I used to be a college tour guide, in which I told prospective students that they could choose from over 150 different majors at my school. Apparently, 13 or so of them are completely useless — including mine. How about yours? Is your entire collegiate career a sham of actual productivity?

Earlier this week, The Daily Beast had the nerve to publish a list that finally identifies the thirteen most useless majors that college students call their own too often. The lucky thirteen was based on the undoubtedly truthful practices of science and statistics:

“This year we started with new research (PDF) from Georgetown University — which drew from two years of census data to determine the prospects for myriad majors — to narrow down our list to more than three dozen popular college majors. We also used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, equally weighing the following categories to determine current and future employment and earnings potential for our final ranking: Recent graduate employment, experienced graduate employment, recent graduate earnings, experienced graduate earnings, [and] projected growth in total number of jobs, 2010–2020.”

So basically, these were selected from the most popular majors in college, and then deemed “useless” when measuring how much money they haven’t earned past graduates and how many of them are still looking for jobs altogether. More importantly, these supposedly breakthrough findings are based on data collected over the past two years — you know, two of the bleakest years that our country has seen for quite a long time now.

And of course, which industries take a heavy blow throughout an economic recession? Without even looking at the list of overwhelming university uselessness just yet, it’s easy to guess that the liberal arts are, once again, deemed unfit for the blessed brains of science, math, engineering, etc.

I once defended all liberal arts majors on CollegeCandy, and I’ll do it again if I have to. I could continue my rant about how careers in the liberal arts aren’t as clear-cut as those in science-related fields, and I’d reiterate how so many people — more people than we think — don’t necessarily pursue careers in the fields they initially chose when they were 18-year-old freshmen in college. Because 18-year-olds don’t always make good decisions, and neither do 22-year-old graduates who are still somewhat confused by the direction of the rest of their lives, as well as 50-year-olds who undergo a career change after they’re flat-out disappointed in whatever they eventually chose to pursue.

However, I think it’s more important here to see how inaccurate the definitions of “useful” and “useless” are in this list’s context. These majors’ “uselessness” doesn’t matter at all because the definition of “usefulness” does not capture personal happiness, worldwide impact or cultural contribution — it only measures how fast YOU can pay off YOUR student loans by getting a high-paying job after graduation. But honestly, getting your money’s worth from a major and actually doing something useful with it are two different things. The nurse who majored in biology and spent a decade weighing patients on scales and measuring people’s blood pressure may not be as useful as the filmmaker who exposed an injustice through a documentary. Who has a bigger impact on the world? Who can be called more useful?

Even more so, “useful” majors would be nothing without the “useless” ones — what industry can function without artists to create advertising or language majors to publicize it…or even write a manual for that fancy scientific invention? And what will all those useful people do with their free time, if not veg out in front of the television, watch movies, listen to music, read the news, or enjoy some other product from a liberal arts major? Sure, science may save lives, but art makes life worth living.

See for yourself how “useless” the following 13 majors are, and how messed up our world would be if bright minds like us stopped majoring in them:

initiating the gallery...

Are there certain college majors that are more useless than others? Or does its “usefulness” really depend on what is done with it after graduation?

Ashley is a UC San Diego grad who is holding on way too tightly to a potential career in magazines and goes to Vegas all too often. She’s fascinated with celebrities and strawberry beer and doubles as a pathological texter/emailer/blogger. Feed the addiction with tweets @cashleelee. Thanks in advance.

You meet a million people in college. Or so it seems as you go from dorm to class to frat party, seeing thousands of new faces along the way. How’s a busy college student to determine who she’ll like or who she’ll want to avoid?

Well there’s no better instant-indicator than judging someone based on their major. Sure it’s a stereotype and sure it’s not always right, but as most college students can attest it’s usually pretty accurate.  So step into our judgmental world and check out our ultimate major translator. You’ll have your entire campus figured out in no time!

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College brings a whole lot of new experiences, new lessons and new people. But it seems that no matter what school you go to there are same characters on every campus. The frat house groupie, the sensitive all American, the cool girl, and the Unhinged Coed.

Once upon a time, at college orientation, you met someone who spent her weekend running around meeting everyone. Even the orientation leaders, academic advisors…and cafeteria workers. This person was friendly, funny, flirty. Then classes began, parties were under way and, whoa mama, it was…girl gone wild (annoying)!

Allow me to introduce you to the Unhinged Coed.

The Unhinged Coed is an attention hog (minus the “g”) to the umpteenth power. She will do just about anything for someone to take a quick look or give her a quick dose of attention.

While she comes off friendly and fun at first, the Unhinged is quickly reduced to nothing more than the nuisance you turn to when you need something. Eager to please (and for people to know she’s helpful), she is always there with a book someone needs to borrow, notes when someone misses class, and a pair of lips when someone is drunk and looking for booty.

In her quest to be everyone’s friend, she ends up with a small group – usually like-minded attention seeking-wannabes themselves – who stick around her to gain “access” to the people she claims to be close with. Only she isn’t, because her quest to be known by all leaves her annoyed by most. Read More »