Career-Oriented Majors and Liberal Arts Majors
Some students know exactly what they want to do for a living and start learning the skills needed for a specific career as soon as they get to college. Others study a wide range of topics and focus on developing broader-based skills, such as critical thinking.
If you have an idea about what areas you might like to study, or what careers you might want to pursue, see if the colleges you’re considering offer majors relevant to those fields. If you aren’t sure yet, consider picking a major — and a college — that allows you more flexibility.
Career-Oriented Majors
Some careers require very specific training. If you are ever in the emergency room of a hospital, you'll find it reassuring to know that the technicians, nurses and doctors all took classes that taught them what to do in situations similar to, and sometimes exactly like, the one in which you find yourself.
These specialists took a prescribed course of study. If you decide to become a nurse, for example, you can see well into your future. You know that once your degree is completed, you take a licensing exam that qualifies you for a certain type of job.
There is so much specific knowledge that must be mastered for some careers that, in a way, students begin them in high school. For example, future engineers often load up on advanced courses in science and math and, as high school seniors, apply directly to a university's school of engineering.
Liberal Arts Majors
If you major in the liberal arts, you’re likely to explore more options and create your own career path. The curriculum you follow will give you general knowledge in a range of subjects. It does not train you to work in a specific field.
Just because there's no clearly defined career path for the liberal arts major doesn't mean that you won't pick up valuable career skills. With a liberal arts education, you build a sophisticated vocabulary and develop intellectual skills, such as reasoning and judgment, as opposed to acquiring technical skills for a specific profession.
With preparation like this, liberal arts graduates can adapt to a variety of careers. Here are a handful of popular majors and some of the careers they can lead to:
- Anthropology: archaeologist, museum curator
- Biology: researcher, naturalist, pharmaceutical representative
- Communications: newspaper reporter, advertising and marketing executive
- English: editor, teacher
- History: college professor, archivist
- Languages and linguistics: foreign service officer, interpreter
- Political science: policy analyst, lawyer
- Sociology: market researcher, jury consultant
Careers Requiring Graduate Study
Some students don't pursue career-oriented training until after they've earned a bachelor's degree. To prepare for some careers, you can study the liberal arts as an undergraduate and get the technical training you need in graduate school.
For example, even if you know you want to be a doctor, you can’t major in medicine in college. Instead, you enroll in science courses such as chemistry and biology. You might also take psychology, to learn about human nature and explore the mind-body connection. And you might choose any of these three subjects, or another one, as a major.
If you want to become a lawyer, you can choose from a wide range of undergraduate majors, including those in the liberal arts. In fact, most future lawyers study the liberal arts as undergraduates, majoring in such fields as political science or English.
Where to Learn More
Read more about any college major in our Major & Career Profiles. You can also search for colleges offering the majors that capture your interest in College Search.
