Remember when you were young and full of hope and no one laughed at your career aspirations?
No? Well I don't either. I guess people still don't like pirates.
Then you packed up for college to suffer the Terror of the Dismal College Advisor. This is the only vocation in which people are paid to point and laugh at you but don't actually know anything about your graduation requirements. Some things are just so deliciously abysmal you have to pay $30,000 to experience them.
Perhaps you'll get a great advisor.
Or not. More than likely, you will get one who thinks teacher, doctor and lawyer are the only career options available to you. And if you should be so unfortunate to choose any medical profession, you will be referred to the Health Careers Program, which is specifically designed to deter unwitting students from medical school.
You might also get an advisor who's retired, doesn't answer his phone, is never in his office, doesn't have e-mail and when you find him, prefers to chisel your pin number on a slab instead of using modern technology, such as pencils. In this case, you might never get to register for classes and unemployment is imminent.
But have no fear. There are ways of navigating around the terrors of the pre-professional system, if you become adept at the "Career Match-Up" game. According to most people, your major IS your career path, so avoid choosing laughable majors. Noble and practical is the way to go.
Below is some advice concerning how to choose Duke's most prestigious, awe-inspiring majors guaranteed to land you a job, contrasted with, well, the ridiculous ones, which won't.
Art History: You can speak at length about the nuances of good art and its implications throughout history and you know that West Campus architecture is less than perfect. This is not marketable. Maybe the Gap will hire you.
Asian and African Languages and Literature: Hmm... better not comment on this one. The last person to say anything about Hindi at Duke was threatened with death. Perhaps by Tandoori.
Biology: Ohh, you're going to med school. What, you're not? Then you're going to grad school to become another jobless bio whiz in the Triangle area.
Business: HAHA! We don't have this major. We advise you to major in economics and invest more money obtaining an MBA from our illustrious Fuqua School of Bidness.
Chemistry: Mmm... buret. You enjoy masochistic titration equations. Poison an art history major for trashing Gross Chem. as a foul, fetid piece of architecture. Maybe a tobacco company will hire you.
Computer Science: Please pass go. Collect $70,000 and your new BMW upon graduation. Laugh at all your unemployed friends who called you the Techno Geek.
Classical Studies: We have that? No one studies that anymore, not even for those steamy Latin passages about Greco-Roman wrestling.
Drama: Despite the fact that you will be well-versed in art, history, literature and writing, everyone will think you're graduating to become a flaky actor. Focus on the angst of being gay, black, Hispanic, female, club-footed or any combination thereof. Now that's entertainment.
Economics: see Business.
Engineering: see Computer Science. Laugh at all your Trinity friends who read books and write papers instead of sleeping in Teer.
English: If you can manage to avoid the avoid the deconstruction theories, you might learn something. Go to grad school and stay there for a long time.
History: Oppression throughout the ages, gender bias in Western Civilization, and the Evils of Imperialism. If you want straightforward history, go back to high school.
Journalism: HAHA! Not here. Sleep on the couch at The Chronicle.
Nursing: Not here either, despite a large medical center looming somewhere in the area. Didn't you just want to be a doctor anyway?
Political Science: Ohh, you're going to law school! How impressive. Very masculine. Political conservatives hardly tolerated at Duke, however.
Public Policy: see above.
Romance Languages: Learn to order your sorority McFlurry in the native language of McDonald's employees around the world. If they can't communicate with you, it's not because you're incompetent, but because you're speaking the correct, grammatical version of their language.
Sociology: The only jobs I know for this one are Basketball Player and Sociology Professor.
Women's Studies: Highlights of the year are Rape Awareness/Eating Disorders week and discussing why, oh why, did Gloria Steinem get married? Perhaps because "angry feminist" is not a lucrative job description, and a hell of an interview liability.
Specialization is for insects, or so said the man who is responsible for Battlefield Earth.
Either he or Aldous Huxley.
I wouldn't know because I never got my registration number for that class.
But there's always hope.
Angela Fernandes, Trinity '00, is a former film editor of Recess.
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