Biological sciences includes areas like biochemistry, botany, ecology, marine science, genetics, microbiology, molecular biology, human biology, and zoology. While these degrees are quite popular, there are several important facts to keep in mind:

This doesn’t mean biological sciences are a bad option, but it is the sort of thing you should pursue only if you have a strong interest in the field, and have carefully considered the available job opportunities and their pay.

Some universities offer generic health sciences degrees with names like Bachelor of Health Sciences. Be cautious about choosing one of these degrees, as they are notoriously low value in the job market. The curriculum often consists of a grab bag of health related topics such as health promotion, healthcare systems, population health, and basic sciences. The problem is the degree doesn’t qualify the graduate for any clinical role, any lab role, or indeed anything in particular. This means the graduate is forced to compete for some generic administrative or bureaucratic job in the healthcare system for which there are many candidates. If you really want one of these roles though, the degree is one option.

By all means, study a music degree if you are passionate about music, but be realistic and accept that professional career opportunities are limited. The vast majority of music graduates are not going to be able to find a job related to music. Consider carefully what your plan will be after finishing the degree.

In a sense, a performance music degree is a more valid option than other degrees with limited financial returns, simply because it is nearly impossible to get the same level of instruction from self-study. Degrees in drama or theatre are in a similar category.

Fine arts is associated with very limited job prospects. Employment in some related areas, like working in a gallery, is often based on personal connections rather than having a particular degree.

Working as an independent artist is hugely difficult and few people manage to successfully make a living. Successful artists also don’t necessarily require a fine arts degree. Unlike some other subjects though, it is more difficult to replicate the learning independently. This means despite the lack of job prospects, arguments could be made for studying fine arts if you really love the subject and the university offers a high quality programme with helpful staff. Enrolling a subpar programme would be a huge mistake though.

Before starting a fine arts degree though, a detailed and realistic consideration of career options is needed.

Even before the rise of AI, the field of graphic design was extremely saturated and competitive. This is because despite the small size of the industry, so many people with an artistic flair choose to pursue it.

After the rise in AI tools, entry level roles have been badly impacted. This doesn’t mean that every job has gone, but with many tasks being able to be done quickly using AI, there are fewer roles than before. Companies that are struggling financially are going to make do with AI generated designs even while acknowledging their shortcomings.

Think carefully before pursuing graphic design, it may be very hard to break into the industry. You might still choose to study it if you are passionate about it, but consider what you will do if you can’t find an entry level role after graduation. Some people try to make a living as a freelancer, but work can be very intermittent and clients often have unreasonable expectations. Also much of the work involves fixing AI generated designs.

Many universities offer a management major as part of their commerce or business degrees. This is variously called management studies, business management, or just plain management. The degree has a reputation as being one of the easiest, if not the easiest, majors in the business faculty due to the lack of quantitative content. It’s also one of the least valuable majors, with salaries at or near the bottom for commerce / business graduates.

Some students think that by majoring in management they can somehow graduate from university and go straight into a management role, but this is highly unlikely. These days employers are inundated by graduates, and are looking for specific technical skills. A management degree is just too generic. Those who eventually become managers are promoted from staff that have demonstrated their skills in specific areas of company operations.

If no other major offered in the business faculty is of interest, and you just want a degree, then management is one option, but don’t expect a clear path to a professional career. It’s really only suitable if you want to apply for graduate roles for which any business degree is acceptable.

Another commerce or business major that is not particularly valuable is entrepreneurship, which also goes by the name entrepreneurship and innovation. This is another attempt by universities to extract money from students by offering a degree that sounds attractive, but really is of little value. A bunch of academics haven’t cracked the code of how to be a successful entrepreneur or innovator. If they knew how to be entrepreneurs, would they really be wasting their time as a university lecturer? Only if they were exceptionally lacking in drive.

Much like students who study management, those who study entrepreneurship think they can somehow bypass the hard graft of entry level jobs and go straight to becoming a successful entrepreneur. In reality, the student studying entrepreneurship is falling behind while their peers are gaining specific skills that can be applied in the workplace like accounting, finance, or even marketing. This puts the student majoring in entrepreneurship in a disadvantaged position in the competitive job market.

Take a look at the successful entrepreneurs, did they major in entrepreneurship? Generally not. More often they developed specific technical and business skills, then saw an opportunity to disrupt a particular industry. Luck, contacts, and access to capital were other key ingredients. While many academics are experts in particular fields, they often lack practical experience as entrepreneurs or innovators. Furthermore, the factors that contribute to success as an entrepreneur or innovator are both poorly understood and, more importantly, can’t be taught or learnt in a university setting.

The big problem with gender studies is it is difficult to answer a question of the form "I’m majoring in gender studies so I can have a career in _____." In other words, there’s a low chance of it leading directly to any particular career.

The subject is often perceived as one of the preferred choices for radical activists, meaning if any of the people making hiring decisions have even slightly conservative beliefs, they may be reluctant to hire the graduate. This reduces the pool of potential jobs, leaving the graduate disadvantaged. Some graduates may be happy to avoid jobs where the employer’s and their own beliefs don’t align, but this does mean limiting themselves to a smaller set of jobs.

A related point is that gender studies has its origins in various political movements, meaning that some regard it as less a social science, and more a political ideology. This adds to the perception that students study a politicised curriculum rather than one that is widely applicable in the workplace. Out of all majors, choosing gender studies is probably the most overt statement of an individual’s worldview.

Another issue is that some view the subject as having a credibility problem. One controversial hoax, known as The Grievance Studies Affair, involved submitting nonsense academic papers to reputable peer-reviewed gender studies journals and having some of them accepted [1, 2]. Seven papers were published before the hoax was uncovered. It is unknown what the final tally of accepted papers would be if the experiment was able to run to its conclusion. When discussing scholarship in the gender studies field, the hoaxers claim “[T]hese scholars are like snake-oil salespeople who diagnose our society as being riddled with a disease only they can cure …​ In this way, politically biased research that rests on highly questionable premises gets legitimized as though it is verifiable knowledge.” [3]

It’s often suggested that gender studies graduates pursue a job in academia — which consists mainly of recirculating the same ideas — but this will require a PhD and other advanced training. Another suggested job is policy analyst, but these roles aren’t that numerous, and will also likely need a more advanced degree. Moreover, just about every subject in the arts faculty lists policy analyst as a potential career. Obviously, there aren’t enough policy analyst roles for everyone. Unlike some other subjects offered in the arts faculty like english or history, gender studies isn’t offered at the high school level, so the option of high school teacher may be off the table. Some universities suggest jobs like social worker or counsellor, but these require additional training. Training that could’ve been completed in the first place without a detour into gender studies.

Recently, gender related topics are hot button issues and often debated by politicians, pundits, and other interested parties. You too might want to participate in these debates, but no degree in gender studies is required to do so. 99% of the other people involved in the debates don’t have gender studies qualifications, you don’t need one either.

Readers are probably surprised to see physics on this list of degrees to think twice about, but a number of factors make it worth including. Many students start a physics degree with the intention of becoming an astrophysicist, particle physicist, or some other specialised physics researcher. What could be more interesting than learning the secrets of the cosmos or understanding the very nature of matter? Unfortunately, those jobs are few in number, and mostly dependent on government funding that can disappear at any time. Also, a PhD and additional postdoc training is required for most positions.

In practice, many physics graduates will enter the job market with a bachelor’s or perhaps a master’s degree. The jobs they end up doing are typically in areas like IT, finance, business, data science, or other quantitative fields. But these exact areas are the same ones that are impacted by AI, and this means fewer jobs moving forward. There is also an oversupply of graduates from other disciplines who are competing for the same pool of jobs.

Another issue is that physics degrees are tough, much tougher than other degrees like computer science, finance or statistics that lead to similar careers. The sort of student that has an aptitude for maths and physical sciences may be better off pursuing an alternative degree like engineering. That will open up many of the same jobs in IT and finance that physics graduates normally pursue, as well as giving access to a range of engineering careers.

Sometimes you might find people promoting physics degrees as being suitable for engineering jobs, but that is not especially realistic. A physics degree lacks the focus on practical engineering that an engineering degree offers. Employers aren’t going to waste time hiring a physicist when they want an engineer. Often employers want staff that can qualify as Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng), which requires a properly accredited four-year engineering degree. Laws around who can do engineering work are becoming increasingly strict both in Australia, New Zealand, and around the globe. In short, don’t believe the marketing that physics is a good degree to take if you want to work in engineering. Physics departments struggle for enrolments and are often guilty of deceptive marketing.

Business analytics is growing in popularity among students, but there are a few issues to be aware of. The first one is that a specific degree in business analytics isn’t required to work in the field. As a result students from many disciplines, including data science, statistics, computer science, IT, accounting, finance, psychology, marketing, and economics are applying for the same jobs. Indeed most entry-level business analytics roles don’t require detailed technical knowledge meaning a distinct lack of barriers to entry. In some cases, non-business analytics graduates are even preferred. For instance, a marketing department might prefer a marketing graduate to do their analytics due to their more detailed knowledge of the subject.

Secondly, business analytics degrees often lack the technical and theoretical depth of more rigorous programmes in computer science or statistics. This makes it difficult to later transition to more specialised or advanced roles. Furthermore, the knowledge that is taught in business analytics programmes also dates quickly.

Business analytics may still be a valid option but don’t be misled by university advertising that graduates in the discipline are in hot demand. It may be worthwhile considering alternatives like computer science, statistics, or accounting. While these fields have their own issues, they will give the graduate a more solid foundation in terms of technical or business knowledge.

We have already discussed a few degrees that one should be wary about rushing in to, but this is not an exhaustive list. Remember, the fact that a degree was mentioned doesn’t mean you absolutely should not study it. Instead, you should think carefully about your goals in life and how the degree aligns with them. Would it matter if the degree was interesting and enjoyable but ultimately didn’t help when it came to finding a job? For some people, it would be a disaster. Others may accept that they are studying the degree purely for interest and have a different unrelated career in mind.

There are a number of other degrees to be cautious of due to their limited applicability in the modern workplace. These degrees share the same shortcomings in that they don’t provide a specific career path and are often seen by employers as a generic qualification. Some majors may even count against the graduate if they are associated with radical politics. Proponents of the degrees will talk up their versatility and transferable skills, but these are essentially the same skills offered by all degrees.

[1] H. Pluckrose, J. Lindsay, and P. Boghossian, “Understanding the ‘Grievance studies affair’ papers and why they should be reinstated: A response to Geoff Cole,” Sociological Methods & Research, vol. 50, no. 4, pp. 1916–1936, 2021.

[2] “Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship.” https://newdiscourses.com/2020/01/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/ .

[3] “Here’s What Critics Say About That Big New Hoax On Gender Studies.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/virginiahughes/grievance-studies-sokal-hoax .