This is channel is super underrated but I'm glad I didn't watch this video before going to college. I'm one of those people who ended up working in a different field (studied film -> am now a data scientist) and I have no regrets about my major. I'd argue that changing your career aspirations after school isn't a mistake, it's an experience that's part of the richness of life. Of course, from a purely financial perspective, this video makes sense.

A large part of the problem is that both students and counselors are aware of only a minuscule portion of the potential careers in the world, most of which you can't directly train for. Interviewing people as to how they got into their careers usually doesn't result in an image of a direct line from college to the career, but something more like a rack of billiard balls whacking each other in all different directions until one or more fall into the pocket. Most people's careers do not result from majoring in something and going for an interview, but from random meetings and opportunities that no one could have predicted. Also, studies usually only look at people's outcomes two years out, but a look at their outcomes 20 years out of college can show some surprises, such as that fine arts majors often end up out-earning architecture majors. They're obviously not earning all that from selling art, but something about a fine arts education can make them prone to building lucrative careers, such as those I know who became real estate barons or even became pediatricians.

Every high school girl I ask says she plans to major in psychology. Nobody tells them they have to go through the PhD to do anything with it.

Interesting paper. Though I argue a distinction should be made between careers where there is formal regulation of supply (lawyers and doctors, to a lesser extent nurses) versus careers without this formal regulation ( or at least not nearly to the same extent). In the former case, you can see that student's population beliefs of the conditional probability are significantly lower than their own self beliefs ( 3rd diagram) and, in the case of lawyer/doctors, closer to reality, indicating that these students do seem to overestimate their own chance of success. This probably reflects the fact that career path is clearer- i.e. get into law/med school- allowing them to more accurately assess the population conditional probability (as they have some sense of acceptance rates) and perhaps induces selection of competitive/confident individuals (therefore leading to overestimation). I think this distinction has important policy ramifications too.

this is actually great. im glad youtube recommended this cause im applying for college rn.

College should be more than just about job training tho right? Education should be about learning and enriching yourself, not just participating in capitalism

😁

this paper is a literal cope, you could instead make higher education less riskier by making education free instead of making complex analysis to inform students if there is any hope they become what they dream