The word useful comes from the Latin “usus” — meaning use, practice, or experience. At its root, usefulness simply means how much something can be put to work.
That’s pretty straightforward. A degree is useful if it prepares you to work. It’s useful if you can practise it. It’s useful if you’ve experienced it.
But the word useful can also be problematic. Because that’s when your mind starts thinking about how the sole purpose of university is to get you a job or when you think about the inverse — that is, the “most useless degrees.”
What are the “most useless degrees”?
The phrase “most useless degree” are always spoken about today about how they’re bad at two main things: 1) leading you directly to a job 2) earning you a high salary.
The usual examples are: arts (music, painting, the likes) and the liberal arts (like philosophy and history).
Other examples are “recreation management” or “business in tourism” — said to be some of the most useless degrees as the first led to jobs that a high school graduate could do and the second isn’t used at all in said graduate’s current job (which was not in business or tourism).
But are all the most useful degrees that bad preparing you for the future? We spoke to three graduates to find out:
Three graduates with some of the “most useless degrees”
Isabel Palumbo has a bachelor’s degree in linguistics and a master’s degree in museology. Source: Isabel Palumbo
Isabel Palumbo
Italian national Isabel Palumbo initially pursued a degree in linguistics with the hope of teaching English or becoming an interpreter. It’s a common degree in Italy, but to others, it’s a “useless degree”.
That’s not the worst thing they’ve said. When she moved to the Netherlands to pursue a master’s degree in museology — the study of museums — many called it another of of those “most useless degrees.”
Palumbo does see where they’re coming from because, at some point, she found herself translating ancient Greek and old Latin, languages no longer spoken.
“I started to question what I was doing, because when will I ever use these languages and when will they ever come in handy?” she says.
But over time, she found worth in her degrees.
“I design in 3D, and that requires me to take reference from real life, culture, and how others think or perceive art, as well as scientific ways of proportions and perspectives,” Palumbo shares. “These skills are all taught in my museology degree.”
Despite her struggles, Palumbo has had the opportunity to work with the biggest names in the music industry, such as Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, and &TEAM. She has also worked with The Palace of Versailles, Meta, Burberry, Marc Jacobs, and Coachella.
A “useless” degree wouldn’t do that for her.
Utsa Bose is a PhD in History candidate from the University of Oxford. Source: Utsa Bose
Utsa Bose
Utsa Bose is the first in his family to pursue a history degree. Coming from an Indian family, his parents, siblings, and relatives all have STEM degrees.
Did Bose find his degree useless? Not exactly, because to him, it all depends on who you’re surrounded by and where you pursue the degree.
“I would say I’m lucky in the sense that although I’m in the humanities field, I’m pursuing it at an elite institution,” he explains. “I’ve had a lot of people say, ‘What’s the point of studying the subject?’, but once they hear I’m doing it at the University of Oxford, they don’t have anything else to say.”
At the end of the day, Bose understands where they’re coming from, but he also knows thathis degree exists to maintain balance in society. While many people may think that history is a worthless degree, it is an important lens to understand the past and present to support the future.
“History is more than just studying the past; it includes incorporating science,” he explains. “I deal with information from both sides. I even talk to both medical specialists and historians to seek an understanding of how both intersect because I believe that the future is more than just a single interdisciplinary field.”
Bose found a big value in his field. You’ll be doing it for the sake of the world’s future.
Tanishqa Vaish is a Master of Science in Media and Communications graduate from the London School of Economics. Source: Tanishqa Vaish
Tanishqa Vaish
Hailing from India, Tanishqa Vaish got the chance to pursue her master’s degree at the London School of Economics.
Specifically, she obtained a Master of Science in Media and Communications. She has always been interested in media, understanding its value in modern society.
“Media is so important for any organisatio. Whether it’s finance or STEM or whatever, we’re responsible for putting it out in the world and how we’re putting it really matters because that can really make and break the organisation,” she says.
Yet, many people online (and in real life) often dismiss communication degrees as some of the “most useless degrees.” They’re often seen as easy and of “common sense.”
Of recent years, media degrees have also been seen as regrettable, thanks to the industry’s record unemployment rates.
When asked about whether she faces doubts from others about her chosen subject, she says, “Absolutely.”
“And especially for women, I feel like there’s definitely a gendered angle to it as well, where people feel like, yeah, women are doing media because it’s easier compared to STEM or compared to other degrees like finance,” she expresses.
But with the rise of AI and dropping media literacy rates, Vaish knows that media and communications are perhaps more important than ever. Specialists in these fields have more discernment when it comes to misinformation and expertise in authentic, ethical, and strategic messaging.
Today, Vaish is putting her education to good use as a Communications Strategist at Wadhwani AI Global, focusing on providing human-centric AI services in underserved regions in the Global South.
In 2024, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences found that 60.5% of women pursued humanities (historical category), 62.4% pursued humanities, and 63.8% pursued fine and performing arts, which are arguably some of the “most useless degrees”. Source: Pexels/Yusuf Çelik
The gender angle: Are certain degrees deemed useless because it’s female-dominated?
When people rattle off examples of “most useless degrees,” the list tends to look a certain way: media studies, communications, general studies, social work, the humanities.
And when you look at the gender breakdown of who studies these fields, that list starts to look less like a coincidence.
That aligns with what Vaish was talking about. And this is referred to as the “feminisation effect.”
This is a phenomenon in which a field’s perceived prestige and economic value tend to decline as more women enter it, and to rise when men dominate it.
This raises an uncomfortable question: when we call a degree “useless,” are we actually making a judgment about the subject matter — or about who tends to study it?
When we dismiss entire fields as soft and impractical, we might just be participating in a system that has historically undervalued work done by women, and discouraging men from entering those fields, too.
One way that employers justify this wage gap is the idea that women are secondaryearners in families, not the breadwinner.
As reported by this 2013 study on the feminisation of workforces, even though employers exploit female workers by providing low wages and few labour benefits, the employers sometimes boast, thinking they are doing the women a great favour, saying that, if these female workers were not employed, they would starve or would be involved in unethical jobs.
And this results in a cycle in which women are more willing to accept lower wages because there are no other options, creating the “feminisation effect” in an industry that could then significantly lower average wages.
This sort of mindset doesn’t apply to just ready-made garment industries of Bangladesh, which is what the study was based on. It happens even in modern, corporate systems, where men with families tend to be given higher wages.
This is called the fatherhood bonus or premiums, while mothers experience the motherhood penalty.
Of course, it’s important to think critically about career outcomes, but we also need to be honest about where our assumptions about “usefulness” come from.
Whyarecertain fields not as economically incentivised?
And are we playing a part in their devaluation, if we let onlyeconomic incentives guide our education choices?
