Those who pursued ‘less practical’ degrees, how has your life turned out?
A close friend of mine recently shared with me on her job change. She did a degree in philosophy as it was her passion and she has very good writing skills.
However obv there aint jobs related to that degree in sg. She work for a while in 2 editorial companies but her career was going nowhere.
As she had plans to marry and need to save up, she has to spend hours to take additional courses and self learn new stuff and recently changed field to a UX designer in a IT company.
She regretted it big time on her degree choice and said she would have chosen smth more practical like CS or engineering.
We all know that many ppl choose practical degrees like CS, law, engineering, medicine for the career opportunities.
Ppl who did lesser known or marketable degrees, how has it affected your life and career? Will you still pursue this degree if you can turn back the clock?
Netizens’ comments
- My major was Psychology. Now working as a Data Scientist.
That was what I did – I had to take more courses during my private time to do data science and I am doing my Masters in Data Science now.
I could have saved more time if I had taken CS for my major, but 10 years ago, everyone discouraged me to take CS because ” the job would get outsourced to India or Vietnam anyway”.
I do plan to go back to a job related to psychology and social science while also utilizing my data science skills soon. I was laid off by a tech company and I don’t see myself continuing in any of these tech companies because I don’t see them recovering to the scale during covid and I am getting old. So all is not lost. - I am a philosophy grad, am managing the APAC division of an international tech firm, travelling between several SEA countries monthly.
Many of my classmates works in banks or financial firms and are making buttloads of money. There’s apparently a fetish for humanities grads in these western investment firms, especially philosophy or sociology degrees. - Majored in History in NUS. Did sciences my whole life but found my passion in history in university, never regretted it.
You don’t pick up technical skills, but social sciences/humanities do teach you how to process large amounts of information, and present arguments well in concise ways. More soft skills I guess, which can be applicable in the business world.
Been working in operational excellence/lean six sigma work for the past 7 years. First for public healthcare, then now for a global healthcare mnc. Travelling to various markets around the world to drive operational efficiency projects.
Had to pick up lean six sigma certifications and brush up on stats/data visualisation/data processing along the way.
So no, I don’t see how your chosen university degree has to limit your options out in the real world.