A college degree is often seen as a way to get a leg up in the labor market, which has recently been challenging for early-career workers. But as new grads begin their job searches, many say they wish they had chosen a different field of study.
Roughly one in five recent grads regret their major, according to a recent report from ZipRecruiter, which surveyed 1,500 graduates from the class of 2025, and another 1,500 students set to graduate this spring. Liberal arts majors were most likely to regret the area they chose to focus their studies, with many wishing they had pursued a scientific or quantitative field, according to the job site.
The fields with the highest share of regret among recent grads are political science, international relations, or public policy, with 46.3% of those majors expressing dissatisfaction with their choice, ZipRecruiter found. That’s followed by communications, media studies or public relations majors, 39.2% of whom said they rue their decision.
