00:00okay so you want to know if a general
00:02studies major or a general studies
00:05is worth it is it going to be worth
00:06going 40 000 in debt and spending four
00:09years of your life to get this college
00:11all right so you know the drill gently
00:13tap the like button and we are going to
00:15right into it we are going to answer
00:16this question the first thing we need to
00:18think about is what exactly
00:20is a general studies degree well of
00:22course i always consult the oracle aka
00:24google to figure out what the definition
00:26of these different degrees are and when
00:28you type this into google
00:30nu.edu says what is general studies it's
00:33an extremely flexible focus for a
00:35college degree that enables you to
00:37strengthen important skills such as
00:38communication analysis and
00:40problem solving so that doesn't
00:41necessarily define exactly what a
00:44general studies degree is because
00:45there's a lot of different degree paths
00:47where you can work on those skills
00:49so in layman's terms a general studies
00:51degree is what you take when you have no
00:52idea what you want to do
00:54and it's almost like a sample platter
00:56when you go to a restaurant you get to
00:57sample a little bit of everything and
00:59then figure out what you like later on
01:01now i think that's a great idea for you
01:03to get into at the beginning of college
01:04you might want to take a bunch of
01:06different classes just to figure out
01:07what you like but in this video we're
01:09going to talk about whether that's a
01:10good idea for you to actually major in
01:12because here in the united states
01:13there's around 14 000 people
01:15every single year that graduate with a
01:17bachelor's in general studies
01:19as you can imagine the typical career
01:21paths they end up going down
01:22are extremely broad there's a ton of
01:24different ones they could potentially
01:26go into now usually these websites will
01:28tell you specific career paths that a
01:30lot of people who graduate with certain
01:31degrees end up going down but as you can
01:33imagine with this one it's not so simple
01:36however when i was researching looking
01:37at different videos and different forums
01:39of people who have actually
01:40gotten this degree a lot of them ended
01:41up becoming paralegals or public
01:43relations specialists but that could
01:45have just been by chance that people
01:50now when it comes to earning potential
01:51or salary with a general studies degree
01:54you can expect to make around 41 000 a
01:58and 63 000 in mid-career pay compare
02:00this to a really good one and a bad one
02:02and you'll see that it is definitely on
02:05so let's say you became a paralegal for
02:07instance the salary there is going to be
02:10a year or 24 dollars per hour or you
02:13might become a public relations
02:15that one is 61 000 a year or 29 dollars
02:18per hour and this degree would likely
02:20fall under the category
02:22of a liberal arts degree which they make
02:24around 2.1 million dollars over a
02:27which is lower than the average of 2.4
02:29million for all types of degrees
02:30so all of those were below average and
02:32think about it it kind of makes sense if
02:34you were a business owner or a hiring
02:37how are you going to tell what a general
02:38studies degree is going to bring to the
02:40table what kind of skills are they going
02:42to be able to do for you
02:43what job would you even put them in
02:45let's assume that you did have the
02:46skills the whole hiring process takes
02:48so much time and energy that they're
02:50probably just going to assume that you
02:52don't and they're not even going to give
02:54so overall the salary here is going to
03:00now when it comes to satisfaction i
03:02think there's two important things to
03:04consider and the first one is going to
03:06meaning or how much you think your
03:07career positively impacts the world
03:10so for this degree you can see that the
03:12meaning score is around 53 percent on
03:14pay scale and you can compare that to a
03:16good one and a bad one and you'll see
03:17that it's pretty average
03:19let's say you become a paralegal the
03:20meaning score is actually going to go
03:24which is below average however when you
03:26look at job satisfaction which is the
03:28second factor which is pretty much just
03:29how much you enjoy doing your career on
03:33that is going to go up to 69 so that's a
03:37average if you compared to a good one
03:38and a bad one now when it comes to how
03:40much people regret getting a college
03:42degree it's pretty tough to put this one
03:45social science degrees are probably
03:47going to be the most common classes you
03:49that is the fourth most regretted type
03:5229 of people regret it and the main
03:54reason is because it's too general and
03:56practical and hard to find a job without
03:58further studies now when the issue is
04:00general and then you're going to take a
04:02general studies degree beyond that
04:04that might become a bit of an issue now
04:05with that being said when it comes to
04:07job satisfaction there's a lot of things
04:08that you have to think about
04:10it could have a lot to do with where you
04:11live the people you work with your boss
04:13the company you work for
04:14you know all kinds of different things
04:16that are pretty much outside of the
04:18scope of this video so this is an
04:19extremely subjective
04:21section for one person it might be
04:22amazing and for another person it might
04:25overall i'm going to give this one a 6
04:27out of 10 when it comes to satisfaction
04:31so now we're going to be talking about
04:33demand and let's go back to the
04:36there is around 337 000 paralegals here
04:40and it is expected to grow about 10 over
04:43the next 10 years which means 35 000 new
04:45jobs will be created
04:46for a public relations specialist
04:48there's 274 000 and it's growing at 7
04:52over the next 10 years so the jobs
04:54themselves are pretty decent when it
04:55comes to demand but like i said before
04:57there's not really any careers that they
04:59commonly go into now when you type in
05:01general studies degree on monster.com
05:04you're going to see that around 6 000
05:06up you can compare that to an
05:08anthropology degree with 800
05:10and that's a pretty bad one and a
05:11computer science degree with 141 000
05:14and you'll see that it is on the lower
05:16side especially with how many people end
05:19with a bachelor's every year so this one
05:21would be considered a liberal arts or a
05:23humanities degree and a lot of the time
05:25when companies are surveyed about what
05:27type of majors they want to hire the
05:30generally speaking you know business
05:32engineering mathematics technology those
05:34are the ones that are going to be at the
05:36liberal arts humanities these degrees
05:38tend to be at the bottom so a lot of the
05:40time you know business degrees eighty
05:41percent of the companies are going to be
05:43hiring business degree grads and only
05:44around 10 to 20 percent
05:46sometimes even less than that are hiring
05:48liberal arts graduates and usually the
05:50reason is because they're just
05:51extremely general the company is going
05:53to have a hard time figuring out exactly
05:55what your skills are and in this case
05:57it's even more general because it's a
05:59general studies degree the overall when
06:01it comes to demand i have to give this
06:07next we're going to be talking about x
06:09factors and this is another relatively
06:11subjective section but it's going to be
06:13anything that didn't fall into the other
06:15ones that i still think is important now
06:17when you see how much a degree makes
06:18over a lifetime your average degree is
06:20going to make around 2.4 million if you
06:22look at a liberal arts degree which
06:24would be probably the closest to this
06:26one you'll see that it makes around 2.1
06:29which is lower than average keep in mind
06:31a lifetime of working would probably be
06:33around like 40 years or so
06:35and so this is the last 40 years and
06:37maybe 40 years from now it could be
06:38completely different who knows now i
06:40will note here that if you're going to
06:41do a general studies degree you probably
06:43want to have some kind of concentration
06:46on something that's on the left side of
06:48chart and not something on the right so
06:50for instance engineering degrees make
06:513.5 million over a lifetime and you can
06:54see that it doesn't matter pretty much
06:56any career path you go down they make
06:59even if they become an artist they're
07:00still gonna make around three million
07:02dollars over a lifetime for instance now
07:04when you look at the zip recruiter
07:05skills index there'll be no surprise
07:07here that general studies is not
07:09on there however let's choose that
07:11career path that we keep talking about
07:13paralegal studies that one
07:14has a score of 57 out of 100 and you can
07:18a high one and a low one and you'll see
07:22slightly higher side of things it's a
07:24little bit average maybe slightly above
07:26average but again it's really tough to
07:28say here because of the fact that
07:29general studies is basically just going
07:31to mean that you're a jack of all trades
07:33and a master of none and the main
07:34purpose in my opinion especially if
07:36you're going to go 40 000
07:38in debt for college is to learn
07:41to get specialized knowledge the truth
07:44is if you want to have a
07:45shallow understanding of a bunch of
07:47different subjects you can just watch
07:48free youtube videos you can maybe get a
07:51course there's also a ton of free videos
07:54online that are offered by some of the
07:56best universities in the entire world so
07:58a lot of ivy league universities like
08:00harvard for instance offer many of their
08:01classes online and they'll even tell you
08:03what textbook they're using
08:05and they'll give you problems so you can
08:06pretty much just go along with them so
08:08if you wanted to be a jack of all trades
08:10you could likely teach yourself 99
08:12of these skills on your own now we are
08:14entering into the age of automation and
08:16when it comes to automation and
08:18outsourcing the thing that's going to
08:20save you from you know not losing your
08:22is having specialized skills same thing
08:26you could argue that getting a general
08:28studies degree is going to teach you a
08:29lot of intangible or soft skills that
08:32are going to help you in your life in
08:33other areas besides financial and it's
08:35possible that they might even help you
08:37financially it'll just be a little more
08:40not going to get you a job right off the
08:41bat however later on in your life when
08:43you have those skills it might
08:44indirectly help you now the thing about
08:46a degree being extremely
08:47general is the flip side to that is
08:49they're also pretty flexible as well so
08:52you're not going to be pigeonholing
08:54into one career or another career but in
08:56this particular case
08:57it's general but not in such a good way
08:59so i would say if you are going to get a
09:01general studies degree i would highly
09:02recommend you focus on an area that's a
09:05little bit more practical so you can get
09:06your foot in the door get your first job
09:08once you get a few years of experience
09:10and you do a good job
09:11you probably won't have an issue finding
09:13another job so overall with this one i'm
09:15going to give it an x factor score of 6
09:21so doing the math here all four of them
09:23add them up divided by four
09:24you're going to have a score of 5.125
09:28you guys know i try to be very fair with
09:30these videos and i tell it to you
09:32that is not very good i think it's a
09:34great idea to take entry-level classes
09:36and a bunch of different things
09:38um usually the 101 classes especially
09:40are really entertaining
09:42i enjoyed taking all kinds of
09:43entry-level classes and a bunch of
09:45different subjects you know it was a lot
09:46of fun but this is one of those degrees
09:48that's likely not going to be very well
09:50respected on the job market
09:52and it doesn't really teach you
09:53specialized skills so if you are going
09:55to major in this i would highly
09:57recommend double majoring in something
09:59else that's going to be a lot more
10:01better yet it would be a good idea to
10:03either minor in it or just take extra
10:04classes on the side and things that you
10:07if money isn't an issue and you know you
10:09don't have to worry about going deep in
10:10debt maybe you can consider getting this
10:13and you know i'm sure there are some
10:15people out there who got general studies
10:16degree and it turned out really
10:18well for them but for the most part for
10:19the average person i would say this is
10:21probably not going to be a good
10:23idea now if you're somebody watching
10:25this video who's already gotten the
10:26degree and you want my advice on what
10:28you should do at this point i would say
10:30focus on learning skills getting work
10:33experience you know internships are
10:35and then networking there are quite a
10:37few jobs out there that do
10:38require a college degree but don't care
10:41and so i would look out for those types
10:43of jobs there's a lot of government jobs
10:45for instance and those
10:46can be really good depending on your
10:47personality and what kind of job you're
10:49now if you want help doing more research
10:51on these college degrees i did create a
10:53college degree ranker in my patreon down
10:57in my opinion this is a really
10:58convenient tool that will make the whole
11:00much easier and i am going to be
11:02updating it in the near future and
11:03making it even better if you haven't
11:05done it already go ahead and gently tap
11:07the like button hit that subscribe
11:09ring the notification bell comment down
11:10below any thoughts comments criticisms
11:12etc that you have on the video
11:14share the video that actually helps
11:15quite a bit when you do that
11:17and don't leave check out my other
11:19videos right here i made them
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