Top 10 College Majors That Are Actually Worth It

If you ask your parents or your grandparents or your high school counselors what you should do when you become an adult

they're almost certainly going to tell you to follow your passion. But if you log on to YouTube and you look up what to do

you'll probably see a bunch of videos about how college is a scam and instead you should invest in their

1997 dollar course and this is going to take you from broke loser to $30,000 a month in 28 days. Not like many things in life

the truth is somewhere in between these two extremes and me like millions of other people have had to learn this the hard way

I went all the way through the college meat grinder and actually got a doctorate

So I understand the entire system and how it works from an insider's perspective. And although it did turn out relatively well for me

you know, I got a doctorate. I was able to make six figures working in a medical profession

I knew many people who actually had terrible experiences doing this. In fact, I would say more often than not it turns out bad where people have a lot of regrets about their college experience

Because the truth is the value of a college degree has been dropping for a long period of time

yet the cost has been going up and when your grandparents and your parents went to college

they could basically get any degree and it would be a good investment. And the reason for that is because a college degree was so rare

But recently nearly 70% of people have been going to college. So a degree really isn't rare anymore

It's all simple supply and demand. And on top of that, 40% of people who go to college actually end up dropping out

And out of the remaining people who finish their degree, two-thirds of them have regrets

And one of the main reasons is because of the college debt that they have to take out

One of the second biggest reasons is because of the fact that college is not preparing them for the workforce

And for that expensive piece of paper, only one in four people end up working in a career that has anything to do

with their degree choice. And so it's very important that if you're going to go to college, you get a degree that's going to be worth it from a financial perspective

especially if you're taking out student loans. And you want to get a degree that's actually going to help you achieve your goals in life

not a degree where you're going to have to work double shifts at Starbucks and McDonald's

in order to pay back your massive student loan debt. And by the end of this video, you're going to know what degrees have the best return on investment

You're going to have a much better idea of how you can choose the best degree for you. And on top of that, I'm going to teach you how to gently tap that like button for the evil YouTube algorithm

No, but all joking aside, I am going to help you figure out what degree would be best for you

or if you should even get a degree at all. And I've literally helped thousands of people find their ideal careers

I've done lots of different interviews on this channel. It's basically like a cheat code for you to figure out the best

opportunities out there because basically the slogan for this channel is go where the opportunity is. And when you do that

it's going to give you an unfair advantage on being successful in life and achieving your goals

So I highly recommend subscribing so you don't miss out and let's get into it right now

All right. So first one on the list is going to be science degrees and there's a lot of science degrees

Many of them are not that great. I'm going to choose chemistry. So this is the major that one of my favorite writers of all time, Kurt Vonnegut, briefly took

He wrote the book Slaughterhouse-Five as well as Cat's Cradle. And oftentimes in his books

he would actually talk about chemistry. And he had a really morbidly dark and absurd sense of humor

but always with kind of a positive silver lining to it. You know, there's always like a hopeful underlying message

which is something I always try to give off on this channel as well. I tell you guys the reality of the situation

but I think the best thing is to be a rational optimist. And I know these painful truths can be hard to hear sometimes, but the truth is

there's a lot of amazing opportunities out there and the world can be a great place as well

Anyways, back to science degrees and chemistry degrees specifically. So I do get comments on this channel from time to time from people who are basically just like

Get a STEM degree, bro. And this is from Bobos who think that they know everything

but the truth is it's not that simple. Out of the STEM degrees, science degrees are the worst

especially at the bachelor's level. This is something that I do cover in other videos

but chemistry is one of the best ones. So chemistry does rank number 54 on my college degree ranker out of over 900 degrees

And if you look at the stats, it is pretty good. Now, if you want to become a scientist, and really if you want to get a lot of those high-level jobs with science degrees

you will have to get a master's and in some cases even a doctorate. And of course, that's going to be a lot of extra schooling

But if you do get a master's or a doctorate, as long as you have a good plan going in, it can be worth it

But at the bachelor's level, science degrees are clearly not as good as the other four

Now, in conclusion, some of the science degrees can be really good. And one of the biggest perks is everybody is saying these days that you need to trust the scientists, bro

even if they're wrong time after time, right? So whenever you're wrong, you can just say, well, the data suggested at the time that I was right

So in the 2020s, getting a science degree is basically a license to say whatever you want and get away with it

Fun times we live in. Anyways, just kidding. On to the next one. Number nine on the list is going to be economics

So a weirdly large amount of famous people in all different walks of life have gotten economics degrees

And I'm not even kidding. There's actually articles about this phenomenon on the internet, right

So this one's called, Want to be famous? Study economics. So business leaders like Warren Buffett, Sam Walton of Walmart and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft are a few examples

Then there's former U.S. Presidents like Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump

Then you've got sports figures like John Elway, Tiger Woods and Bill Belichick

And even musicians like Mick Jagger. Yeah, it's ridiculous how many famous people have studied economics

And when you think about it, it actually kind of does make total sense, right? Economics will give you a great

understanding of how the economy works and where the opportunities are. Now, let's say you're a very smart, very hardworking person

but you go into a business that doesn't have a lot of opportunity, like you go into a dying industry

You might still end up being successful, but it's probably going to be much harder

Your chances of success are going to be lower and it's not going to be as profitable, right

So instead of being able to make a million dollars in like five or ten years, it might take you 30 years

But if you take that same person, put them in an industry that has a lot of opportunity, they're going to have a much higher chance of being successful. Plus, they're probably going to be more successful

aka they're going to make more money and they're going to do it faster. Plus, it's not going to be nearly as stressful. And having a strong understanding of economics

and how supply and demand works will lead you to making these decisions where you end up in situations

where whatever you're supplying, aka your skill set, has a very strong demand

So I'm not going to go over the stats much on this video, but economics does come in at number 27 on my college degree ranker. And yeah

it can be a really good one and it is a social science degree technically. So it is one of the better social science degrees. Number eight on the list is going to be a physics degree

And this is one that has a lot of the biggest giga brains of history like Albert Einstein

Stephen Hawking, and Marie Curie. There's also a bunch of astronauts that got physics degrees. And on top of that, the billionaire playboy himself

Elon Musk got a physics degree as well. And this is a degree that has really good statistics overall. With that being said

you're not going to become a physicist with just a bachelor's degree. You're going to need to get at least a master's, if not a doctorate

But even with just a bachelor's degrees, lots of companies in the finance industry, for instance

love hiring physics graduates because they know they're getting a big brain individual

And a lot of companies have the strategy where they basically just hire the smartest people for the role

And if you're able to complete a physics degree, which is really difficult, they pretty much know that you're going to be smart. So physics comes in at number 18 on my college degree ranker

Really solid statistics. You can argue here correlation versus causation. A lot of the degrees on this list are kind of like that. Basically

really smart people tend to do well whether they get a college degree or not

And it's debatable whether the college degree itself contributes to their success

But there's really no way to tell that. And if you really look into it, it's probably a little bit of both

So yeah, physics is really good here. Another one that's also really good

that's kind of in the same realm is the next one on the list, and that is mathematics. Now, there is a lot of famous people that have studied mathematics as well, such as Google co-founder Sergey Brin

Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, and a bunch of astronauts again. Now, the stats on this one are great

But again, you could argue correlation versus causation here. But one thing is for sure, if you are good at a skill that is valuable in society

and there's not that many other people that are good at the skill, and if you like it

it's even better, then that is going to be something where you're probably going to be able to make a lot of money with

it. And mathematics is obviously one of those skills. So in that particular case, it would be a great opportunity for you

And that's what I always tell you to do on this channel, which is to go where the opportunity is

Now, this one is actually tied with the next one on the list, which is statistics. Now, on my college degree ranker, mathematics comes in at number 22, and statistics is around there as well

Now, there are some subtle differences here, of course, like mathematics, depending on sort of where you take it and what you specialize in

can be a little bit theoretical, right? So it's not nearly as practical when it comes to solving problems in the real world as something like statistics

But it still can be really good. Next one on the list, number five is going to be

business degrees, and there's tons of famous people that have also graduated with business degrees like Clint Eastwood

Arnold Schwarzenegger, and P. Diddy. Now, business degrees have the reputation of being relatively easy

They have the reputation of being the degree that people who like to party, but they still want to have a decent job after they graduate with college get. But the truth is when you look at the

statistics, especially considering how easy they are compared to a lot of the other ones on this list

they're really good. So for instance, management information systems comes in at number 17 on my college degree ranker

And management informations is basically kind of business skills mixed with a little bit of technology skills as well

and that's a great combination. And in the modern world, learning about technology is probably one of the smartest ways for you to leverage other skills

So for instance, if you're an artist and you want to get paid to do art, you can use technology to blast your art out to thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people

And I really do think that in the next 20 years, artists that are smart about how they go about monetizing their artistic skills

are going to dominate. And by the way, 99.9% of the time, that is not going to involve going to college

if you are an artist and you want to make a living from art. And I have a ton of great advice

that's coming out for people who are artistic and they want to make a living from art. So make sure you subscribe to the channel so you don't miss out on that. For instance

one of the things that GigaBrainz around the world are doing right now is they're getting chill

remote jobs that teach them valuable skills. And I made an entire video

that's the remote job tier list where I rank the best and the worst remote jobs

And you can check that out right here. Speaking of jobs that can be done remotely, the next one on the list is going to be technology related degrees. Now, although technology degrees are the new kid on the block

they still have a good amount of famous people that have studied them. So for instance, one of them is Liam Neeson

That's right. Don't try to hack his computer because he has a very particular set of skills and he will find you

But yeah, technology related degrees are really good when you look at the numbers. For instance

information technology is my number 15 ranked degree on my college degree ranker

But the downside of technology degrees is there's actually alternative ways to get into technology related careers

that are much faster, cheaper, and easier. They're not for everybody. The degrees are certainly not a scam by any means

They have good numbers, but there are simply better ways for many people out there to get into those careers

For instance, I did an interview with James on my channel who was able to land an entry-level IT job after being a carpenter

in Philadelphia and then trying a bunch of different odd jobs like delivery driver, etc

So he was able to land an IT job in a few weeks using an iPad. And I'll put that interview right here if I can remember. You can check it out

So yeah, technology degree is not a scam by any means. The numbers are great, but there are alternative ways to get into technology related careers

Another really good one you can do is still getting a degree but going to an accelerated university like Western Governors University

And I've covered that on this channel as well. So in many cases you can get a degree in a year or less

Number three on the list is going to be health related degrees. And particularly we are going to be talking about a BSN

to become a nurse. And BSN stands for Bachelors of Science in Nursing

but there's a lot of other really good health related degrees out there. So of course, there's going to be many different famous titans of their industries on this list like Pao Gasol

Ken Jeong, myself, and also Dr. Phil. But yeah, all joking aside

I did get a health degree and they can be really solid options. One of the things that's amazing about health careers is you actually do have to get the degree in order to get into the career

Right. It's not one of those things that's optional like technology related careers. And I also think that health related careers are probably the most stable careers you could possibly get into

So even if it was the end of the world, for instance, there would still be nurses and doctors taking care of people

And that's why there's always multiple doctors in every single zombie movie or zombie show

So on my college degree, Ranker Nurse comes in at number 21 and Physician Assistant comes in at number eight

So yeah, health can be really great. There's definitely pluses and minuses to getting into health related professions

Definitely check out the other videos on my channel about that. But number two on the list is going to be engineering degrees

So Bill Nye, the science guy, Ashton Kutcher, Cindy Crawford, Mr. Bean, and a plethora of different CEOs like Jeff Bezos

also studied engineering. And engineers are basically the masters of the universe, the S-tier

human beings of existence. And the rest of us should honestly just be glad that engineers allow us to occupy the same space as them

But why is it that they're only number two on the list? Well, let's talk about the good and the bad of engineering. First of all, in order to become an engineer

you do have to have an engineering degree. So there is a natural barrier to entry there, kind of like healthcare degrees

Second, engineering degrees are very difficult. Now, this can be a bad thing

but if you are able to get it done, employers kind of know what they're getting when they hire engineers

They're getting someone who's very smart and very hardworking. And they're very likely to hire you even if it has nothing to do

with engineering. And the third thing, this is probably the most important one, is engineering teaches you practical problem-solving skills, right

So sometimes degrees like mathematics, for instance, will teach you problem-solving skills

but they're not nearly as practical or as applicable to the real world as engineering degrees are

And that's why you see that over the last 40 years, engineers actually on average earn more money than any other type of degree

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be the same thing over the next 40 years. Now, engineering degrees absolutely dominate my college degree ranker list

I believe seven out of the top ten degrees are engineering degrees. So why is it that I did not put engineering degrees at number one

Well, because there's one degree that stands above all of the other ones. Yes, this is the god tier degree and that is going to be

computer science. This one ranks number one out of over 900 different degrees on my college degree ranker

and it absolutely does have the best stats. And if you get this degree

you're typically going to become a software developer. And if you become a software developer

you are pretty much set for life. For instance, if you look at people who are involved in the FIRE movement

which is the Financial Independence Retire Early Movement, this is kind of a movement

You can check it out on Reddit if you want. And this is basically a bunch of people who are trying to retire in their 30s and 40s. And typically they have jobs, right

They haven't even started a business. Many of those people, I'd say probably the majority of them, work in technology and specifically

software development. And not only can you make incredibly good salaries when it comes to working in tech and software development

but on top of that, you have great benefits. You have great work-life balance

A lot of people will get really good bonuses as well as stock options. And there's this new thing emerging called being over-employed

where a lot of people are actually getting multiple jobs. And the reason they're getting multiple jobs is because of the fact they probably only have to work like one or two hours a day

in many cases. If they have all that free time, might as well get multiple jobs, right

And if all of that wasn't enough, especially for the top two on this list, engineering and software development

I think they are amazing if you want to start a business down the line

So yeah, computer science number one on my college degree ranker list. Of course, I'll have it pop up on the screen

It is getting a little bit harder to get into software development. It used to be extremely easy

You basically just needed to network and know the bare minimum coding skills and you'd be able to get a job

Now you really do have to know your stuff. Getting a computer science degree is one way to get there. And this is one that you can get into without getting a computer

science degree, but it is going to be a lot harder than a lot of the other tech-related

careers that I've mentioned on this channel, like IT for instance. IT help desk is very easy to get into. So is tech sales

Now, you shouldn't just go for computer science because it's the best degree. You should go for a degree that complements your skill set. And that's exactly what I teach you how to do in this video

where I go over the ultimate guide to choosing your college degree, which you can check out right here

I definitely recommend you go to that video. And I'll see you in the next video