In news that will either delight or enrage you, Duke University Researcher Jonathan Wei recently published findings that everyone kind of already knew, but just wouldn’t actually say (at least not to your face): Your choice of college major indicates how smart you are.
Although, let’s be clear, “smart” in Wei’s study is defined as “academic aptitude” as measured by five scores: The Army General Classification Test, The Selective Service Qualification Test, findings from Wei’s previous research (Project Talent), the GRE, and the SAT. Averages of these scores were selected from a period ranging from 1946 up to the previous decade.
The results were universal. For every measurement, education majors ranked last and those nerds in the physical sciences (like astronomy, physics, etc.) were top dogs. Generally speaking, agriculture and business majors also ranked low, while engineering and other STEM majors ranked high. Social and biological sciences were total Jan Brady’s.
Wei concludes that these results may be due to the fact that STEM majors tend to rake in more of that sweet, sweet dough over the course of their careers than educators and that this has consistently drawn more academically adept students to the field. ‘Cause to make that money, they gotta study more, honey.
But before you go and change your major or cry to your mom that Duke University called you stupid, allow me to repeat the mantra you received at the beginning of your required statistics course: correlation is not causation. Maybe some other weird reason is causing these results. Like, uh…whatever, astronomy is boring and sucks. Who even has a job directly related to their major anyway? I mean, I do but I’m special. I majored in sorority with a minor in bitch face and accumulated enough credits for a concentration in “ugh, stop.”
So, my conclusion is study what you love, do what makes you happy. You’ll be fine..
[via Quartz]
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