By Magdalena Hernandez

College Majors Handbook with Real Career Paths and Payoffs: The Actual Jobs, Earnings, and Trends for Graduates of Sixty College Majors, Second Edition
by Neeta P. Fogg, Paul E. Harrington, and Thomas F. Harrington (JIST Publishing; Indianapolis; 2004; 645 pages; $24.95)

A new satirical novel, Admissions, lampoons the desperation of upper-class New York City couples to get their children into elite private schools — “the Manhattan parents’ version of a blood sport,” it maintains. After all, the thinking goes, if precious Zoe doesn’t make it into the right prep school, she’ll certainly be barred from the Ivy League later on.

Not that admissions angst is limited to society’s upper strata. Many middle-class folks are just as anxiety-ridden about getting the best college education for their kids. Ostensibly, the matriculation fur is flying because of the high stakes involved. What better guarantee of professional success could there be than a diploma from a select college?

Now, the College Majors Handbook strives to change that mindset. It argues, dramatically and persuasively, that your choice of a major is more critical to your success than what college you attend.

To compile this guide for students and their families, authors Neeta P. Fogg, Paul E. Harrington, and Thomas F. Harrington have parsed an impressive amount of information from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the Department of Labor, and numerous other sources. Fogg and Paul Harrington are economists at Northeastern’s Center for Labor Market Studies. Fogg researches young adults in the labor market; Harrington focuses on the economics of education and career development.

Thomas Harrington (no relation to Paul) is a counseling psychologist at the center, as well as a teacher of vocational psychology, career counseling, and cognitive and personality-assessment courses, and a creator of psychological and career tests.

The authors examined data on more than 148,000 college-educated men and women — drawn from the National Survey of College Graduates, the largest and most comprehensive study ever conducted on college grads — with an eye toward helping students make informed decisions about their college major and possible career path.

What were the findings? First, something most of us would have guessed: A college diploma is important for success in the United States. Then, something rather startling: A degree from a top school doesn’t have a huge impact on your future income.

In fact, the authors state, “after taking account of the differences between the pre-enrollment literacy skills of students of elite colleges relative to those of mainstream college students, the earning advantage of elite students is no greater than 1 to 2 percent per year. These findings suggest that the independent effect of enrolling in an elite college is quite small and that a large part of the positive outcomes of graduates of elite colleges is attributable to the preexisting ability of students who enroll at these institutions.”

This no doubt comes as a relief to all who fear a thin envelope from an Ivy League school equates a future of flipping burgers. On the other hand, Uncle Mike might be on to something when he says, “You’re getting a degree in Folklore and Mythology? What are you going to do with that?”

Clearly, choosing a major has become serious business. A broad liberal-arts background may hone critical thinking, but don’t expect the marketplace to value your philosophy BA as much as the next guy’s engineering degree. In fact, the authors write, “a large and persistent earnings advantage . . . accrues to college graduates who have degrees in professional fields.”

How much of an advantage? The College Majors Handbook allows you to compare salaries from the top to the bottom of the wage scale. The average annual salary of a chemical engineering major between the ages of twenty-five and twenty-nine, for instance, is $58,200. Social work majors in the same age bracket average $30,000.

You’ll find more than just income stats. The first three chapters cover overview issues, such as how high school lays the groundwork for college and career success or failure. The authors use their areas of expertise to discuss how personality, interests, and abilities play a role in selecting a major and a career. There’s information on the economic benefits and costs of a degree, and how a course of study affects long-term labor-market success.

The balance of the book outlines the most common careers, average salaries, career opportunities, and educational paths for grads in sixty popular majors, from accounting to the visual arts. It includes specifics about the kinds of positions a bachelor’s degree in a particular major leads to, as well as the on-the-job training those positions might entail.

A financial framework is used to pinpoint which majors offer the best return on investment (ROI), which — considering that 2003­2004 tuition and fees at private colleges averaged $20,000 per year — makes sense. Most-valued majors include business, computer science, health, and engineering. Graduates in these areas are rewarded with good career opportunities, above-average starting salaries, and a rosy picture for future growth.

Some youngsters will use the book’s findings to reinforce or refine their career decisions. Others — especially those with a liberal-arts bent — may be turned off by the ROI angle. That would be a pity, because the book contains important information regardless of what major students are leaning toward.

For instance, the comprehensive listing of jobs and future prospects for each course of study lets students see how many career options they’ll have and how marketable they’ll be if they choose a particular major. The authors also sketch how graduates in each major spend their workdays, helping readers make the leap of imagination from schoolwork and internships to the daily grind.

Overall, the text is quite user-friendly. A slew of statistics is presented straightforwardly. The tone is clear and concise, if a tad dry. (Your high schooler may not want to curl up with this tome for a long read, but that’s never a deal-breaker for a handbook.)

Although the College Majors Handbook won’t give students the final word on the right major for them, it’ll serve

as a worthy prompt for some edge-of-adulthood introspection. It belongs on the bookshelves of high school students and their families, school guidance counselors, career counselors, and libraries.

Even at the career centers of those Ivy League colleges.

Magdalena Hernandez, MBA’02, is a senior editor.

First Daughters: Letters Between U.S. Presidents and Their Daughters
edited by Gerard W. Gawalt and Ann G. Gawalt; Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers; 2004

Whether you feel elated or deflated as you watch this month’s presidential inauguration, here’s a fine candidate for your reading list.

Gerard W. Gawalt, LA’65, historian and curator at the Library of Congress, and his daughter Ann G. Gawalt present the unedited voices of twenty-one American presidents and their children through a thematically arranged anthology of letters, many previously unpublished. The result is a unique study of the relationships between presidents and their daughters, and a revealing glimpse into the private lives of our most public personas.

A Deaf Artist in Early America: The Worlds of John Brewster Jr.
by Harlan Lane; Beacon Press; 2004

Though his name is not widely known, John Brewster Jr. (1766­1854) was a prominent Deaf painter in New England during the decades following the Revolution. Many of his evocative portraits are now deemed masterpieces.

With A Deaf Artist in Early America, Harlan Lane, the Matthews Distinguished University Professor in psychology, explores Brewster's life and work, as well as Deaf culture and history.

This fascinating volume offers new research on the early Deaf community in the United States; the founding of the first American school for the Deaf, in Hartford, Connecticut; and the creation of the first organization for the Deaf, along with the budding ethnic consciousness that followed.