[paulhauggis]

"I have friends who majored in the humanities and are now working retail and restaurants."

The problem is that this isn't just the case in a bad economy, it's the case always. People that major in the humanities generally don't have a lot of job prospects..they never did.

[tthomas48]

I think in many ways it's easier for people like me who have non-vocational degrees. I have a theater degree and I knew I'd have to build a career in a non-traditional way. I was never under the delusion that the thing that I enjoyed studying was going to pay my bills.

My "career" started in a Dell call center (although I had many service industry and manual labor jobs before it) and through various vertical and lateral moves has led me to be a senior software developer.

My degree in theater has been extremely useful and a strong selling point in pretty much every job I've applied for. I can talk about my acting classes as being useful when talking to customers. I can talk about classes in design and construction that show a proven track record in taking abstract ideas and translating them into full products.

There's zero use for a vocational degree in a global economy. There's only value in having an education.

[aplusbi]

Most "office workers" have humanities degrees. I remember hearing that a degree in English was a useful default-major because "it's useful everywhere."

This isn't the case anymore, for a variety of reasons, but it certainly used to be true that graduating from college with a degree in anything gave you an advantage in the job market.