This often cited study from 2012 reported that something like only 27% of those with bachelor's degrees were working in a field related to their major. It's over 10 years old but there's no reason to assume that the general broad principles don't still apply in the modern economy.

University educations have never been intended to be mere vocational skills programs. Being able to research, read, and write critically are important broad skills that are useful in life (including in the workforce), and most jobs out in the world don't actually require significant specialized education.

People who work in sales, management, design, logistics, event planning, contracting, marketing, advertising, finance, real estate, and things like that don't need particular degrees to do those jobs, but most of the white collar world has degrees. There's nothing wrong with majoring in English literature and then going into software sales, or majoring in history and going into logistics, or majoring in philosophy and becoming a journalist. It's not like you get a free pass to stop learning once you're in an industry, and keeping up means learning things that weren't even known when you were in college.

It's liberating when you realize that the choices you made at 18 don't box you in for life. You have the flexibility to make career changes into different industries, different roles, different cities, and different employers when you realize that most jobs can be learned as you go.

And most jobs suck, so it's worth finding something that fits your strengths and ignores your weaknesses, so that it's just easier for you to do.

Not really. I'm not sure how it ended up so rounded, but getting a degree is more than just "get skills for the job". When you are getting any bachelor's degree, you also have to take a certain amount of history, music appreciation, etc, heck my school even required lifetime fitness. It's also learning alongside your peers to suffer together, I mean work together.

Also, for something like engineering, you don't want a job to teach the basics of safely designing a building. You want that in school so when your job asks you to do something dumb, you can explain to them why it is unsafe and correctly refuse.

I like how my friend put it: "You COULD go to a technical school to get a job, but you wouldn't be very interesting to talk to."

Ugh and I just imagined if they made something like "Walgreens pharmacy school" that would train you to be a pharmacist but only for Walgreens. Imagine if your ability and certification to work in any field was tied to a specific company. No way to leave to CVS or whatever unless you go to "CVS pharmacy school". Sounds awful.