There seems to be a common misconception that a student has to get a job in the field they earn their degree in. An English major has to be an English teacher or a writer. A journalism student has to be a reporter, television anchor or radio personality. A political science major has to be a lawyer or a politician. And there are no options for jobs other than the obvious ones.

The thing about it is that it’s not necessary to get a job in the field that students get their bachelor’s degree in. The most important thing is to actually follow through and get a degree. The National Center for Educational Statistics states that a person’s annual salary is directly linked with the amount of education they have. For example, men with a bachelor’s degree or higher earned 64 percent more than a male with a high school education in 2005. The statistic is similar among women as well.

The significance of getting an education shows that people know how to learn. It means that they can be trained to do anything because they are adept at picking up information and then utilizing it. Sometimes what the individual is trained to do isn’t as important as the fact that they can pick up skills and implement them. By graduating college, a student proves they are capable to learn information, be tested on it and be successful.

Just because an individual does not get a job in the field their degree is in doesn’t mean they don’t care about their major. They care deeply about the field they received their degree in and it’s probably something that they would have liked to get a job in. But that isn’t always the way the world works.’ Situations arise where students have to get jobs in fields they may not always enjoy because they need to survive.

Also, different majors may sometimes lead to the same type of job. For example, someone who wants to go to law school doesn’t have to be a political science major. They can also be an English major, or even more frequently, a philosophy major. Those majors may not give students the ability to know a lot about the political system in the United States. However, it does help students learn how to make arguments, sustain and find evidence for them. In essence, it helps them be a better lawyer, even if it isn’t the typical way of going about it.

There are many other examples similar to the one I presented above. As a matter of fact, there are some majors that it seems difficult to find a job that pertains to them at all. But there are many other jobs in which people are using the skills that they learned without directly practicing the subject.

So in the end, it isn’t that a student doesn’t care about their major and that is why they did not get a job in the field they earned their bachelor’s degree in. Ultimately, the point of getting a bachelor’s degree is to expand the mind as much as possible, including how to learn. If a student is able to do that then it doesn’t matter what field they pursue a career in.

What matters the most is getting the learning experience. So it doesn’t necessarily matter what a student got their bachelor’s degree in because having one shows a great amount of character, determination and ability.