It is universal for people to go for professions that pay best and are in demand. Catching the early bus can make anyone lucky. But then there comes a mid day when majority of the students are showing interest in the popular major. In bay area of California, there was a time when computer science was the ultimate major. Silicon valley was just bubbling. There was a huge need for employees. After this came the time of accounting and finance. Many students in the bay area enjoy math and hate the idea of writing long papers. They often end up choosing accounting or finance option from Business Administration. Now there are just way too many graduates from these options. Same goes for education. Most state schools generate a huge number of teachers every year. But the irony is that public schools for some reason prefer to hire teachers from other states. With all honesty, when a major begins to attract too many bees, it should be skipped. Why?
1. Competition: When too many students graduate with the same major, they create fierce competition in the job market. The end result of this is that only the best end up winning.
2. Employers' demand for skills go up: When employers have so many options to choose from they become pickier. Consequently, they end up asking for more skills not even relevant to the job position. Majority of the college textbooks probably do not even cover them. Hence, new graduates are left in sticky situation.
3. Salary goes down: This does not happen immediately. During the initial days of the major's popularity, employers do not have problem offering a high salary. But the competition at mid stage does bring it down. This is made worse by economic recession when a great number of unemployed experienced professionals are ready to accept a low level job provided it matches their profession. They are also fine with low salary. That is why, these days, in California, employers can get away paying $18 to a financial analyst. Low salary is the response to increased supply of laborers.
4. Government regulation is tightened: Certification or state credentialing exam is connected to state government regulations. This way the states try to protect their citizens from frauds and low quality private business services. On the contrary, through certification, professionals gain more trust, career advancement and of course a good pay. But when too many people begin to take up the same profession, the rules of certification get stricter. In most cases, some more requirements are added for the professionals before they can even apply for the exam. One example is years of experience. When mixed with unrealistic demands of employers, this certification hinders new graduates from getting even entry level jobs. Currently, this is happening in human resources sector.
5. Getting to masters is made difficult: It is easy to think that if certification is not possible maybe a masters program can bring a positive change. Unfortunately, even here things are made murky. If you just research on the least popular graduate programs you will notice that their requirements are made extremely simple by the universities. Then there are those that are highly popular. Universities get a huge number of applicants for them, but they have very less seats. Hence, they make the requirements for the applicants tougher. Same goes for Graduate School Admissions Exams. Business administration is the number one popular major in US now. On the top of that, MBA here is open for all professionals. But before they can apply for it, they are required to do GMAT. Over the years, this exam has gone through drastic changes and most experts agree that it is getting more difficult. Once again, this is the way, the elite group tries to weed out low quality applicants.
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