Is college major important?

"How much have you learned from your college major that is relevant to what you do now at work?" I asked Tommy one day. Tommy had majored in computer science at a prestigious university in the US.

"Not much," Tommy sighed. "We learned a lot of theoretical stuff that isn't relevant at all. I doubt our professors did enough coding themselves to be considered proficient software engineers. The software development skills we learned were barely adequate, and they needed to be re-learned at work almost entirely. Nobody taught me source control or bash, or how to write a meaningful design document, for example."

"Looking back, was your college major crucial to whether you excelled in AWS?", I inquired.

"Not as important as people might think," Tommy said. "The skills that are truly meaningful are business writing, public speaking, interacting with people, articulating a problem, thinking critically, and explaining a solution concisely and precisely to the right people, with the right content and format. I could have majored in political philosophy and learned these fundamentals just the same. Sometimes I wonder if college was a complete waste of time and money."

“But without a college degree, you probably wouldn’t have had a chance to interview at AWS and get a job,” I laughed. “But I agree most of the stuff we learned in college has nothing to do with what we do at work. I asked the same question to many folks from different universities. Very few claimed they learned much from college that is useful at work. If you could give some tips to young people who are debating what to major in college, what would you say?”

“Don’t stress too much about what to major in college. Just choose a discipline that has enough rigor to stimulate your brain. The knowledge you acquire from college is likely to be useless for your work. But through learning this knowledge, you will:

Learn how to study a difficult topic and achieve a passing score Learn common methodologies to solve problems

Learn how to deal with distractions, setbacks, frustration, deadlines, and failures

Learn the fundamentals of efficient communication, both verbally and in writing The specific knowledge you gain is not important: physics, chemistry, computer science, etc. don't matter much. However, how you learn the knowledge is what you really get out of a college education.

So choose a major you are interested in or, at the very least, one you don't hate. The major needs to be challenging enough to give your brain sufficient mental exercise. That is the true essence of a college education."

"Well said, Tommy!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7fmjsHw590