Experts Point to 5 Emerging Majors

By Jack Kadden

If you’re not sure that majoring in English is going to pay off in the current economy, The Chronicle of Higher Education offers a few alternatives — what it calls “five emerging areas of study” as cited by academic experts, business analysts, and economic forecasters.

The new majors are service science, health informatics, computational science, sustainability, and public health.

Some new majors arise in response to student demand, while other degree programs are meant to provide an industry with workers. Many cross disciplinary boundaries, such as combining environmental science with agriculture or bringing together chemists and computer scientists.

“Most of the interesting work today is done at the interstices of disciplines,” says Robert B. Reich, a former U.S. labor secretary and a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.

The article suggests that while colleges and universities are paying more attention to these subjects, they are just beginning to offer them as majors.

Take the field of service science, which strives to study the service economy and “to prepare workers who can improve productivity and increase innovation in the field.” While the article says that 250 colleges and universities in 50 countries offer courses in the field, most of the offerings are for graduate students.

The exceptions are the University of Wisconsin-Stout’s bachelor’s of science in service management and the service-systems engineering degree at Michigan Technological University.

In the field of health informatics, however, which will work to computerize and analyze America’s health records, the Commission for the Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education, reports there are already 53 bachelor’s degree programs and hundreds more in development.

Similarly, the eco-friendly field of sustainability is gaining favor, with 70 institutions offering sustainability-related academic programs.

At Unity College, in Maine, the three-year-old program in sustainability design and technology has a practical bent. “We didn’t want to take an ivory-tower approach,” says Michael (Mick) Womersley, the program’s coordinator and an associate professor of human ecology. “We focused on jobs that are being hired for, now.”

The major is heavy on applied skills, like learning how to assess the feasibility of installing wind turbines, and is grounded by a core of physics, biology, and math. Mr. Womersley expects that his students—he has 12—will go on to become energy auditors, environmental-compliance officers, and sustainability coordinators, as well as enrolling in related graduate programs.

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John King September 1, 2009 · 12:51 pm

Hmmm. After reading this I’m thinking that in the long term majoring in English might be the best alternative.

I suppose majoring in something that has as its core tough courses like ‘right handed bolt turning’ might have some uses although I can’t imagine exactly what. But why not? If a degree can be offered in video production a degree in service science is possible and has about as much credibility as crime and punishment combined into a single major called criminal justice. In my opinion.

Actually, half the degrees offered today should be called what they really are – attendance certificates. They are essentially worthless with little intellectual content, just babble thrown together for useless consumption.

Robert September 1, 2009 · 1:56 pm

Experts you say???? John King has it right. I am thinking about retirement. This mind knumbing non-sense is killing me!

Robert
Washington, DC

J September 1, 2009 · 2:00 pm

I’ve never met anyone in my life whose second or third job had much to do with their major.

Nick AICP, LEED-AP September 1, 2009 · 2:03 pm

There is no proof that there will be plenty of sustainability jobs in the future. Sustainability, using the LEED tool, is very expensive to implement and I am very suspicious of the LEED program in general. The article, as have countless articles over the years, acknowledges job growth but fails to acknowledge growing competition for fewer jobs, like every other industry. Planning, landscape architecture, architecture, and engineering have tens if not hundreds of thousands of laid off professionals looking for available jobs, and I don’t think the situtation will improve anytime soon. Development will NOT return to its pre-recession levels, despite claims of sustainability and Obama’s “green jobs.”

Jim September 1, 2009 · 2:04 pm

English major here; it is a good alternative, but be prepared to earn nothing until you can prove your value as an employee. While the market appreciates those who can utilize their reading comprehension and writing skills to clearly present information, well paying jobs can still be hard to come by.

I’ll be augmenting my English BA with a MS in Regulatory Affairs in order to insure future gainful employment.

Michael G September 1, 2009 · 2:07 pm

In a rapidly changing world, preparing students for what they can be “hired for now” is just a way to ensure their irrelevance down the road. Deeper understanding of the complexities of the world is what college should encourage. And students have to be citizens and human beings as well as workers.

Tim September 1, 2009 · 2:17 pm

I have to say this is one of the stupidest articles I’ve read in the NY times. Most people learn this on the job, as it should be learned. All this teaching for ultra specific jobs is just making us less well rounded and more ignorant. Learn how to learn and to think critically and analytically.

Jim King September 1, 2009 · 2:17 pm

Go for them, John!, These are the types of programs that will cause students to wonder why they didn’t major in English or history….. and the downward trend in American education rushes headlong into the next decade.

J September 1, 2009 · 2:25 pm

I’m starting to think that young people should pick one of three paths:

1.) Trade or vocational school

2.) College, majoring in hard science, biological science or an engineering field

3.) Focused, practical study in art or music (i.e. conservatory).

4.) If a young person is not interested in options 1, 2 or 3, then they should *not* go to college, but should instead buy $200 of history and literature books, pack a knapsack with a notebook and camera and then travel around the world for 24 months. We’ve reached such a massive point of diminishing returns in humane education. It *should not* take 40K and four years to produce someone who sorta, kinda, maybe understands American history or British literature or international affairs. It’s one thing to be a marginally employable slacker or hippie. It’s another thing to be a slacker or hippie with a crushing undergraduate debt and 4 of the best years of your life down the tubes.

Realist September 1, 2009 · 2:27 pm

Jim (#5):
“I’ll be augmenting my English BA with a MS in Regulatory Affairs in order to insure future gainful employment.”

Yes! I did BA & AM in classics, then professional training.

Take a mind-enhancing liberal arts major: language, math, literature, philosophy – better still, a double-major. THEN learn as much on the job as possible + applied or professional courses where needed. College is to learn how to study and think. Work / trade school / professional school are to learn how to do something useful.

phil, nj September 1, 2009 · 2:34 pm

The de-emphasis of the liberal arts will continue if we look for shortcuts to the development of expertise. One needs to gain a level of expertise in a core discipline before applying it to a particular application. We already have enough occupational specialties masquerading as academic fields. A partial education in two disciplines is not better than a thorough knowledge of one.

HardyW September 1, 2009 · 2:37 pm

Is ‘sustainability’ even wishy-washier than ‘environmental science’?

It seems like new fields are invented to justify students’ labelling as requirements classes they would otherwise like to take as electives.

Pierce Randall September 1, 2009 · 2:40 pm

How curmudgeonly the comments here! Often, college is about the children of the well-connected or stable families–the top 25%, in the US, so not too great a distinction–finding themselves as much as the alienating project of making them objects of employment. If college is letting some people carve out a niche in something like sustainability or health informatics, great–even if the same skills they’re actually learning could be approximated with biology, political science, or what have you.

There’s little cost to colleges here–students majoring in these fields are educated by professors of other fields, mostly teaching classes cross-listed with other departments. African-American or Women’s Studies departments probably haven’t got many people a job in that field specifically, but they further an educational institution’s goal of being more inclusive and aiding the realization of students’ potential.

Let students major in what they want–as long as it’s viable to assemble a curriculum around!

Patrick September 1, 2009 · 2:45 pm

Way back in 1993 or 1994, I read an opinion piece in the Economist, which maintained that learning a trade and hoping it would provide 40 years of employment was no longer possible. The article maintained there were two core skills everyone should focus on improving: writing well, and math.

John September 1, 2009 · 3:21 pm

That would be great advice if college students only planned to have a 5-year career, and didn’t need to think past their first job.

Better advice would be NOT to follow the educational fashions of the moment, but stay with the classics. You want to plan for a 50-year working life, going til about 2060, so it won’t matter if you got the fashionable degree in 2011. Invest your effort in a major that pushes you to think for yourself and solve problems. Those things never go out of style.

Some specific ideas: math or one of the basic sciences or engineering. I have a degree in physics and have never regretted it. Today I treat cancer and work in a hospital. So the point isn’t that that you want to spend your career as a lab scientist or engineer. As somebody else mentioned already, your job doesn’t always have a lot to do with your major. The point is that what you want are good basic skills, so you can handle whatever comes your way.

Good luck!

Erich September 1, 2009 · 5:19 pm

I should point out that computational science is a legitimate and burgeoning field. The scalability and power of computers have grown exponentially, and the applications of computers to science and engineering is still largely unexplored; indeed, most modern numerical algorithms for solutions and simulations of real world-models were only designed in the past half-century. Applied mathematicians tend to have an appreciation for theory and rigor, but less talent in clever programming. There are similar disciplinary limitations for engineers and computer scientists. It is the computational scientist that will design and implement the bulk of future uses for ever-increasing modeling capability.

Surprisingly, I speak as an applied mathematics graduate student, not as a self-promoting shill for the field of computational science.

I will hedge my comment with one point, though: perhaps one of the leaders in this field told us in a course last year that is near-ridiculous to major in this subject as an undergraduate or even pursue a stand-alone Master’s degree. And I agree. Better to study broadly in one’s undergraduate years and learn how to think. Endeavoring to tackle a very interdisciplinary field without a solid basis in just one is, I think, often a mistake.

CR September 2, 2009 · 2:26 am

Thank you for this important information. I was hoping my child would study philosophy at Amherst or English at Berkeley. Instead, I will try to convince him to apply to the service management program at Wisconsin-Stout or sustainability design at Unity College. Why engage him on epistemology in Moby-Dick when maybe I can get him to install a wind turbine in the back yard?

David Locke September 2, 2009 · 12:17 pm

Modernists went to college to be educated. Postmodernists go to college to get a job. But, in the face of a jobless economy, the Postmodernist ideal fails all of us, even those with a job.

Instead, get a passion. Follow that passion. Learn what you need to learn in order to follow that passion. Learn to sell yourself and your ideas. Learn to be yourself. Get a consulting gig and use it to learn. Have a vector of differentiation. Know where you are going, and change that vector when you find yourself being commoditized. DO NOT get a job.

When you still have twenty years to work, and no employment in sight, you have put your kids futures at risk, because, regardless of how it is to be obtained, you won’t be able to afford to send your kid to school.

As for your kids, find their passion, and teach them how to get things done. Then, life will be good to them.

It looks ugly out there. There are many brick walls. They are there not to keep us from our dreams, but to measure our commitment to our dreams. Dream. Commit. Do. Dream again. Do that every damn day, until and even after, they are glorious days. Express your gratitude everyday, even on the damn days.

Jenn September 2, 2009 · 12:37 pm

My training is as a Social Worker. This is an often maligned field that is in some areas of practice, underpaid.

Like all majors however, you have to weigh the costs and benefits for the long haul. The average social worker, depending on your state, may have incurred 50k in debt to only to start out in a 35k job.

The benefits? In many instances, there are ways to reduce the amount of loans through available government programs. The College Cost Reduction Act as one example, allows persons who have worked ten years in public service to have a significant portion of their loans forgiven as long as they’ve made their loan repayments on time for 120 consecutive months. For those interested, you don’t necessarily have to be a social worker to qualify.

Social Work in my estimation is like nursing; It will always be in demand regardless of the setting. The respect factor will come later, hopefully with a little more pay.

Elizabeth September 3, 2009 · 12:33 am

I think that this article and especially the comments about it show just how complicated the issue of choosing a major has become. Especially at larger universities, the choices for undergraduates have grown to include more professional-style majors (such as public health, public policy, computer science) that used to be reserved for graduate study. There’s really no “right” answer–it’s different for every student and every school. Personally, I think that talking with current and recently graduated students is one of the best ways to figure a major out. Organizations like BetterGrads help to facilitate this kind of interaction so that making a decision like philosophy v. computational science is a little easier.

Laura September 4, 2009 · 9:20 am

I really don’t think that this trend of awarding increasingly obscure sounding majors is good for the students. A major is like a brand name, there’s a recognition on the part of a recruiter of what knowledge and skills are associated with it. Why would you want a major where you constantly had to be explaining what it was and what you know? “Service science”? Is this different from a traditional industrial engineering degree? I can understand that a degree in “sustainability” shows that you are dedicated and passionate about energy efficiency, but why not just call it “environmental science”?

As for “intersticies of the disciplines” isn’t this what a minor or double major is for? I got a degree in chemical engineering with a minor in biotechnology, but re-naming it as “bioengineering” actually diminishes the implied scope of knowledge. I’d rather list as B.S. ChE.