Recent graduates with degrees in psychology or art are having trouble finding jobs

RambleTamble

RambleTamble

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Many journalists try to make the case that current job market is tough and it's getting even tougher, but they often use anecdotes that don't make their point. If things were that tough, they wouldn't use people who graduated with worthless degrees as proof.

Here is the latest example from the NY Times...

Young Graduates Face the Grimmest Job Market in Years​

Erin Torres, 22, graduated in December from Barnard College in New York with a degree in psychology. When she started looking for jobs, she aspired to work in product management at a technology company.

She has broadened her search to include all manner of entry-level corporate jobs and business analyst roles. In the past two months, she said, she had applied to close to 200 jobs and had gotten four interviews.

Taleah Reyes, 22, initially decided not to go to college after graduating from high school with an associate degree. Born and raised in central Florida, she got her own apartment and took a full-time job at a theme park in Orlando.

Two years later, enticed by the prospect that a higher degree would open doors to more opportunities, she enrolled at Rollins College, a private liberal arts school in Winter Park, Fla. She started studying art history, which felt like a natural extension of her love of art, writing and research.

She continued to work part time at the theme park, where she operates rides. But with graduation approaching in May, she has also been applying to fellowships and internships at art museums, a library and a magazine.

“It’s been a lot of rejection,” she said. “The field is so competitive.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/business/economy/college-graduates-job-market-hiring.html

If times are as bad as they claim, recent grads with engineering or business degrees would have trouble finding jobs, which may be the case, but if it were, why don't journalists use them for their evidence?
 
Degrees don't mean squat without an industry certification or state license. A college degree show one completed a a bunch of courses. Certifications and licenses show one is competent in an area

With a degree in psychology she should've got certified as a counselor or something.
 
jujube said:
There was an old joke that asked, "What does a graduate with a degree in Philosophy say?"

"Would you like fries with that?"
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The twin brother of my BIL studied Biology and graduated in parasitic wasps. He gives computer lessons. BIL started a small company and created a job for his brother and his wife who both had done some useless study.
 
Recent graduates with degrees in psychology or art are having trouble finding jobs
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Nothing new here. College graduates don't always get jobs in the field they majored in, particularly. Employers want a person that has the broad training a degree brings with it, for figuring out how to do things in a work environment.
I found out personally that a BA degree in psychology is really not sufficient to work in the field, a Master's degree gets you started.
 
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There are some majors where the only job they qualify you for is teaching the subject you've been studying.

I had a pen pal who was a retired professor of philosophy. Other than teaching philosophy, which he said he didn't enjoy, he wrote and published several books that few have ever read. He felt it was sad that so many young people attend college just to qualify for a job. I guess he has a point. Should college be just vocational training, or should it be to make you a more balanced individual?

In my case it was to get a job in a field I was interested in. That's probably why I'm so unbalanced.

We need historians, writers, artists, anthropologists, naturalists, and even philosophers. But, very few can make a living at it. On the other hand, with AI becoming more capable, how many other majors could that be true for?
 
WhatInThe said:
Degrees don't mean squat without an industry certification or state license. A college degree show one completed a a bunch of courses. Certifications and licenses show one is competent in an area

With a degree in psychology she should've got certified as a counselor or something.
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I dunno. I was an accounting major and found a job in accounting without any certifications or licenses. I later got an MBA and also a CPA license, but by then I had been working in accounting for 10 or more years. My son had no problem finding positions as an Engineer without said certs or licenses. YMMV
 
Grampa Don said:
There are some majors where the only job they qualify you for is teaching the subject you've been studying.

I had a pen pal who was a retired professor of philosophy. Other than teaching philosophy, which he said he didn't enjoy, he wrote and published several books that few have ever read. He felt it was sad that so many young people attend college just to qualify for a job. I guess he has a point. Should college be just vocational training, or should it be to make you a more balanced individual?

In my case it was to get a job in a field I was interested in. That's probably why I'm so unbalanced.

We need historians, writers, artists, anthropologists, naturalists, and even philosophers. But, very few can make a living at it. On the other hand, with AI becoming more capable, how many other majors could that be true for?
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I had more of a Liberal Arts curriculum. I found I was more open minded and saw a bigger picture than my Engineering educated colleagues.
 
OldFeller said:
I had more of a Liberal Arts curriculum. I found I was more open minded and saw a bigger picture than my Engineering educated colleagues.
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Me too. But I ended up going into IT (known as Data Processing at the time) and went to night school to get a 2-year degree in accounting. Lib arts were good for the mind, not so good for the wallet. Wife did something similar.
 
When I was a school girl, people who had studied at university and graduated with a bachelor's degree were considered to be smart, articulate and able to read and research. They usually had no difficulty in finding work after graduation.

They were not necessarily specialists in any field. That came later with on the job experience and higher level studies.

Today a bachelor degree is not considered sufficient. Two of my grandchildren were required to have masters' degrees as entry level qualification, one for teaching and the other for music therapy. That amounts to a minimum of six years of full time study. The tuition costs are prohibitive for many and the level of student debt that must be repaid is eye watering because of the interest rates that are applied.

School students should be advised which studies are most likely to lead to employment before enrolling at universities.
 
WhatInThe said:
Degrees don't mean squat without an industry certification or state license. A college degree show one completed a a bunch of courses. Certifications and licenses show one is competent in an area

With a degree in psychology she should've got certified as a counselor or something.
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For that she'd likely need a Masters degree, at minimum.
 
I had a slightly older friend who graduated with a bachelors in Art History in 1970. When I asked her what she was going to do with it she said she was hoping to work in a museum but there were almost no openings. She move to NYC because of the great concentration of museums there but ended up with a job in finances, which she hated. But she had rent to pay and there was nothing open in her field. That was 56 years ago.
 
Not surprising. The sad part is many of them now have to deal with high student loan payments. :confused: My oldest grandson was on the Dean's and President's lists throughout his entire college "career". He was also inducted into the Psi Beta Kappa Honor Society and the National Honor Society. It took him months to find work, often getting the "you're over qualified" excuse. When he finally found work, it was at a job not worthy of his achievements. He was a business major. I've been reading that skilled workers with trade school training will be more employable in the future than college graduates.
 
I graduated in the mid-'90s with a degree in computer science, which was the perfect degree for that time since the tech industry was booming and jobs were plentiful. I worked most of my career in the aerospace industry, but I was offered at job a Dish network and U.S. West and a few other places.

There were no AI assistants doing most of the coding for us, and the internet was still in its infancy, so computer bookstores were a popular place for us geeks to hang out. Those were fun times for techies. I've been watching some videos of tech companies from back then and they definitely bring back memories.

I wouldn't know what to study if I was thinking about going to a university now. AI is quickly taking over most of the coding tasks involved in writing software. There's still a need for software architects and managers, but coders are becoming obsolete.

I might go into robotics, but AI can do a lot of the work behind robot design.

From what I understand, AI is doing a lot of the work once done by accountants, too.

And if the girl with the degree in psychology wants to be a therapist (which would require a Master's degree), she'd have to compete with AI therapists that currently work for free. It's been my experience that AI therapists are generally better than real life therapists. So even if she was qualified, she'd have a tough time earning a living. I think that was the case even before AI was an option, but even more so now, by a longshot!

As far as studying psychology with a goal of teaching, before too long, AI -- not people -- will be teaching these classes. Maybe they'll have hologram teachers standing up in front of the class. That means universities will no longer have to pay professors; there will just be AI powered hologram teachers standing in front of the class!

It's a crazy world! I'm glad I'm not young right now and trying to navigate it.
 
I made a good life for myself with a two year diploma in accounting, from a local business school, and assorted night school courses paid for by my employer.

Starting with an entry level job definitely got me off to a slow start but it allowed me to begin earning and continue learning, gaining relevant work experience without any student loan debt.

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” - Theodore Roosevelt
 
^^^^
My first employer did not require an accounting degree. I just walked in the door one day and applied for a position after seeing a sign "Office help wanted." It was a short interview, no resume, etc., and I started to work the next day. Within a year or so, I had become his main bookkeeper. That experience enabled me to make other career advancements until finally landing a very good position that lasted almost 25 years.

Long gone are those informal times when employers gave people an opportunity to start from the ground up.
 
This isn't a new issue. For some reason students have been attracted to these fields of study with dreams of changing the world. It is a sad commentary about the guidance that students receive when planning education choices.
 
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