Why would someone major in anything other than a STEM degree?

While you study in one of those disciplines, you also need to be developing yourself professionally in similar ways to those who major in other fields. No degree is a job guarantee, for many reasons — it is up to the person. I’ve heard Biology majors speaking about their dissatisfaction with the jobs available to them upon graduation. This is something they had not been prepared to consider: that their undergraduate degree alone would not guarantee them a job that met their expectations. While they may be able to get a job as lab assistant, many of them did not really have an affinity for that kind of job. Whereas those students who majored in a science and minored in something that also interested them in the arts , humanities, or social sciences, also tended to develop themselves proactively as professionals: finding various internships, getting involved with community organizations, and building a network of connections for the present and future.

The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter WHAT your undergraduate major is; it is most important that one is engaged in learning and internships and networking. As those who major in Business have started to understand, it’s not about the major; it’s about engagement, about being truly interested and involved in order to build toward the next steps in your career. Sometimes graduate programs are more directly linked to professional opportunities, but it is not usually true for most undergraduate programs. So unless one is really interested and appreciates the kinds of challenges presented by the STEM disciplines, it would be important to explore a wider variety of subject areas as an undergrad.