 The most overrated degrees. That's what we're going to be talking about today, but before we jump into it, gently tap the like button for the YouTube algorithm. On this channel, we talk about personal finance, college degrees, careers, entrepreneurship, and different opportunities that will lead you to success. And we also talk about avoiding the common traps of our times, which unfortunately, there are a lot of them. If that sounds like something that interests you, go ahead, hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell if you haven't already, if you want to see more content like that. And with that out of the way, let's jump right into it. Number 10 on this list is going to be general studies. So NCES estimates that about 15,000 people graduate every single year with a general studies degree. Now I tried to find a definition for this degree, like what the heck is it exactly? And it's usually pretty easy to find these. For instance, when you type into Google mechanical engineering definition, it pops right up. But with general studies, it doesn't. And I had to go searching just to find out what it was. And all the definitions were pretty wishy-washy. But here's one I found. For students interested in literary criticism, business management and the scientific method, choosing one major might feel restrictive. The general studies program, sometimes known as independent or interdisciplinary studies is perfect for students with diverse academic interests. So this is basically like a sample platter at a restaurant where you don't really know what you want. So you just get a little bit of everything. And these are for people who want to have a very shallow understanding of everything without being an expert on anything. But here's the thing, if you want to know a little bit about everything, there's this amazing thing called Google and the internet. Why don't you just use the internet to learn that stuff for free? There's so much free information out there. You can learn the basics of just about any subject on the internet. There's tons of universities that offer completely free classes. Even Ivy League universities will just post their classes online completely free. You can just take them. Like why would anybody ever pay for this stuff? This is like when you hear about people who pay for only fans, you know, simps. And if you know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about. I'm not trying to get this video demonetized. You can miss me with that Susan. So much free content out there on the internet. Why would you ever pay for something like that? This is more of kind of like a lighthearted comedy video. It's not going to be like one of my technical ones. So I'm not going to be getting into the numbers too much. But basically pay scale has this one ranked 676 out of 835 possible degrees. So this one is really bad when it comes to you actually being able to get a job. All right. Number nine on the list is going to be exercise science slash kinesiology. Honestly guys, you know, looking at this list, this one could be number one. And this one is definitely worse than some of the other ones on the list. But with this list, I'm paying a lot of attention to how many people actually graduate with these degrees. Okay. So 16,000 people every single year graduate with one of these degrees. Now some of you might be thinking, okay, you could be a personal trainer if you graduate with an exercise science degree. Now it is very common for people who go into exercise science to want to become personal trainers someday. And that's great. I'll probably hire a personal trainer myself at some point. The only problem is most personal trainers only have a high school degree. Personal trainers on average make around $40,000 a year. There's 356,000 jobs available. And the job outlook is around 13% growth, which is pretty good. But if you look a little bit closer, you'll see that the typical entry level education is only a high school diploma or equivalent. And think about it. No one is going to hire a personal trainer based on their degree unless they're like a professional athlete or something like that. Just think of the most famous personal trainers in the world. Jillian Michaels, for instance, she doesn't have a degree. Bob Harper, the guy that's on the biggest loser. And again, one of the other most famous personal trainers in the world doesn't have a degree. You see what I'm getting out here. This is another example of a career that you absolutely do not need to get a degree for people that might hire you as a personal trainer. Do not care about your degree. They don't even care about your degree. If you're on TV, calling yourself a world famous expert, all people care about is the results that you can get them and how good you are at motivating them into getting into shape. Now, as you can probably guess, this degree ranks really low. It's 740 out of 835. And that's really, really bad. One of the worst on the list. Next one on the list, number eight is going to be liberal arts and sciences slash liberal studies. So let's look up on Google what a liberal arts degree is. All right. So a liberal arts degree also referred to as the humanities includes the study of history, literature, writing, philosophy, sociology, psychology, creative arts and more. Okay. So this one is basically very similar to a general studies degree. As you can see, it just has a little bit more emphasis on the humanities and social sciences part. Now, don't get me wrong. I think these subjects are really interesting. I think they're very valuable. They're very important. And I think that everybody should study this stuff. A lot of these subjects are my favorite subjects in school, but the same issues apply to this one. You're not really an expert of anything. You're kind of just a jack of all trades and a master of none. Sure. Study it on the side, take extra classes, minor in it, maybe even double major in it. If you're really interested in the subject, but do not select this one as your only degree. Please. You can easily learn the basics of this stuff online for free. This one ranks about 599 out of 800. Not very good. Number seven on the list is going to be sociology. Now I got a lot of comments about this one because I almost never bring it up. For some reason, it didn't make it into a bunch of my different videos. So a lot of people are interested to hear my opinion on this one. Well, I think it's pretty overrated. 30,000 people every single year graduate with a sociology degree. And sociology is the study of the development structure and function of human society. So again, another one I think is really interesting. It's awesome. But when it comes to majoring in it, when it comes to making it your main degree, you shouldn't do it. So I spent a ton of time researching these videos and I found this really interesting comment from a sociology professor. So I'm just going to go ahead and read it. This was on Reddit. It was from Grinchman 042. I'm a sociology professor. I love sociology and I have a great life, but I got a PhD and then got lucky. Most sociology bachelors, which means a four-year degree that I've known that didn't attend an elite university don't have the smoothest path to career success. It's not the most broadly marketable degree. Lots of employers don't really know what it is or how it might help them. So for most people, a sociology degree will get you the following. One, a degree. That's worth a lot. Lots of jobs require a college degree and people with four-year degrees earn lots more on average through your lifetime. Though my parents' generation can't advise that your major doesn't matter is no longer true if it ever was. 100% agree there. Two, whatever perspective, knowledge and skills you pick up and retain from your classes. For all but the most motivated, frankly, this doesn't usually add up to much, but that's true for most students and most degrees. I advise you to think hard and realistically about your career goals. If you want to take fascinating classes without much payoff beyond the degree itself, sociology is an awesome option. If you want a smooth transition to appealing career options, you might consider a different major while still taking sociology classes or double majoring because sociology is great. Then he gives some sources there, but I think you guys get the idea. Straight from the horse's mouth, this is a sociology professor. It is not in his best interest to tell you to not major in sociology. That means that there's going to be less sociology professor jobs out there. So it is not in his best interest to say this. The reason he's saying it is because he's 100% telling the truth. And sociology comes in ranked around 621 out of 835 degrees. So I think that's all I need to say about this one. Number six on the list is probably my personal favorite subject, which is history. I think everybody knows what history is. Basically it's studying what happened in the past or at least what people write down about what happened in the past. And there are 34,000 people that graduate with this degree every single year. You know, there's so many questions that remain unanswered on this earth. Who would want to fight between Goku and Superman? Why does the evil YouTube algorithm promote some of my worst videos and let my best videos die? And why did my ex-girlfriend ghost me? I'm not able to answer any of those questions, but there's one question I can answer and that is, what was my favorite subject in school? And that's history. Now a lot of other people agree with me that history is awesome. That's why 34,000 people graduate with a degree every single year. Now I told the story before, but I had a roommate back in college who was also really passionate about history and he decided to actually major in it. I'm not going to go into details because that's his personal life, but basically he did regret it. And on top of that, he now does something that is completely different, has nothing at all to do with history. Now, ironically, I probably spend more time listening to history podcasts, reading history blogs, et cetera, than he does today. So I'm actually spending more time studying history than he does. And I didn't have to do any of that stuff you don't want to do, like memorizing dates or writing about events that you don't care about. Now this one is ranked 412 out of 835. I think that's actually the best out of anyone on the entire list. Now the reason for this is because obviously big brain people love history, okay? No, but seriously, I do think there might be some intrinsic bias here. You see a few degrees out there like philosophy and history that actually don't rank that badly when it comes to the numbers. But I think the reason these degrees actually rank pretty well is because people who pursue these subjects tend to be kind of smart people and they probably would have been successful no matter what degree that they got. That's just my opinion. I can't prove it. It's just a theory of mine. But anyways, number five on the list is going to be an English degree. This is another one that I have not mentioned very much on this channel. 43,000 people every single year in the United States of America graduate with an English degree. Now this is a language degree I've talked about, you know, language related degrees before. They generally don't rank very well when it comes to, you know, a personal finance perspective when it comes to the numbers. For the vast majority of cases you do not need a degree in order to learn how to write in English or honestly any other language for that matter. Now you might say, oh, you study English or creative writing if you want to become a professional author. Let's see, did George R.R. Martin get a degree in English? Nope. How about the author of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling? Nope. And both of them would have went to school back in a time where getting an English degree actually wasn't that bad of a choice because you could basically just get any degree and you'd be good to go. Things are not that way these days. You absolutely have to make sure that you choose a good degree. Now I do think this one falls into that category of degrees that really smart people are attracted to. A lot of them fall into the trap and it still doesn't rank all that well. It ranks around 514 out of 835. Number four on the list is going to be criminal justice. Now there is a couple different variations of this one, but if you add them together about 44,000 people graduate with this degree every single year in the US. This is another one that easily could have ended up as number one on the list in my opinion. So many people go after these degrees because they watch shows like CSI or Criminal Minds growing up. It's also another really good show called Mind Hunter I'm starting to get into. And these are all awesome shows. Don't get me wrong and a lot of people end up wanting to be a detective or a police officer after watching them. But here's the problem and I've talked about this before on the channel. 99% of the time you do not need to get a criminal justice degree in order to become a detective or a police officer. Once in a while you'll come across a position that does require the degree but most of the time you absolutely don't have to have it. In fact many positions don't require any degree at all. So going to college at all in the first place is kind of a waste of time and money. Now the vast majority of these 40,000 people that graduate with this degree probably go into it not really doing the research and not realizing that they don't need to get this degree in order to get to the career that they want. A lot of people are spending four years of their life going $40,000 in debt only to get a degree that only leads to a 651 out of 835 ranking. Also as a side note if you know anything about getting hired as a police officer or getting hired in a government job in general you know that they are very very strict with your background. So they might not care all that much about you graduating with a criminal justice degree. However if you have one little problem in your background you had one little issue way back in the day that might disqualify you from getting a job. So let's say somebody becomes like a doctor in criminal justice and they have one little issue, one little run-in with the law whatever that may be they won't be able to work in the career even though they have a doctorate in criminal justice. Anyways tangent over number three on the list is going to be biology. This is one where 64,000 people graduate with a biology degree every single year. Now don't get me wrong biology is a worthwhile subject. I think it's very important that people know this subject. There's lots of different advancements and things that we are going to be doing in the future that require the knowledge of somebody who graduates with a biology degree. But I do think that this one is a little bit of a trap because they think oh I'm getting a biology degree that's a STEM degree I'm going to be good to go. And if you go into it with a really good plan like let's say you're planning on getting a biology degree and then you're going to become a nurse practitioner or you're going to try to get into med school or become a PA something along those lines it can be great. Their knowledge studying biology for four years will help them with their future careers and they'll end up being better healthcare professionals because of it. However so many people go into this thinking that they will be able to get a really good career with just a bachelor's in biology and the truth is the job prospects are really not that good at all. So a friend of mine that I talked about before on this channel we were in a lot of the same clubs and undergrad she was planning on going to medical school and so she got a biology degree. Now she ended up not getting into med school the first time she applied and I think she kind of halfway applied one other time she didn't get in either and so she decided to kind of give up on her dream of becoming a doctor she decided it wasn't for her. Very common you're going to see that a ton in college just about everyone you meet in your classes think that they're going to be a medical doctor and only like two percent of them actually end up doing it. That's why I made the whole video on why I think being a medical doctor is a little bit overrated. Even though the career itself is good I think the degree is overrated just because so many people want to get into it and they go into it for the wrong reasons. So anyways she graduated with her biology degree and she tried to go out and get a job and the job prospects were not very good. She was actually stuck working jobs that she could have gotten without a biology degree and they didn't pay very well so she didn't have much of any other choice so she went back to school in order to get her doctorate in biology. Now this did end up turning out pretty well for her she was able to get a decent job and luckily there was a happy ending overall but that's not the point. The point is is that she didn't have a choice she really didn't have much of a choice because she was already so far into debt and the only way she could possibly get a good career is if she went back to school went even further into debt and got a master's or a doctoral level degree. She got lucky it turned out well for her but for many people it doesn't and this is one of those degrees where a lot of people think it's really good when in reality it's kind of mediocre and honestly it's borderline bad. You can make it work if you have a really good plan I'm not saying you can't but overall it's not one of the best ones and that's why it ranks 420 out of 835 possible degrees. Alright number two on the list is going to be communications. 88,000 people graduate with a communications degree every single year. This one is bad so many people end up majoring in communications. Don't get me wrong this is a very important skill everyone should learn how to communicate better. Every video I make for instance I try to think of ways that I can better communicate my points to you guys but there's two big things about this major that make it not worth it. The first thing is that it's just way too general it's one of those degrees where it's so general that it's not even obvious what you're an expert at. You want to go to college to become an expert at a specialized skill not someone who's just a generalist. Communications won't really teach you how to be an expert at anything because it's just such a general degree and there's so many different sub-specialties of communication there's writing there's speaking there's different types of speaking there's making videos so you'll basically just be sampling each one and the second thing is this major has the reputation of honestly being really easy and I think that's partially true. There's a ton of student athletes out there that know they're only going to be at school for a few years so what do they do they major in communications they take the easiest possible classes because they know they're probably going to get drafted by the NBA so I think you get my point here this isn't one of the worst degrees ever okay communication is so important that even just you know graduating with kind of an easy degree like that can open up you know opportunities for you in the future. This one ends up ranking about 438 out of 835 which to me I think that's pretty overrated considering the fact that so many people graduate with a degree every single year. If you want to get good at speeches or something like that join a Toastmasters club where they you know give speeches and they give you feedback on what you're good at and what you can improve on. There's so many different ways that you can get good at communication and study different types of communication other than going to school and getting a four-year degree. Number one on the list is going to be you guessed it psychology I get a ton of hate for this one every single time I talk about it people leave me hate comments guys I have no problem with psychology I think mental health professionals are great I think you guys for the most part are really good people that want to do good things in the world but I have to be fair I'm not going to not mention it just because of the fact that I respect you guys it's the same thing with teachers and education getting an education degree doesn't rank very well does that mean that I hate teachers I have some kind of problem against teachers absolutely not I think teachers are extremely important I think they should be paid better and I think we should spend a lot more time making sure that teachers teach our students how to be responsible adults things like teaching them personal finance for instance 100,000 people every single year graduate with this degree 102,756 to be exact most of them go into it thinking that they will be able to get a good job get a good career with just a bachelor's level degree they're wrong there's almost no jobs out there for bachelor's level psychology majors the few that are out there are going to be low paying crappy work conditions you're going to be working long hours and if you have any problem with that there's going to be 100 people lined up to take your place this is simple supply and demand here guys there's a ton of supply of people who graduate with psychology degrees because it's such an interesting subject everybody loves to study it and unfortunately there's just not a lot of demand with this degree getting a master's or a doctor it is basically the new bachelor's it's the baseline that you have to have just to get an entry level job and even then it might only be a halfway decent job and nothing is promised you might not even get a job at all it's a very interesting subject another one that's very important to society mental health is very important I get it please don't get triggered and spaz out in the comments but just for practical personal finance reasons I probably wouldn't recommend getting it psychology ranks 584 out of 835 possible degrees which is not very good now there are some types of psychology out there that rank a little bit better I know industrial and organizational psychology you know there's quite a bit of jobs out there for them so if you plan it out if you really do your research you know exactly what you're getting yourself into you know that you'll likely have to get either a master's or a doctor it can work out for you all I'm saying is most of the people who go into psychology think that they're going to be able to get a good job after four years and that is just not the truth they end up getting stuck in a cycle where they're pretty much forced after they get their bachelor's degree to get either a master's or a doctorate and I've talked about this before when you're forced to get a master's or a doctorate level degree you're basically at their whim graduate school just in general is much more expensive than undergrad and then the loans that you have to take out for grad school are much worse they have like seven sometimes seven and a half percent interest rates there's all kinds of other things that make them much worse than the undergrad variety loans that you take out for undergrad I've made whole videos about this explaining that so check out other parts of my channel if you want to know any more about that and if you haven't already make sure to smash the like button hit the subscribe button ring the notification bell and comment down below any thoughts comments criticisms etc that you have on the video and before you go check out my other videos right here I made them just for you