Does your major in college really matters?

It entirely depends on the degree and career path you are after.

I won't say it doesn't matter, but I will say that having the degree is a thousand times better than not having one at all, whatever major you chose

Depends entirely on what you want to do. For some professional careers, the degree is everything (engineer, lawyer, etc.) For other career paths it may not matter at all.

Could you find something doing "community development" with the degree you have? Almost certainly, since that's an extremely broad description, as you noted.

Without more information on what you actually want to be/do, it's tough to give any useful advice.

I graduated with a degree in French.

I’m a software developer. I’ve literally never used it on the job.

C’est la vie, c’est non ?

It really depends on the field, lots of jobs just like to see that you went to college and got some kind of higher education. Its OK if you don't necessarily use 100% of what you learned it just more demonstrates that you have the capacity and drive to constantly better yourself. Did you have a particular kind of career in mind when picking these majors?

I mean there are obviously exceptions, like if you want to be a doctor you'd better have gone to med school.

Some fields require a degree. Some degrees add significant value (you'll gain more relevant knowledge in 4 years than you would working 4 years).

For some jobs, it is important. However, there are some boring white collar jobs that generally want college graduates for their soft skills.

It sounds like you basically got a BA in business with some specialization, so I would go for jobs like that.

So, I got a ba in political science and like two minors. I ended up doing computer repair for a good decade then got into a job doing purchasing then eventually got into IT sourcing/procurement. I wouldn't be able to do that if I didn't have some good fundamentals in reading and writing, which the BA provided.
But in the long run, it doesn't matter once you get work experience. The degree is a check box at some point.

I'll chime in that a degree in accounting or finance can get you far.. Most here will mention engineering/medical/programming. They also will likely bemoan the finance and accounting folks they work with as useless.

I'll agree that due to many burrecratic choices c-suite leadership make there are a ton of inefficiencies but there is always a ton of work to be done and the skills can transfer to quite a bit of companies.. Even very large corporations just end up having horribly inefficient processes and constant churn in leadership switches it up a lot.. So if your someone who knows accounting and finance well and can think learn to bridge the never ending gap in tools and people requesting data you can do well.

I actually think community based sustainability is going to be a huge in demand area as climate change worsens. Depending on how much you want to sell your soul to the capitalist machine, there will be plenty of work opportunities in helping companies implement sustainability initiatives.

Also, social work and community development are widely applicable across the human services industry. You could get a job in government or not for profit organisations. In order to qualify as a social worker you'd probably have to do a masters, but there's plenty of community based roles that you can get into with a bachelors.

Not unless you go to a specific field that has hard legal requirements. Doctor, Teacher, Psychiatrist, Urban Planners, etc. Software engineers, producers, artists, project managers, account managers, I've seen go very far without a degree at all. Some even have a degree with a major from an entirely different field.

So it highly depends on the field. For your field, I'd say, yes your degree and major matters.

I don't know, but it kind of feels like they wouldn't have taken me as a network engineer for a national ISP if I had studied business administration instead of computer science.

Maybe I'm missing the point of the question. Right now the answer just seems to be "obviously yes"

This absolutely doesn't come from informed experience, and is speculative drivel, but:

I think just mentioning that you "designed your own major" may help a lot in various types of job search. Regardless of what the actual process is like (I have no idea), it sounds impressive, and makes it sound like you're a person with a lot of initiative and drive. That could help make up for any perceived competitive disadvantage.

Of course your mileage may vary, especially if you're applying for a job that would heavily revolve around topics covered by a very specific major. But sometimes it helps to stand out, and "I designed my own major" could help you do that.

Outside of the hard sciences where youre there to learn necessary specific foundational knowledge and technical stuff - mech/elec/civil engineering, high level medical, etc - it really doesn't. The degree is proof that you can put your head down and manage yourself well enough to survive in the white collar world.

I could suggest buffing it up with a Certified Economic Development FInancial Professional credential? I'm working on mine myself. Could be a decent choice. A lot of the value in community Dev this day comes working with Ec Dev

As someone with what feels like three more or less made up degrees, I’ll say having a degree in general is often a prerequisite for many jobs so it is better than not having a degree for sure.

In terms of hard skills, I also wish I’d developed more in college, but it’s still possible to develop those outside of school either on the job, on your own time, etc.

Your first job or your next job might not be your dream job or even all that relevant to your studies. But its much better to build skills and experience while also bringing in income, and it will make your next job search all the better.

Good luck, I’m currently job searching too and it’s soul crushing but we’ll make it!

Depends what you want to do. You can always do consultancy work, those consultancy firms usually just want to see that you have a bachelors degree. Since that means you are trainable. They usually train their new recruits internally. You probably not gonna end up at the big firms like EY or BCG, because they only hire people from Ivy leagues or through their own social network. But there are plenty of smaller firms who will hire you.

And you can always just get a bunch of a Salesforce certificates to improve your resume.

I wouldn't stress over it. Employers look for someone in an umbrella of majors, because every school is going to have its own names and standards for their class templates. If I saw someone list community development as a major, I would think it would overlap a great deal with urban development, with maybe a bit more focus into civil engineering or sustainability. You'll want to explain how your background is relevant to a position in the interview anyway. I wouldn't expect it to get you eliminated before then.

Also, it's a cool opportunity to stand out with how it differs from a more traditional major. People like hearing how you chose to include something that you felt was lacking from the default path because you thought it was important. Choosing to specialize demonstrates thoughtfulness, passion, and mastery. You'll be fine.

I dunno but... For comparison, I have a B.S. in Computational Mathematics with a minor in Physics, and I have never once actually used it for anything. My current job required a degree but not specifically that degree. It is ostensibly one of the those useful, in-demand majors, but I couldn't find many job opportunities for it that applied to me, or that I actually wanted... So honestly your path sounds MUCH MUCH better to me, personally. Plus your major sounds way cooler.

Can confirm, my undergrad degree has nothing to do with my current career. Employers care much more about experience than your degree. You'll definitely want to tailor your resume to demonstrate the skills you've gained from your degree (Hint: Sustainability is a big deal in a lot of businesses today). If you've had any related internships, even better.

I will put in another vote for urban planning. Pursuing employment with a city you would like to work for, in any department, will help. Thos will likely get you on the ground experience with not only that particular aspect of the city, but also the culture of employment there.

Additionally, there are usually NGOs in urban areas that provide a variety of services, some of which would benefit from what I perceive your education to be in. Or "delay" yourself and look at international outreach programs that are relevant and meaningful.

The answer is yes and no.

I worked a lot of different jobs with no degree at all, out earning a friend of mine who got her batchelores in fine art, sculpting specifically, and who also worked a bunch of different jobs (that didn't gave much to do with her major).

We both went back to college around the same time. She got her masters in interior architecture, and I got my AS in industrial design and drafting for manufacturing.

I got a job first in a civil field that doubled my previous salary. She got a job soon after in an architecture field a dollar less than me per hour.

I got promoted at 8 months with a pay raise of $4. Now I make $5/hr more than she does.

All this to say, it matters what you get your degree in, to an extent. My friend and I both use CAD for our jobs, but her masters hasn't paid out as much as my Associates has so far.

I think she enjoyed sculpting a lot for her BA degree, but faltered a lot on what to do with it. It's a degree you have to really figure out how it can become applicable in regular jobs, because "sculpter" jobs are few and far between. She also wasn't willing to move to places like LA or NY which might have had more opportunities for her skill set.

So yes, in a way it matters, but also not really very much.

It's cool that you got to create your own major, I would have lived to do something like that.

No, unless you're in engineering or medical you're winding up a barista all the same.

Those counselors who told you you'd be a loser unless you went, go for anything it doesn't matter all you need is a piece of paper, they lied.

If you're lucky, you'll get a job at a nonprofit organization, spending day in and day out trying to justify your paycheck. You'll get paid pretty good, but it comes at a cost: there will always be an empty hole you can't fill, one that is there because you'll never know the deep in your soul joy of delivering anything of value to another person.

Then, maybe one day, you'll become a manager and get to do some hiring, at which point you'll haze the potential hires by requiring them to go through the credentialism rigmarole that you went to just to prevent yourself from accepting the fact that you wasted your youth, just to make them do it because you had to. You'll become a cog in a machine that perpetrates the injustice you've suffered, the ridiculous system that requires young people to go into debt and spend their youth pretending to learn just to get a busywork job.

If you're lucky.

In your field, it might. But honestly, what makes the biggest difference is who you know and how well you fit in where you work.

I majored in film with a minor in photo, perfect track to be a cinematographer. Found out I didn't really like that industry, just loved making pretty images. I learned a lot of other skills but the most valuable one was how to relate to people and understand what they're saying when they're not actually saying what they want. I've since switched careers to something totally different, but I use so many things I learned in college unrelated to focusing cameras. You have learned a lot that's going to help you for the rest of your life. You might not know it for a long time, but you'll eventually find your way.

What you describe sounds like it would be interesting in urban planning for a new sustainable development. It might also be interesting in a city dealing with urban collapse.