# Useless College Majors



## derekleffew (Jan 20, 2012)

From College Majors That Are Useless - Yahoo! Education :

> Here's the good news: Sign up for theater as a major and at least you'll be really good at acting like you have a job.
> Here's the bad news: Actors endure long periods of unemployment and frequent rejection, says the U.S. Department of Labor. The Department goes on to say that because earnings are erratic for actors, producers, and directors, many hold second jobs. In other words, how do you feel about waiting tables?
> Of course, says Shatkin, "People go into this with such a love for it you can't stop them."



Obviously, EVERY college theatre major is an actor.


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## gafftapegreenia (Jan 20, 2012)

If there is one thing I've learned from both Glee and High School Musical, its that lighting rigs and audio reenforcement magically appear whenever someone starts singing.


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## Grog12 (Jan 20, 2012)

derekleffew said:


> From College Majors That Are Useless - Yahoo! Education :
> 
> 
> Obviously, EVERY college theatre major is an actor.



I do so much acting around directors, producers and other designers I might as well be


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## zmb (Jan 20, 2012)

Sounds more funny and maybe slightly more practical getting a theatre major than turfgrass management. I'm looking at colleges right now (engineering degree of some sort) and the degrees seem outlandish at times.


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## chausman (Jan 20, 2012)

derekleffew said:


> Obviously, EVERY college theatre major is an actor.


 
I'm not in college, but I have to act all the time. Act like I like the show, act like I am awake, act like the show is even slightly better than mediocre, the list goes on and on. Fun fact, the dictionary for iOS actually has _a mediocre actor_ as an example for using the word correctly. lets see how many people are going to go check now...


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## shiben (Jan 20, 2012)

zmb said:


> Sounds more funny and maybe slightly more practical getting a theatre major than turfgrass management. I'm looking at colleges right now (engineering degree of some sort) and the degrees seem outlandish at times.


 
Except then you realize that turfgrass management is important for sports teams, golf courses, and park districts, and there are a lot of those. I know a guy who makes a very solid middle class living as a turf maintenance guy. His company does all kinds of grass projects and the like.


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## shiben (Jan 20, 2012)

Another thing to note: The figures are all taken from 2008/2009, right when the recession was beginning. So how are the figures in any way relevant, especially when at least here we start to see growth in the industrial theater field, and the economy is slowly beginning to improve? Also, how did Horniculture come in at 5th when Theater came in at 3rd, with a 16% job growth prospect? I think the entire article is flawed, and totally ignores things like philosophy. Who hires philosophers? Oh wait, its viewing college as a trade school that takes 4 years to go to. But thats at best a flawed view of how college is supposed to work...


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## LXPlot (Jan 20, 2012)

shiben said:


> Also, how did Horniculture come in at 5th when Theater came in at 3rd, with a 16% job growth prospect? I think the entire article is flawed, and totally ignores things like philosophy. Who hires philosophers? Oh wait, its viewing college as a trade school that takes 4 years to go to. But thats at best a flawed view of how college is supposed to work...


 
I think a larger amount of people major in theatre, attempt to become an actor and fail, than those who major in philosophy with the goal of being a philosopher. Conventional teachings are that theatre degrees do not lead to a job, whereas liberal arts degrees will. So people who want to major in theatre but don't really want to go into it are dissuaded from doing that, skewing the results.

That said, they're viewing college as a 4 year trade school. Also, from my understanding, a lot of places don't care what sort of degree you have so long as you have a degree. But I'm a high school student so I'm probably not the ideal source on that one.


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## cdub260 (Jan 21, 2012)

The theatre world is a unique animal. While it's true that a degree is nowhere even close to a guarantee of success in this industry, not having a degree is not even close to a guarantee of failure. In the 22 years, so far, that I've been in this industry, I've seen very talented people with highly specialized degrees leave the industry because they couldn't earn a living. At the same time, I've seen high school dropouts with very successful, 30+ year careers doing theatre. As I have said many a time before, there is no one size fits all, single path to success in the entertainment industry. Everyone's path is unique.


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## gafftapegreenia (Jan 21, 2012)

In contrast: What Theatre Majors Learn. What can you "do" with a theatre major? Plenty!!


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## shiben (Jan 21, 2012)

gafftapegreenia said:


> In contrast: What Theatre Majors Learn. What can you "do" with a theatre major? Plenty!!


 
I have always though, having been in Engineering and a huge number of Liberal Arts classes, that Theater really is one of the best Liberal Arts degrees you can get, in terms of learning a lot of things. You need to understand something about History, Language, Art, Philosophy, Psychology, Engineering, Science, and many other things. How is that not A a liberal arts degree and B incredibly useful for things other than theater? In design class you learn to research things in a deeper manner than read a bunch of books about it. You develop the skills to emotionally connect with material that you dont know that much about. You learn how to deal with stress and deadlines, all while working with big personalities (both sides of the lights). In acting you learn about how to carry yourself, how to communicate and how to speak in front of people. You also learn to take direction. In tech you learn to apply things you have learned to a real problem, as well as how to work with your hands. Stage management is a crash course on running projects, and managing teams. How is that a "useless" degree? Actually kind of rankles me the more I think about it...


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## gafftapegreenia (Jan 21, 2012)

LXPlot said:


> Conventional teachings are that theatre degrees do not lead to a job, whereas liberal arts degrees will. So people who want to major in theatre but don't really want to go into it are dissuaded from doing that, skewing the results.


 

My degree IS a liberal arts degree. BA in Theatre Arts. Yup.


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## porkchop (Jan 21, 2012)

gafftapegreenia said:


> If there is one thing I've learned from both Glee and High School Musical, its that lighting rigs and audio reenforcement magically appear whenever someone starts singing.


 
Good sir, I beg to differ. My employer only thinks that what happened.


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## shiben (Jan 22, 2012)

porkchop said:


> Good sir, I beg to differ. My employer only thinks that what happened.


 
But I saw glee, and they have a huge and unique lighting rig every time they want to talk thru their emotional problems! It must be magic!


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## josh88 (Jan 22, 2012)

shiben said:


> But I saw glee, and they have a huge and unique lighting rig every time they want to talk thru their emotional problems! It must be magic!


 
I tend to believe it is magic. Because everybody wants it to happen like that and some how most of the time I get it done in time. I'll be fine making the magic happen even though nobody knows that we're here doing it as long as the check writers remember me.


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## shiben (Jan 23, 2012)

josh88 said:


> I tend to believe it is magic. Because everybody wants it to happen like that and some how most of the time I get it done in time. I'll be fine making the magic happen even though nobody knows that we're here doing it as long as the check writers remember me.


 
Im just gonna say this: If you go and express your emotions on a stage with 200 PAR EAs and 2 dozen MLs, I will gladly help it. However, dont expect your 200 PAR EAs to be set up differently and with a full gel/focus swap and twice the movers and some cool staging effects three hours later when its time to do your after school activities. I mean, it can be done, but having a few dozen hands in is gonna be expensive...


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## shiben (Jan 23, 2012)

shiben said:


> Im just gonna say this: If you go and express your emotions on a stage with 200 PAR EAs and 2 dozen MLs, I will gladly help it. However, dont expect your 200 PAR EAs to be set up differently and with a full gel/focus swap and twice the movers and some cool staging effects three hours later when its time to do your after school activities. I mean, it can be done, but having a few dozen hands in is gonna be expensive...


 
Although it occurs to me, they have a pianist who just seems to hang around and do nothing but wait for expression of self via song to occur, and he seems to randomly have the music for that song, so either hes just psychic, or the school has a team of psychologists ready to predict teenager's emotions, and they could probably then afford to have a crew of 30 standing by at any time to quick change the LX plot...


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## Pie4Weebl (Jan 23, 2012)

shiben said:


> either hes just psychic, or the school has a team of psychologists ready to predict teenager's emotions


 
Really though, teenagers have about 3 emotions.


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## chausman (Jan 23, 2012)

shiben said:


> But I saw glee, and they have a huge and unique lighting rig every time they want to talk thru their emotional problems! It must be magic!


 

josh88 said:


> I tend to believe it is magic. Because everybody wants it to happen like that and some how most of the time I get it done in time. I'll be fine making the magic happen even though nobody knows that we're here doing it as long as the check writers remember me.


 

shiben said:


> Im just gonna say this: If you go and express your emotions on a stage with 200 PAR EAs and 2 dozen MLs, I will gladly help it. However, dont expect your 200 PAR EAs to be set up differently and with a full gel/focus swap and twice the movers and some cool staging effects three hours later when its time to do your after school activities. I mean, it can be done, but having a few dozen hands in is gonna be expensive...


 

shiben said:


> Although it occurs to me, they have a pianist who just seems to hang around and do nothing but wait for expression of self via song to occur, and he seems to randomly have the music for that song, so either hes just psychic, or the school has a team of psychologists ready to predict teenager's emotions, and they could probably then afford to have a crew of 30 standing by at any time to quick change the LX plot...



You may want to see [thread]24325[/thread]


Pie4Weebl said:


> Really though, teenagers have about 3 emotions.


 
"I don't always feel other emotions, but when I do...I break into song with a multi million dollar tech crew behind me"


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## josh88 (Jan 23, 2012)

shiben said:


> Although it occurs to me, they have a pianist who just seems to hang around and do nothing but wait for expression of self via song to occur, and he seems to randomly have the music for that song.



I think the show is silly and fluff( just like some musicals) I'll watch every once in awhile just to see of they do any decent covers, but that guy is my favorite. It's already kind of unreal because we all know they wouldn't have the cues and set up for a random breakout song, so playing it up by having him and the band there awaiting their every need makes me laugh.




Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk


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## Kelite (Jan 25, 2012)

Pie4Weebl said:


> Really though, teenagers have about 3 emotions.


 
Being a father of several of these creatures, I would venture to say;

1) Happily confused
2) Unhappily confused
3) Confused and in denial


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## museav (Jan 26, 2012)

Talking to numerous manufacturers, reps, Architects, dealers, contractors, consultants, etc., there is one part of that report that does match the impression I've gotten. Apparently the model now is to improve profitability by being more effective in the manufacturing, service provisions and so on so and then try to sell more of whatever it is you offer. Thus companies are hiring more people to market, sell and manage compared to those to actually create the products or provide the services.


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## Teber (Jan 27, 2012)

Kelite said:


> Being a father of several of these creatures, I would venture to say;
> 
> 1) Happily confused
> 2) Unhappily confused
> 3) Confused and in denial


 
You forgot one.... Let's just say it keeps Trojan in business


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## Grog12 (Jan 27, 2012)

Teber said:


> You forgot one.... Let's just say it keeps Trojan in business


 
No he covered that, see option 1 for boys option 2 for girls.


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## CommPro17 (Apr 25, 2012)

Although it is obvious which majors could be considered more difficult or which majors could be considered more likely to get a job with, I would say that it is 100% up to the student getting the degree to decide if he will have a job coming out of college or not. Yes art majors and theater majors have a hard time finding jobs right out of college but I still believe if you work hard enough and network the best of your ability then you'll be able to find work at some point. Based on real statistics from the institute of education sciences, here is a good list of the most popular majors Fast Facts. I think that although many majors carry more time and effort than others, its still all about finding the major that fits you best. we can argue which is the best or easiest and coming from a communication graduate, I found it to be a very successful degree in terms of finding a good job post graduation that I am happy with. If you're interested check out Get a Degree in Communications: Online Communication Degrees which will show you some programs that you might be interested in and answer any questions you have about getting a degree in communication.

Anyone can go out and get a theater degree but I feel you have to make the extra effort to go out outside of the classroom, and join different groups and focus on meeting people that can lead you into the right direction after college. You have the ability to do whatever you want after you complete your degree as long as you use your connections and the resources your handed while in school.


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## StNic54 (Jun 12, 2012)

My two cents - I hold an MFA, went to undergrad and grad school with virtually no debt after 7 years. I gained in leaps and bounds as a designer and programmer simply because I didn't have access to any of the gear in my hometown or the knowledge of the industry itself. My degrees have never determined my job since I'm not teaching, but the experiences I had in college certainly shaped who I am and how I approach my work. I encourage people to strongly consider college while I still acknowledge that college prices are out of control, and the economy is forcing more of our youth directly into the work force. If you think college is in your path, research scholarships. Learn to network as preparation for the real world. Where I work has been largely a result of networking, and my cold applications never went far since there are so many looking for jobs. Either direction you choose, hard work lays ahead.


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