Harvey Mudd College Major in Happiness by Michael Edmondson Citation Exercise Read Major in Happiness and complete Citation Exercise to fullfill the requirements. Major in Happiness: Debunking the College Major Fallacies
by Michael Edmondson NACE Journal, February 2016
The major is often viewed as the stepping-stone for a career that can repay loans instead of as the
first step to a meaningful life based on leadership, purpose, and services.
The preconceptions and suspicions about how things operate in today’s challenging global marketplace
often compel people to forge correlations with causations without any substantial evidence.
Unfortunately, this flawed thinking is the foundation upon which many students declare their
undergraduate majors. With the repayment of college loans as a paramount issue for students and their
families, the major is often viewed as the stepping-stone for a career that can repay those loans instead
of as the first step to a meaningful life based on leadership, purpose, and service.
Students should declare a major that makes them happy. Doing so substantially increases their chances
of pursuing career paths that ignite their passion, identify with their purpose, and spark a commitment
to lifelong learning. All too often, however, students are exposed to the myopic “valuable v. useless”
paradigm of the decision-making process when it comes to declaring a major. According to this
paradigm, a “valuable” major is useful, can teach a specific skill, and provides one with a lifetime of
employment and riches. Accounting, marketing, engineering, and computer science are just a few
examples. A “useless” major, on the other hand, is more intellectual and, therefore, has little, or no,
practical application for employment purposes. Majors that generally fall into this category include
history, English, philosophy, and sociology among others. This dichotomy between the valuable and
useless majors is based on flawed mental models and ingrained assumptions about how the world
works that lead to a series of fallacies surrounding the college major.
By definition, a fallacy is an argument in which the premises fail to provide adequate logical support for
the conclusion. Most arguments start with a premise (X) that is either a fact or an assumption forming
the foundation of the argument. Some logical principle (Y) is then applied to arrive at a conclusion (Z).
Originating from the Latin meaning “deception, deceit, or trick,” fallacies are useful analytical tools when
assessing the validity of an argument or statement. When dissecting an argument or statement,
individuals need to recognize the existence of uncertainties in measurement, errors in sampling, and
biases in research. These uncertainties, errors, and biases are especially prevalent when discussing the
relationship between academic majors and career potential. For example, in his remarks to a General
Electric plant in 2014, President Barack Obama declared, “Folks can make a lot more potentially with
skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree.”1
The Fallacies
This example of flawed logic is just one of many examples of how politicians from both major political
parties in the United States have labeled certain majors like art history useless and an intellectual luxury,
limiting in employment opportunities and unworthy of public funding. Choose a useful major and you
will always have a job, a successful career, and become rich compared with those individuals who choose
a useless major and, in turn, end up unemployed, without a career, and become poor. This dichotomy
between useful and useless majors lacks substantiation and is too often used to simply make a nuanced
connection between major and career. As professor Peter Cappelli of The Wharton School at the
University of Pennsylvania observed, “It seems that what a person studies in college should relate to
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his or her planned career path, but it turns out that it’s very hard to predict how those two things will
interact with each other.”2
This unpredictability has resulted in five common college major fallacies:
1. Confusing association with causation fallacy (also known as cum hoc, ergo propter hoc, “with
this, therefore because of this”)—”Correlation does not imply causation” is a phrase used in
science and statistics to emphasize that a correlation between two variables does not
necessarily imply that one causes the other. What does this mean? A brief explanation is that
correlation is a measure of how closely related two things are; and just because two things
correlate does not necessarily mean that one causes the other. When a visual representation of
data illustrates two or more lines sloping or bars rising, “The data practically begs us to assign a
reason. We want to believe one exists. Statistically, we can’t make that leap, however. Charts
that show a close correlation are often relying on a visual parlor trick to imply a relationship.”3
Correlations between two things can be caused by three or more factors, and often are. “Our
preconceptions and suspicions about the way things work tempt us to make the leap from
correlation to causation without any hard evidence.”4 This happens quite frequently within
higher education and the discussion between the selection of a college major and the potential
for lifetime earnings. Example: You need to major in business because employers value students
with that major over all other disciplines.
2. Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (“after this, therefore because of this”)—”Since event Y
followed event X, event Y must have been caused by event X.” The fallacy lies in coming to a
conclusion based solely on the order of events, rather than taking into account other factors
that might rule out the connection. This is the second fallacy many individuals fall into when
discussing the selection of an academic major. Example: Shelly had an offer of full-time
employment prior to graduation and it’s because she majored in economics.
3. Single-cause fallacy—It occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an
outcome, when, in reality, it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes.
This fallacy often demonstrates a lack of awareness about the specific topic examined and can
disclose one’s bias to demonstrate contempt prior to investigation. Judgments are made quickly
instead of analyzing the multiple causes of a situation. Example: Employers only care about your
grade point average; the higher it is, the better your chances of being hired.
4. Anecdotal fallacy—This stems from using a personal experience or an isolated example instead
of sound reasoning or compelling evidence. This is a common fallacy committed by parents,
relatives, or friends of undergraduates. There is a tendency to persuade students, intentionally
or unintentionally, into a major based on one’s experience with that specific academic program.
Example: My sorority sisters and I majored in business, economics, or finance and we all have
extraordinary careers, so major in one of those subjects and you will be just as successful as we
are.
5. Sweeping generalization fallacy—This assumes that what is true of the whole will also be true
of the part, or that what is true in most instances will be true in all instances. Sweeping
generalizations also tend to correspond with other fallacies, such as the single cause or
anecdotal. Example: Recent college graduates with a history degree are all unemployed.
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These fallacies surrounding the college major exist because of the mental models or thinking
algorithms that are formed from ingrained assumptions and theories about the way the world
works. To help you recognize the existence of uncertainties in measurement, errors in sampling, and
biases in research, below are 10 important factors that can help you debunk the college major
fallacies. These are just 10 factors, however, as there are dozens of others that impact long-term
earnings potential and the ability to achieve a long and productive career. The 10 factors are
arranged in no particular order.
10 Factors
1. Understand the impact of geography—Where one lives plays an important role in one’s ability to
have a sustained career. For example, current research strongly suggests that looking for work in
large urban areas can give workers a better chance to find a job that fits their skills. Additionally, in
terms of salary and long-term career earnings, where you live often matters more than what you
have on your resume. Upon analyzing two decades of data from more than 200 cities, Rebecca
Diamond, an assistant professor of economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business, found that
college graduates are increasingly clustering in more expensive cities that offer more amenities such
as restaurants and cultural attractions, better parks, less crime, and less pollution. To help recent
college graduates identify key geographical locations, top 10 lists of cities in which to launch a career
are now commonplace.5
2. Realize the power of grit—It would be extremely difficult to have a long and successful career
without the ability to persevere in difficult situations. Numerous researchers have concluded that
getting to the corner office, having long-term earnings potential, and climbing up the corporate
ladder all have more to do with grit than graduating with a specific degree. Living a life of leadership,
purpose, and service also requires grit. Grit is by far the most important characteristic one needs to
demonstrate time and again in order to translate the vision they have for their life into reality.
MacArthur Fellow Angela Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania,
defines grit as the tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals and equips
individuals to pursue especially challenging aims over years and even decades. Duckworth noted
that people who “accomplished great things often combined a passion for a single mission with an
unswerving dedication to achieve that mission, whatever the obstacles and however long it might
take.”6
3. Market your value—In my book Marketing Your Value: 9 Steps to Navigate Your Career, I
explained that college students and even more experienced professionals need to work hard at
helping employers understand their value. Doing so requires substantial work if the individual wants
to stand out among other job candidates. It is also important to understand that “being average just
won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to
so much more above average cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap
automation, and cheap genius.”7 The student needs to define him- or herself and what he or she is
looking for in terms of employment. The student needs to give people a reason to pay attention to
him/her. This is important to do in person as well as online. The only people who stand out are
those who want to.
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4. Demonstrate your level of preparedness—All too often, recent college graduates make the
mistake of assuming that their degree is synonymous with career preparedness. The research
suggests otherwise. In one study, nearly 70 percent of corporate recruiters said that their company
has a hard time managing its younger generation of workers who were perceived as lacking in work
ethic, unwilling to pay their dues, and simply being harder to retain.8 More than one-third of
business leaders and recruiters give recent grads a “C” or lower for job preparedness.9 A recent
survey of U.K. companies found that only one in three employers (23 percent) believe that academic
institutions are adequately preparing students for vacant roles in their organizations.
5. Recognize the dynamics of compensation—Focusing solely on salary in and of itself
demonstrates a severe lack of professional maturity. In his 1967 publication The Motivation to
Work, Frederick Herzberg identified two different categories of factors affecting the motivation to
work: hygiene and motivation. Hygiene factors include extrinsic factors like technical supervision,
interpersonal relations, physical working conditions, salary, company policies and administrative
practices, benefits, and job security. In comparison, motivation factors include intrinsic factors such
as achievement, recognition and status, responsibility, challenging work, and advancement in the
organization. Herzberg’s theory postulates that only motivation factors have the potential to
increase job satisfaction. The results indicate that the association between salary and job
satisfaction is very weak. When employees are focused on external rewards, the effects of intrinsic
motives on engagement are significantly diminished. This means that employees who are
intrinsically motivated are three times more engaged than employees who are extrinsically
motivated by money.
6. Appreciate the journey—Demanding that college students figure out what they want to do with
the rest of their lives is a flawed mental trap that contributes to depression, loneliness, and anxiety.
It is also completely unnecessary and a fool’s errand. Such thinking exposes logic that believes a
successful career can be determined by an exact formula and is neatly quantifiable. This is simply
untrue. Achievement on either the personal or professional levels seldom follows a simple formula.
“Life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.”10 As John Gardner said in
his famous 1990 speech, “Life is…an endless process of self-discovery, an endless and unpredictable
dialogue between our own capacities for learning and the life situations in which we find ourselves.”
Your dream job today may not exist tomorrow, let alone 5, 10, or 20 years from now. You’ve got to
be open to whatever industry change comes your way.
7. Grow personally to develop professionally—In today’s challenging global economy, “individuals
are under unprecedented pressure to develop their own abilities more highly than ever before,
apart from anything their employers may or may not do to develop them.”11 Personal discipline,
growth, and a commitment to lifelong development are critical elements that factor into one’s
ability to achieve and sustain growth over a long career. In The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future,
Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career, authors Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIn) and
Ben Casnocha realize that great people, like great organizations, are in a state of perpetual growth:
“They’re never finished and never fully developed.” Each day presents an opportunity to learn more,
do more, and grow more. This state of “permanent beta is a lifelong commitment to continuous
personal growth” is a necessity for everyone, regardless of what major you declared.
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8. You continue to evolve in your 20s —In Emerging Adults in America: Coming of Age in the 21st
Century, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett and Jennifer Lynn Tanner declare that the decade after college
graduation is a time for self-discovery. Many parents fail to realize that it takes time for their
children to discover the right career path, get married, or become financially independent. New
research suggests that people are better equipped to make major life decisions in their late 20s than
earlier in the decade. The brain, once thought to be fully grown after puberty, is still evolving into its
adult shape well into a person’s third decade, pruning away unused connections and strengthening
those that remain. Postponing those decisions makes sense biologically. “It’s a good thing that the
20s are becoming a time for self-discovery. It should be reassuring for parents to know that it’s very
typical in the 20s not to know what you’re going to do and change your mind and seem very
unstable in your life.”12
9. Know that the reality is that people change jobs —The student’s first job after graduation is
unlikely to be his or her last. Layoffs, quitting, and a host of other reasons explain why people move
from one job to another. In 2011,48,242,000 people changed jobs in the United States. Of those
who changed jobs, 20 million were from layoffs and discharges, 23 million workers quit, and 4
million were classified as other separations.13 With 131 million total workers, the 48 million people
who changed jobs represented 36.7 percent of the total working population. Also, it is impossible
for students at the age of 22 to know what they want to do with the rest of their lives when they
have no idea what new jobs will exist in a decade or two. Today’s graduates will have jobs not yet
created using technology not yet invented to solve problems not yet identified.
10. Engage in subtle maneuvers—Graduates need to engage in subtle maneuvers so they can
purpose interests other than their day job. For those who cry they have limited time, recall the
words of Franz Kafka to his fiancée: “Time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the
apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible, then one must try to
wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.”14 During the day, Kafka worked his brotberuf, literally
“bread job,” a job done only to pay the bills, at an insurance company and then he would pursue his
passion of writing at night and during the weekend. This subtle maneuver approach has been used
by many successful people. An aspiring author once wrote to Irish playwright Oscar Wilde asking for
advice on how to have a successful career as a writer. In his response, Wilde told him not to rely on
earning a living from writing and declared, “The best work in literature is always done by those who
do not depend on it for their daily bread.”15
The First Major: Happiness
The myopic valuable v. useless paradigm of decision-making process when it comes to declaring a
major has provided people with seriously flawed mental models as to how today’s dynamic, hypercompetitive, and ever-changing global marketplace operates. Focusing solely on the undergraduate
major ignores the myriad other factors that directly influence long-term earnings potential, career
trajectory, and professional development. As outlined above, understanding the impact of
geography, realizing the power of grit, and engaging in subtle maneuvers, as well as many other
factors, all play a critical role in one’s career. Taken individually or collectively, these factors play a
far greater role than any college major. These factors also underscore the significant role that selfawareness plays in personal growth and professional development.
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Recognizing that many employees are unhappy or disengaged from their work, one observer noted,
“It’s no wonder many of us aren’t fully satisfied with where we’re at professionally. We keep ignoring
that crucial personal component that helps drive great results.”16 It is time that higher education
institutions pay attention to that crucial personal component of a student’s undergraduate
experience. To develop that component, and to succeed in the job market of today and tomorrow,
workers across all industries and titles will need to engage in a great deal of self- reflection. Doing so
will allow people to get better at the skills of human interaction. As Geoff Colvin noted in Humans
Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know that Brilliant Machines Never Will, workers need to
“become champions at the skills of human interaction—empathy above all, social sensitivity,
collaboration, storytelling, solving problems together, and building relationships.”
To ensure that college students achieve this level of human interaction required to succeed in the
workplace of today and tomorrow, they should first major in happiness. (For purposes of this article,
“happiness” refers to the pursuit of meaning through a life of purpose, leadership, and service to
others.) Undergraduates can best achieve this pursuit through a gradual increase in their selfawareness fostered by adventures in disequilibrium that destabilize their level of comfort, chal…
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