Careers Evolve but Majors Matter: Career Pathways and College Majors in Virginia

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Choosing a major and a type of degree is an important decision. Presumably, students choose a major that is both interesting to them and that aligns with what they want to do post-graduation. Students commonly assume that certain fields of study offer pathways to particular jobs or industries, or that an advanced degree will open up greater opportunities or put them on a fast track to a more senior position, like management. Some recently released data from the Virginia Office of Education Economics (VOEE), a division of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, show that this is largely true: Majors do matter, and advanced degrees can offer a fast track.

These data, which link education and employment records in Virginia, show that many fields of study are tied to the job opportunities that one might expect. Students who pursue a degree in business largely go into business-related occupations. Students who study engineering largely go into engineering jobs. And students who receive more advanced degrees are more likely to move into more senior positions or management roles.

Job progressions over the first eight years of someone's career can look quite different depending on their field of study. Some degrees initially provide graduates with a broader set of job opportunities, whereas other graduates change jobs at a higher rate in their early careers. But even as people change jobs over time, they are likely to remain in the industries that are most highly tied to their initial fields of study.

A Quick Word on the Data

The data behind VOEE's college and career outcomes dashboard are a combination of student records, employment records, and occupation and skill data that individuals posted on their LinkedIn profiles. Essentially, this dataset includes those who graduated from a Virginia postsecondary institution between 2008 and 2022, entered the workforce in Virginia, and created a professional social media profile. Although the data include any graduate of a Virginia school, students with an associate degree or a professional certificate were less likely than those with a bachelor's degree to have a LinkedIn profile, so they are less likely to be included in the data.

Job Opportunities Are Highly Tied to Relevant Fields of Study

According to this data, the top field of study in Virginia during this time period was business administration and management, which accounted for about 16 percent of all Virginia graduates between 2008 and 2022. Around a third of these students entered the workforce as a business operations specialist (analyst-type position), accountant, or financial analyst. Another third entered in some sort of managerial position.

Which jobs people entered, however, depended on the level of degree awarded. Among students who earned a certificate, associate degree, or bachelor's degree in business, about 55 percent started their careers in business operations, financial services, computer-related occupations (user support, network administrator, system analyst), sales jobs, or in customer support roles. Only about 14 percent began in a management role, and 5 percent started as a top executive.

In comparison, those earning a master's or a doctorate degree were twice as likely to start their career in management or as a top executive. What's more, and as the chart below shows, about half of graduates with an advanced degree in business move into a management or executive role by the time they are eight years into their careers.

Other fields of study, such as engineering, are more closely tied to a smaller number of occupations. Among students who earned an engineering degree, 46 percent started their career as an engineer, and another 21 percent started in a computer-related occupation like software development. Most of those graduates were likely to be in the same occupation eight years after graduation: For example, like those with a business degree, those earning an advanced degree in engineering were more likely to start or be in a top management position by the eighth year in their career.

Some Fields of Study Show More Opportunity for Job Changes

Although graduates in Virginia with degrees in business and engineering tended to remain in jobs related to their fields of study, some other fields of study show a broader set of job paths and a higher propensity to move into seemingly unrelated jobs over the course of their careers.

Take biology majors, for example. Around 21 percent of graduates (at any degree level) who studied biology had an occupation in their first year out of school in a life science field, and another 12 percent taught at a postsecondary institution. But as the graphic below shows, by year four, all of these graduates moved out of their life science technician roles and instead were almost equally likely to be in one of five different occupations: management, business operations, health diagnosing, postsecondary teacher, or computer-related occupations. That isn't to say that these students aren't still using their biology degrees; they just seem to quickly move out of technician jobs and into some other job title by the fourth year of their careers.

Recall that some of the occupations in the chart above are the same as someone who studied business. Presumably, the day-to-day job of a computer-related job is different for someone with a biology degree than someone with a business degree, despite having the same title. This is because job titles can be used by companies in different industries. But this begs the question: How likely are people to change industries over time?

People Are More Likely to Change Jobs Than Industries

In many fields of study, individuals stay within an industry, even if they move occupations. For example, a lawyer, accountant, or engineer might move into a management position, but they are likely to be managing other lawyers, accountants or engineers.

That also seems to be true for Virginia's biology majors. The chart below shows that the majority of graduates with a biology degree work in educational services, professional and scientific services, health care, and chemical manufacturing (which includes pharmaceuticals). Additionally, the share of people working in those industries doesn't change dramatically over the first eight years.

Similarly, graduates who studied education or nursing tended to enter and remain in the education and health care services industries, respectively. In fact, education and nursing are even more tightly tied to particular industries. About 75 percent of those graduating with an education degree started working in educational services, and that share declined only slightly to about 70 percent by year eight. Meanwhile, around three-quarters of those in registered nursing programs worked in either hospitals or other ambulatory health care services, which remained consistent over time.

An initial review of the data indicate that in aggregate, most students remained in the same industry for the first eight years of their careers.

Conclusion

While there is much more that can be learned from this data, this analysis shows how different fields of study and different degree levels can shape a person's trajectory. While most students enter an occupation connected to their major, some degrees are more tightly tied to specific occupation titles than others. Even for those whose occupation changes, graduates are likely to remain in industries that are closely tied to their fields of study. Perhaps not surprisingly, getting a more advanced degree, like a master's or a doctorate, is likely to put graduates on a faster track to a management position. Careers evolve, but majors still matter.

Views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond or the Federal Reserve System.