals all too much about our personalities. And as your social mirror, it’s my job to reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly about what your major says about your character.

English

Shout out to all my fellow and future members of the unemployed society! If you choose to study this artsy-farsty field, you ooze with pretentiousness when you debate with your colleagues about how you prefer reading from your old Shakespeare Anthology as opposed to a Nook or Kindle. You most likely hang out in coffee shops on the weekdays (getting ready for your future employment at the local Starbucks), and drink Pabst Blue Ribbon on the weekends. Beanies and infinity scarves take up your whole wardrobe.  However, since you will read and analyze everything from the Bible to The Hunger Games, you will at least understand humanity, so good for you I guess.

Business

The foundation and requirement of business is one simple thing: to make money. And if you major in ‘making money’, then you like that cash flow more than anyone else. You Ann Taylor and Brooks Brothers wearing corporate crawlers stomp around with a confidence that makes everyone else huddle in fear. To all the future Jordan Belforts out there: good luck with your addiction to money, and um, drugs? The upside to this major is that you will be eventually filthy rich and will be paying people like me to make your morning coffee. P.S. I’m looking for a Finance major to be my sugar daddy to help support my writing career.

Psychology

Please stop analyzing my behavior and interactions with the opposite sex and then stating I have a fear of abandonment or rejection. Just because you took one abnormal psychology class you think you can act like Dr. Huang from Law and Order: SVU. No. There can only be one Dr. Huang. Good for you by wanting to help people and their screwed up minds, but please don’t give me a fake diagnosis after getting a B- in PSYC101.

Journalism

You really wanted to be an English major, but you didn’t have the balls to face the daily liberal arts jokes. You’re an optimist because you think you’re going to be able to change the world by writing a heated op-ed or investigative piece for The New York Times, but really you’re just going to be working for your local Patch chapter. But there is the chance of you stumbling upon a story becoming the Woodward or Bernstein. You are also probably looking for a sugar daddy to support your writing career.

Education

For some strange and horrible reason, you like kids. Ew, kids. Also, you like those little urchins enough to spend every day from September to June with them. You are most likely double majoring in English or Hearing and Speech, so you can either share your love of literature with children, or help them with their childhood lisp. Despite the annoying screams of children, you will get a sliver of satisfying fulfillment when little Tommy can diagram a sentence properly, or stop pronouncing Thursday as ‘fursday’.

Pre-Med

Whether it be Bio or Chem, everyone is the same. Everyone is always complaining about Orgo, Human A&P, and the MCATs. Everything is easy for you until you have an exam, and then you whine and bitch to the rest of us non-science majors about how hard it is while we’ve been writing essays all semester long. Also, you can’t write a well-crafted sentence to save your life. But thanks for spending like 10 years of your life in school so you can work in an E.R., because without you, there would be a lot more people with things stuck up their butts.

Communications

Isn’t this the Mrs. major? You guys are super lucky because you can actually enjoy the 4 years of college because you have so much free time . . .

Pre-Law

Ahh, the Idealists and bloodsuckers of the world. You want to make the world a safer, fairer, more just place. You probably see yourself as the next ADA in a courtroom drama, or a rich corporate defender. But if you screw up and end up at a low tier law school, then you’ll just be an ambulance chaser. However, people will automatically think you’re powerful when you tell them that you a fancy-schmancy lawyer.

Engineering

It must suck to wear glasses, live with your mom like Howard Wolowitz, and have the robot you made as your only friend. Lucky for you no one ever asks you what you’re going to do with your major. Why? Because you literally can get any job, and there will always be a steady flow of cash that comes from your passion of being a nerd.

Undecided

Oh, so you’re a junior and still undecided? Well, you will be in college for at least five years. Can you say super-senior? If you don’t pick something soon you’re likely to become that guy or girl who should have graduated years ago, but is still taking 100-level classes. Plus side? Your alcoholic college years will become a bit longer. Here’s to the health of your liver!

Go on, readers. Bash, comment, and yell at me over an anonymous interface about how condescending and wrong I am about your major. But you and I both know that I’m pretty much right. Comment below with some of your thoughts about the majors I mentioned, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll do a follow-up piece.

Featured Image via Unsplash

44 COMMENTS

  1. As much as I respect your attempt to try to be funny, if you haven’t taken required classes in each major, I wouldn’t be so quick to make generalizations. I don’t appreciate your comment about comm majors having free time. If you are on the public relations track, you get little sleep. You have a paper, a presentation, or a test/quiz almost every class if not every class. PR track students are always working and are just as ambitious as any other major. Also, there are many job opportunities after college for pr majors. I just find it disappointing that someone who is an english major wouldn’t do some research or even interview students before making an article like this. I’m sure you would be annoyed or angry if you overheard someone talking about how english majors can’t get a job. And I know you poked fun at yourself, but if someone else said it, you would probably be at least a little offended. Therefore, congrats. You have successfully enforced stereotypes not only for my major, but for yours and for many others.

  2. I’m a Sophomore English major and I was looking into also doing a Comm major or minor. After looking at the required courses, however, I realized that it would just take too much time and I probably couldn’t graduate on time. I think you should reconsider your description of Communications majors. I think you should also consider the fact that many English majors are just using college as a prep for grad school, where they will study in their actual intended career field.

  3. I’m a sophomore Mechanical Engineer. I live in a sorority, not my mom’s basement. I’m social, and my robots stay in the lab were they belong. Everyone asks what I am doing with my major because there IS so much to do with it. Don’t “nerd bash;” it’s uneducated of you.

    • Don’t worry, she’s just jealous. She’s gonna spend her four years in far less stress than you, but if she doesn’t end up with a sugar daddy she’s fucked, and not literally.

      • Right lol. but girls like this(judgmental as duck!) never get a sugar daddy because sugar daddies don’t tend to come in young, hot, ken doll packaging. and if they did they would not be interested in someone this stupid and angry.

  4. first, these are WAY over generalized. i mean, there’s making a joke, and then there’s not knowing what you’re talking about. this sounds like you just looked at the name of the major and thought of any stereotypes you could possibly fit in there, rather than making jokes about actual behaviors made by actual people you’ve met in these majors. it just isn’t funny. second, ummm… Biology? i mean, i’m in marine bio, so i didn’t expect too much, but biology, chemistry, and physics are valid majors that many people study. not every science major is pre-med. if you’re gonna talk about majors, you should probably at least make sure you cover the whole spectrum. and for the record, i’m planning on minoring in english, and have never gotten bellow an A- in an english class. not all of us can’t write to save our lives. i’m feeling severely underrepresented.

    • Hit the nail on the head. I think she was trying to make a stereotype joke but didn’t know enough about anything to make it a funny one. Her paragraph about English majors was an old meme about hipsters….so she’s either stupid or just not funny. lol I shouldn’t say “either” that implies she could only ever be one at a time! XD

  5. Architectural engineering major. Division 1 tennis player. Proud owner of a sexy boyfriend and actual human friends. #sociallyacceptablenerd

  6. I hope you change your writing style soon. Every article youve written that I’ve read has been extremely rude (some true, but still rude) with a faint humor that’s being stressed a little bit too much. I’d like to see you not hate on something and empower women instead of putting them down.

  7. I’m almost 90% certain this is a satirical site at this point. I mean, the only other explanation is that they just absolutely do not give two shits to who is writing or what they’ve written. That is, to say, there’s usually some kind of quality-control. I see none here. It’s either satire, or just a hilariously delusional place for teenage girls to pretend they know about “like, life, and stuff, and junk. Oh Em Gee, L.O.L.”

  8. I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that I couldn’t relate to this because I’m none of these majors. Being a Fine Arts major must be so awful, you didn’t even bother attempting to write about it.

  9. While I can understand why the previous commenters are upset & I don’t intend to invalidate anyone’s feelings…really?

    If any of y’all expected to read this and get a pat on the back, then you’re pretty gullible. I’m fairly certain the title and the piece itself are meant to be controversial and satirical. So instead of getting offended and trying to validate yourself via blog comment, go out into the world, be your own success story and prove her wrong

    • Thank you, I was thinking the same thing. We get angry too quickly if things don’t agree with the way we see things. These are stereotypes that are attached to each one of our majors, so we all in some way knew these things before she wrote this articles. I’m an engineer major, I love science to death, I think its crazy that the Author thinks having a robot friend is lame, and my personality is a mix between the Dos-Equis man and Neil Degrass Tyson, in other words I’m smart and a really confident guy. But I know that there are others in my major who aren’t as confident as I am and are socially awkward, and I’m sad to say but they kinda meet the stereotype.

      Oh yeah I’m also black. There’s a shit ton of stereotypes attached to me and yet I seem to never do what others say black people always do. Why? because I know that’s not me and I know the only way to change our stereotype is to prove the world wrong.

      Basically, I just want people to understand that it is hard to not generalize in an article like this. Remember there are over 300 million people living in the U.S. there is no way she can take into count all the different ways people behave. Let’s not get overly offended when we read things like this, just state your opinion and try to look at things as rationally as possible.

  10. Everyone works hard at their majors. This article belittled people with “fluffy” majors when actually some of the smartest people I know are english majors. I find your writing rude and not funny in the least. Maybe write something original instead of picking out the most annoying and obvious stereotypes you possibly could about each major for an article.

  11. Ha. Well, as you only described ONE of the many jobs that can correlate with having a Psych major/minor, I don’t take offense. I’m sorry you got a B- in Intro, that must be hard for you (:

  12. Pre med majors focus on sentence structure that is clear; relaying the respective information to a given party in a concise manor for the multitude of lab write ups, grant proposals, research reviews and articles assigned by nearly every class taken beyond the first few years of undergrad. We are usually more preoccupied with undergraduate research, orgo, biochem, physics, and various other upper division biology or chemistry courses than to spend precious time writing drawn out, sardonic, opinionated “fluff” in order to feel better about ourselves and our major.

  13. Wow! I don’t think I see one nice comment on here. On a “hit or miss” scale I think this would be considered a “miss.” I do agree with what someone said about your writing style though, you must be a very angry person.

  14. You gotta give more credit to the pre-med guys, it’s way tougher than it looks. Also, you’ve been writing less essays than us, and we have 33% more class time due to 3 hour labs, demanding more time spent on school work.

  15. Haters gunna hate. Kudos to your sassy style, and everyone else can benefit from pre med majors and go to ER to get the stick up their butt removed.

  16. Why do engineers have the WORST stereotypes? You have no idea what we do! If we didn’t do our jobs properly, a shit ton of people would be dead because literally EVERYTHING you see was engineered. I’m sorry… I just can’t let you say these things! People have to know that we are not just computer nerds or geeks. We are NORMAL people who are sick and tired of being looked at as anything less than that.

    • lol no worries, you’re safe hun. Making fun of that major would have taken more research than just remembering stereotyped jokes from Facebook. which seems to be all the work this one was willing to put into her article.

  17. After reading the above comments I really don’t need to say anything more, but your sheer ignorance forces me to. I am personally a science major and you shouldn’t be so quick to assume the lack of writing involved. FYI to write a proper scientific paper you need to be able to write pretty well and connect complex ideas in an intuitive way which readers can follow. Personally, I am under the impression you have something “stuck up your butt” after reading this ridiculously misinformed article.

    “You are also probably looking for a sugar daddy to support your writing career.” – I take it this applies to yourself, as you are yourself a journalist, no?

    Cheers

  18. Well you, my dear, are the classical biased human being who thinks their situation is worse than everyone else’s. I’m a biology major (pre-chiropractic). And I’m actually great at writing papers. I write song lyrics, too. These are opinions that are not even close to consistent. Everyone is different; everyone has their own reasons to have their major. Worry about yourself and stop being so sensitive to what others say about YOUR major. Maybe focus on the beauty of the world and how you can make your world better. That might make you more happy.

  19. Honestly, these are harsh…and honestly, these are SPOT ON! Congrats! I love it, I’m laughing so hard because it is all so true! Being someone who has spent 6 years in undergrad and had a taste of all those fields of study I can honestly say that these are exactly how they should be. THANK YOU!

    • I agree that they are all pretty spot on. Yes, they’re harsh. Yes, they’re pointing out the stereotypes, but the title never suggested that it would be nice. I loved it. I’m an education major, and while I don’t work with “little” kids, I still work with hormonal teenagers. Going into a room full of bratty girls and boys who really don’t care to be in school is tough, but that moment when “little Tommy” is able to pronounce something correctly or comprehend a story, it is pretty satisfying. If people can’t laugh at themselves or at their major, then I’m not sure they’re doing college and life right.

  20. I think people need to stop taking offense at what she’s saying about THEIR specific major. Obviously she is just rehashing stereotypes with little to no thought. We should really be offended by the extreme shortage of comedy in this article, when that could have been the only enjoyable thing to come out of this.

  21. I guess everyone that commented that found this article “extremely rude” and “stereotypical” does not understand the definition of an OPINION. I wouldn’t say these descriptions are dead on, but they’re very close to how people are. I know at least one person majoring in those listed above and they are pretty close to what she describes. As for myself, I’m a criminal justice major. Yet I’m in the Air Force Reserves and will be going active when I graduate. For the people who posted negative comments.. You seriously cannot take a joke because what she said about Pre-Med majors was funny as hell! Hahaha.

  22. I think you’ve made a lot of generalizations which aren’t really fair. I think (for the most part) your major is what you make it. I know engineers that are lively and outgoing, I know English majors with good jobs, and there is nothing wrong with taking 5 years to graduate college. There isn’t anything wrong with not knowing what to do with your life. The important thing is that you get there at the end and can be proud of your accomplishment and not bash other people.

  23. I feel sorry for the fact that you probably thought you were brilliant for writing this. Good luck with your life.

  24. As someone who started as a Journo major & is now in Comm…I can for sure tell you you don’t usually start jouro because you’re afraid of liberal arts jokes and I’ve never had less free time in my life than trying to get a comm degree. Just saying.

  25. You’re just parroting the things all uni kids say about majors before they’ve even dabbled their big toe into the workforce. English and Communications are both great majors, you can package and sell them pretty easily for a variety of jobs. Plenty of organizations out there looking for copywriters and PR people. You might not end up writing about/reading Shakespeare for a living, unless you go into academia or get really lucky, but oh well. There are no magic majors that guarantee you a clutch job, it’s more about how hard you work, how well you interview/write a resume, and if you actually ENJOY what you’re doing. No one’s going to hire a shit engineer, or one that failed out of school because they actually hated engineering but thought it would be “useful”.

  26. Mmmm it’s ok I guess. Why do people think science majors don’t write essays? By our senior year, we are capable of writing peer-reviewed quality reports that would probably take an English Major like you a few weeks to read. Have you ever read a peer-reviewed article from a scientific journal? Do you know what that means to begin with? Take a look, you won’t get through the first paragraph. You can’t just “bullshit” a scientific paper. Every word you type must have a solid foundation. On top of that, you have about 30 hours a week of lab work, whether it’s for a class or for working on a research lab and we do more homework than anyone combined. I don’t know why it’s so hard for liberal art majors to accept the fact that STEM majors are harder.

  27. jinkar: oh yes, i also detected sugar in most of sg's hawker food. don't like tt too.michelle: the last time i went to ipoh was longggg longgg time ago so i must make a visit soon.theresa: oh you are homesick:( never mind, cook some sg dishes soon:)kat: an honest sgporean:D. oh the food back then was so yum…what happened to roasting chestnuts by the roadside? tt's also smthing i miss about KL. smelt it b4 i saw the chestnut stall. and the kacang man. n sotong man.:(((june: not biased, just honest lol

  28. After years of reading motivational quotes and articles, it’s honestly overwhelmed and quite honestly I found success with the simple mindset *JUST DO It doesn’t matter why or the even try to wrap your head around it? You want to work out to work out, If you want to make a business, build a Don’t overthink am I motivated am I of that, just *FUCKING DO IT*

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