Newsweek: The No. 1 most useless college degree is...

Median salary? Bullshit.

 

When I was university, there were a lot of useless degrees, unless one planned on entering academia as a professor: philosophy, foreign languages, literature, music, etc.

 

They're only predicting 4,400 jobs lost from 2008-2018?

Hell, Gannett's already exceeded that total in the last three years by themselves.

 

One of my cousins majored in art history. Another majored in theater. All told, they have used those degrees to make about $500 in the last 10 years.

One's a waitress and one went back to culinary school.

As dim as it is in journalism land, I refuse to believe it's the most useless degree.

 

Those are just anecdotal examples though. I know plenty of people with journalism degrees doing even less. I graduated from a state school with a journalism degree in 2007, with about 60 other people. Last I knew, I was the last reporter standing from that class. The class after me, similar, has two people - one print, one TV guy who only gets on camera occasionally, and more often works production. The class before me, none.

Some of them have PR jobs, but more have either gone back for teaching or other degrees, or are working service jobs. Waitress, managing a Dunkin' Donuts, etc.

 

That's the thing. You can't define "journalism" so narrowly as to include only newspaper. Corporate PR and communication is where the big money is at. There is also electronic journalism, online journalism, photojournalism, and other areas. A lot of the people I went to school with had absolutely zero interest in newspapers and only took reporting and editing classes because they were required.

Greenwell, let me guess, the Dunkin Donuts manager makes more than the entire sports staff at the Podunk Press put together?

 

I saw something on Yahoo a while back that listed various median salaries for various profession. Now I did not investigate how they gathered their data (urban vs. rural; entry-level vs. experienced, etc.), but I could not help but notice this:

The listed salary for a city sanitation worker was higher than what anyone on our current sports staff (at a decent daily newspaper) is earning.

All I could muster was: "Dear God, has it really come to THIS? I spend my days researching and writing information, painstaking hours editing and designing the best damn newspaper I possibly can. And make less than the guy who comes along after me to chuck it in the hopper?"

 

I've been in the newspaper biz for 17 years and my "mid-career salary" is half that number.

Must be because I majored in political science ...

 

Where the hell they come up with those figures I have no idea. Not in the universe I live in, that's for sure.

 

I recently discovered I make less than a janitor/bus driver with only a high school diploma in the county school system. I nearly went off the deep end.

 

"How does one get a career in the janitorial arts?"

 

My brother has a history degree. What the hell does one do with a history degree? Sell natural gas of course!