A friend of mine once said, “Some people graduate with degrees that have no use in this 21st Century.” This simply means that some degrees are quite useless; not that they have no use, but the time spent studying for such degrees would have been used to pursue something better.
Some these “useless” degrees are named as such not because they aren’t of help to the individual or society at large, but because the time spent studying them in colleges are considered a waste.
However if you are studying any of the named degrees, you can take additional certification courses online in order to add more relevance and value to your degree.
On the other hand, if you are done with high school and looking to go to college, this article will show you some of the perceived “most useless degrees” that you should reconsider before planning to study.
Before we look into these Most Useless Degrees, let’s look at the:
Reasons people go to college:
- To connect with great minds and get better at their craft.
- To create a life and career.
- You can gain massive exposure in college.
- To follow their passion.
Most Useless Degrees
Computer Science:
This field is so vast that you can’t study the entire degree all through your stay in college. It is so saturated with a lot of sub-fields that can be picked out and studied online.
What makes this degree seem useless is the use of old-fashioned textebooks used in the 2000s to still teach in this 21st century, still having in mind that lots of new developments have been added in the field and are not yet updated in the textbooks.
Alternative: Specify the sub-field of computer you will like to go into and focus your attention on it. If you want to code, face it full time by taking online courses, or if you are low on cash, you can take free videos on YouTube for a start.
Sociology:
Quite amazing to say, there are fewer career opportunities within the sociology field, such as a social worker or probation officer.
More of the job opportinites link to a social worker since sociology is more often than not, the study of the society, religious lifestyles, its individual work, and functions.
Sociology is considered one of the Most Useless Degrees due to the less demand for their experience in the society.
Alternative: There are some jobs that a sociologist can do, these jobs are in-line with study of sociology. These jobs include:
- Management Consultant
- Human Resources (HR) Representative
- Counselor
Read this: What is the easiest degree to get Online?
Advertising:
Since most advertisement opportunities are online, the need for people to teach offline advertising keeps depreciating, although the outworn advertising still plays a good role for our parent and grand parents.
Social media has taken over the advertisement field since has gone online. The reason advertising seems like one of the Most Useless Degrees is that virtually everything you need to learn about online ads can be covered with an online course.
The amazing thing is that as the day goes by, what you learnt in college while studying for a degree, will fade out as technology appreciates.
Even the old form of advertising of billboards and banner ads is gradually going out of phase. It is therefore advisable to stick to the new age of advertising.
Alternative: I suggest that instead of spending years studying a form of advertisement that will fade out as technology improves, I advise that you take consistent online courses on advertising and improve more in your field on a daily basis.
Creative Writing:
You don’t need a degree before you can start a blog and start publishing amazing write-ups for reader all over the world; all you need is the creativity and zeal attached into what you are doing.
What makes creative writing one of the Most Useless Degrees to acquire?
Creative writing is a craft that is beyond normal professional writing. It dives into diverse fields that you have to research on to gain better understanding before writing.
You don’t need to spend years in college learning about this degree when you can get a glimpse from an online course; the degree might slow you in broadening your horizon in other spheres of writing.
Alternative:
As an aspiring creative writer, you need to pick out a specific niche you will like to focus on. Starting a blog will be a great avenue to put your words out there.
If you intend to grow your writing skills, you can take online courses on Udemy, Skillshare, or other online platforms and get the update forms of writing in all specs of life.
Read this: How to get into Stanford University (Easy Steps)
Music:
Most of the musicians doing well in the industry didn’t study music in college.
Most will tell you that the success of their career came as a result of the passion and commitment coupled with thousands of hours of hard work and time put into the craft.
A music degree is said to be one of the Most Useless Degrees because most of the craft and success of music comes fro stage performance, coaching and the luck that comes from preparation. All these are worth more than a college degree.
Alternative:
Studying music in college or a music school is not a bad idea if you want to be a music teacher or tutor.
If you want to become a performing artist, I suggest you attend a performance school like Juilliard where you can learn to control an audience and how well to perform to get the audience’s attention.
On the other hand, being committed to a music coach who can direct and instruct you on the right way to sing while still giving you the opportunity to reach out to the world by coordinating your shows and performance.
Final tips:
Some of these degrees perceived to be useless are not totally useless. The only reason they are termed “most useless degrees” is that their college experience isn’t worth it, and the time spent studying them can be put to good use.
Instead of spending time in college studying to get any of these degrees, you can either take courses online or take classes from a one-on-one tutor who will take it personal to see that you do well in that field of study.
The alternative aspect of each degree indicates the improvements that can be done to the degree to make it more profitable and easier for an aspirant or someone who already has the degree in store.
Read this: STEM Degree (Everything you need to know)
Awesome one, I hope this article answered your question.
Share this Information
