Hi, I am a young student and am going on to university soon. I am interested in helping causes and organisations like unions and such for a profession. I thought of doing political science, but that’s not very agreeable to my parents. So I thought of doing economics however I’m not sure how employable a pure economics degree is and whether or not I can stomache the neoliberal economics. If anyone could provide some of your own experiences and help me I would appreciate it.
I wouldn’t recommend poliSci or economics, you will go broke if you’re not following the status quo line and its an useless career from a production viewpoint.
If i were to start all over again, id go for civil engineering or architecture. If there is one safe area its that one, construction never goes out of business, you can transfer that knowledge anywhere in the world and its a productive set of skills.
You should probably aim for labor law then.
Pursue a political science or economics degree and then become a lawyer. You can have any bachelors and make it to law school, and you would be able to effectively help the organizations you listed.
Engineering, and if you can’t, then a trade in construction or metal/wood work (you can probably get an engineering degree later).
Edit:
When I said engineering, I didn’t mean just the big ones (mechanical/aerospace/electrical), but any engineering or applied science. It will teach you many valuable things and transferable skills that it’d be hard to acquire elsewhere. If anything, it will teach you how to learn and figure out things for yourself.
Why trade/engineering? If you want to help people, learn how to fix things: cars, plumbing, walls, roofs, electronics; how to build things: houses, furniture, labour-saving machinery.
I might be biased because I didn’t follow that advice, but I should have. I have degrees in physics, history and philosophy. None of those helped me where I want to be.
I am currently studying for a teaching degree and I am considering going to a 3-5yr engineering university next year, because 5 years will pass no matter what, the difference is that after 5 years I can have an engineering degree or not have an engineering degree.
If you take away one thing from my post let it be this: your decision is not final, you can change your mind, switch universities/degrees, etc. So don’t be nervous about your decision or think that what you choose now is something you have to do for the rest of your life. Go to different departments, talk to professors/students (the course description on the uni website rarely gives you all the info).
If you can explain why it would help clear the fog a little bit for the OP
Good point. Edited.
The few econ students I knew at my uni wanted to work for one of the big accounting firms like Deloitte and whatnot. One of them was able to do that, another went to study law in US. Not sure about the rest.
