When you attend a traditional university, there are a slew of classes that you are required to take, often before taking a single class that has anything to do with your major. When you get to the end of your education, you might look back on your transcript and realize that you took more than one class that not only did not advance your degree, but was ultimately useless in your life. It might have even killed your grade point average. Based on our research, taking in to consideration several double blind polls, earnings estimates, employment potential, unemployment claims data and college recruiters datasets here are seven courses that most people regret taking:
Philosophy
It’s interesting to learn about the great philosophers of old and to get a greater understanding of logic and decision making, but these are usually subjects covered in other classes. Taking an entire class that is devoted to this subject, unless you are actually devoting your entire life to becoming a philosopher, will likely be a waste of your time and provide you with information that you are likely never going to use outside of that class. This might not be a bad thing for some students, but many students regret taking this class, realizing that it provides very little for them in the long term. From 2000 to 2015 student who have majored in Philosophy have shown increasingly high rates of borrowing as well as high rates of default, we examined U.S. metropolitan areas as well as government data to come to the conclusion that taking Philosophy classes is very bad for your financial health, at least taking it as your major.
Art history
This one wasn’t that much of a surprise. Really! Art history, the often loathed and laughed at major like philosophy, this is probably a class that you are going to have limited use for even if you actually are studying art as your major. If you are just looking for a class to fill a slot in your schedule (many universities require you to have a certain number of credits per semester in order to qualify for scholarships or to be considered a full time student), this is likely not going to be the class for you. Like any history class, it is going to be intense, and unless art is your major, it probably is not going to do much to further you towards your desired degree. “Research shows that students majoring in Art history tend to earn substantially lower incomes when they start out in the work force, they also tend to under earn their peers after about 10 years in the work force, the real earning loss of students taking Art history hasn’t been explored yet.” Lawrenz O. Picus, co-author of the study and a former Ph.D. student at Harvard University, now at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, told Online Class Tutors.
Advanced math
Some degrees require you to learn advanced math. Most people will tell you that out in the real world, there are calculators and computers for a reason. My father is an engineer, so don’t let him catch me saying this, but for most people, there isn’t a place for advanced math in their lives. This doesn’t mean you have to be completely ignorant of the concepts, but taking three or four calculus courses might not be the best use of your time. This one was actually a surprise for us though, we’d think students taking Advanced math classes would show higher earnings and more job satisfaction but the opposite was the case, For the study, Picus and his colleagues conducted a series of polls and experiments using data from financial aggregation such as Yoldee Inc. Picus also conducted several polls on Bankrates, his findings were that advanced math major students tend to experience less rates of job satisfaction and higher rates of unemployment. These results are to be published in the journal Journal of Advances in Mathematics.
Psychology
Again, a caveat: if you are studying psychology because you want to become a psychologist, you probably will not regret taking this class. If, however, you are taking this class just to fill out your schedule or to become “interesting”, you are probably going to get more than you bargained for in terms of work and less than you bargained for in terms of functionality. While it can be fun to try to analyze yourself and your friends, if you’re paying for this class, you might regret taking it in the long run. Students minoring in Psychology tended to lag their peers in starting salaries as well as raises, using data from Monster, LinkedIn and Indeed, Picus found. However, he also found a surprisingly high correlation of students taking Psychology along with Marketing and Programming to have higher rates of employment, earnings and wage growth.
Anthropology
It can be interesting to learn about different cultures, how they are made up, and how to interact with them, but for those who are trying to make a beeline for their degree, you might for more utility in taking something that you will actually use in your lifetime. There is a lot of interesting information in this class, but if you only want to take it because of the TV show Bones or because you want to become the next Indiana Jones, you’re more likely to regret taking it in the long run.
Communications
At some universities, you are require to take a communications class in order to graduate or to move on to more advanced reading/writing/verbal/non-verbal communication classes that might be relevant for your major. A lot of people will simply take this class because they need to pad their schedule with a few additional credits. It is going to hit the trifecta of regrettable decisions: it’s likely going to be boring, difficult to get a good grade in, and not very useful outside of the realm of the class itself. What you learn in this class you’ll probably pick up naturally from being a person or from another class.
Theater
This is a fun class if you’ve got some acting chops or are going to study theater for your entire time at university. You might, however, find yourself relegated to set building or light design if you don’t have the requisite acting skills. The biggest reason that most people regret taking this class, however? It takes up a lot of your time. You’re probably going to spend more time on this class than even your advanced math classes, in between building sets, making costumes, and learning lines.