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Four Secretly Cool College Majors

For decades, fields like medicine, law, and engineering have dominated both higher education and the marketplace. And for the most part, they still do; these three remain the most prestigious and sought-after careers in most surveys. But just behind them are a few college majors that lead to lucrative and meaningful careers, albeit without the glamour. If you’re not sure what to specialize in, here are some lesser-known career paths that can take you places.

Urban Planning

Urban planners concern themselves with improving life quality in communities. Although the name suggests they work in cities, they also work their magic on small towns and distant suburbs; in fact, many of them specialize in the development of urban centers from such areas. As an urban planning major, you touch on different fields including economics, finance, real estate, architecture, engineering, and environmental science. You may end up working for government agencies, private companies, or non-profit organizations, and when you rack up enough experience you can make six figures a year.

Organizational Studies

It sounds pretty commonplace, but it’s a field that’s highly specialized yet surprisingly versatile. Organizational studies majors look into the way people behave as parts of organizations–towns, companies, clubs, even governments. Courses require good leadership and analytical skills, and as expected, graduates often rise quickly up the organizational ladder and manage their own teams within a year. Salaries range from $60,000 to $100,000 a year, depending on experience.

Informatics

A fairly new term, informatics is part computer science and part social studies. It’s all about how humans relate to IT and how computers shape the modern world: how it’s made, processed, passed around, lost and preserved. On the job, you can expect to work in pretty much any field that requires data management–and these days that means just about anywhere. Banks, schools, and government offices are among the biggest customers. Because the job prospects are so varied, salaries can range from $30,000 a year to over $100,000.

Actuarial Science

Actuaries specialize in risk management and risk assessment for insurance, business, and management purposes. The field has been around for a long time, but it’s only fairly recently that a dedicated program has appeared in universities. Not surprisingly, there’s a lot of math and statistics involved, as well as logic and code-cracking. It’s still a very small field, which means it’s highly competitive–once you get your degree, you have to pass a series of tests to be able to practice. But it’s all worth the trouble: an actuary can make up to $200,000 a year.

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School Colors: Why Student Diversity Matters

University rankings used to take into account little more than the obvious factors: grants, research facilities, professorships, and the average success of its graduates, financial or otherwise. These days, the judges are looking at yet another facet: student diversity. Demographics have come to mean more than skin colors in the classroom; indeed, how diverse your school is can have an impact on your eventual job opportunities.

Accessible technology, fast travel, and an increasingly “flat” global marketplace have made it a must to be able to interact in different environments with different people. In other words, if you went to school with people from all over the world, you’ve got an edge over a graduate whose school has less student variety. It’s not quite as telling as your grades or your experience, but in a job market dominated by global-minded companies (or companies that like to think they are), it’s a plus that’s worth looking into.

The Society for Human Resource Management, a professional association based in Virginia, reports that 69% of American companies put a premium on diversity. Among other things, this means that they make it a point to ensure that all employees are able to take in different cultural backgrounds. If it isn’t already, in the next few years it might be quite common for interviewers to bring up school diversity when screening candidates.

So what exactly constitutes diversity? To be considered diverse, a college or university should aim to take in students from a broad range of backgrounds, whether it’s economic, ethnic, religious, political, or educational. The same applies for faculty members and other employees, although it’s not as pronounced. Diversity can also be reflected in the types of student organizations, campus events, internship opportunities, and student exchange programs on offer.

More than the job opportunities, however, a diverse institution makes for a much more rewarding school experience. Working with people from all walks of life allows a student to encounter different ways of thinking, as well as out-of-the-box approaches to problems ranging from calculus equations to taking a stand on tuition fee increases. Several surveys have shown that students from diverse universities have better satisfaction levels, both socially and academically.

If you want to learn more about diversity in your school or want to take it into account when choosing one, visit the school’s cultural affairs office (or the equivalent) and see what services are offered to different communities. It may not seem to matter when you’re knee-deep in papers and exams, but you just might be thankful for it down the road.

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Where to Go for Grad School Without Going Broke

The typical college graduate exits school with bleak job prospects, no thanks to a tanking economy. No wonder so many people are looking into graduate school; if there are no good jobs to be had, might as well use the time to make themselves more hireable. The catch, of course, is that university doesn’t come cheap–and most graduates are already burdened with student debt to begin with.

One attractive solution is to look abroad. There’s little doubt that American and British universities are among the world’s best, but they are notoriously expensive. Other countries have equally strong yet much more accessible educational systems–the kind that lets you pay your tuition in full, with more than enough left for food, rent, and even a little travel. Here are some places you may want to look.

Spain (and the Hispanosphere)
A full-time graduate program at a Spanish university can cost around $2,000 a year, roughly a fifth of what you would pay in the U.S. The University of Barcelona and the University of Madrid are among the best in the country. In South America, the University of Sao Paolo in Brazil is a consistent top-notcher; in Mexico, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) is a source of international acclaim. These schools are especially strong in history and the social sciences, and are fairly open to interdisciplinary interests.

France
The French take pride in their intellectual culture, and they have the educational tools to prove it. Foreign grad students pay as little as EUR200 ($265) for a year of internationally renowned education. The École Normale Supérieure de Paris is ranked 28th in the world and offers master’s programs in 50 areas, including arts and literature, social sciences, science, health, and law.

Singapore
There’s a reason Singapore has become the favourite destination of Asian grad students. The best universities charge under $5,000 per year of graduate study for foreign students; this includes Singapore National University, which ranks just behind the École Normale Supérieure de Paris in world rankings. Selections outside Asian studies and history may be limited, but travel opportunities are cheap and abundant.

South Africa
Education was one of the first things to bloom in South Africa after the apartheid, with locals more than ready to enjoy their newfound intellectual freedom. Johannesburg, the capital, and the tourist city of Cape Town have the strongest offerings in the country, with international student tuition averaging $4,000 a year. The cost of living is also quite low, which is why a lot of graduate students seem to spend as much time on the beach as they do in the library.

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History — ‘art or Science’?

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Learn Science With the Best Online Science Tutors

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Would majoring in both computer science and biochemistry be good for an undergrad hoping for medschool?