“[People] Who Got A ‘Useless’ Degree, How Did It Turn Out?” (28 Answers)

Many of us, since we were little, are told that getting a good education is important. And it’s not a lie – it brings plenty of benefits to one’s life. The most commonly mentioned ones are a possible edge in the labor market, better critical thinking skills, and an increased level of general knowledge.

Basically, education helps a person grow in various ways and become a more well-rounded individual, which is far from a bad thing, is it? 

One of the traditional ways to get education is school – from elementary to high school to higher education. While the initial stages are mandatory for everyone to go through, further degrees like a bachelor’s, a master’s, and others aren’t, still, a lot of people decide to seek them. We probably don’t have to tell you why they decide to do so – we already established that education is simply a way to improve one’s life. 

At the same time, there are some who argue that getting a higher education degree in the modern day isn’t worth it. Especially if a person decides to go for something that is considered a “useless” degree.

What are such degrees, you might wonder? Well, this is a rather subjective thing to declare – for some, certain degrees can seem way more worthy than others. It all depends on what kind of factors they are considering. 

Since these things are usually decided based on an average paycheck after graduation, employment rates, and so on, there are certain degrees that show up on the “useless” degrees list more often than others. 

The thing is, these degrees are quite often related in some way to the arts, humanities, or social sciences. Simultaneously, STEM degrees are considered way more worthy than others. We can’t deny that STEM is important, but regarding it as the only branch of science worth someone’s time is a mistake. 

Degrees in the arts encourage people to express their creativity and understand art with a deeper perspective, while studies in humanities and social sciences let people have a better understanding of themselves, others, human nature overall, and things like that. So, it’s not completely useless – in fact, we would argue that no degree is useless, as long as it allows a person to grow in a positive way. 

Today’s list is full of such examples – it’s made up of stories from people who studied for these so-called “useless” degrees. While some don’t do anything even relatively related to their studies now, that doesn’t mean that they’re worse off.

Maybe the butterfly effect worked for them – if they hadn't gotten their seemingly unrelated degree, their life may have turned out completely different, maybe for the worse. There’s no way to know. 

Still, what we want to communicate is that even if you decide to study for a degree that others call “useless,” don’t be unmotivated – you can’t fully know where it will lead you. In the future, you may or may not be able to use it directly, but at least you'll have the education and knowledge – and that's never a bad thing.