GuShiio.com 
Starting today, we will start a three-lecture series on “Employment Changes” to explain the new changes in the employment field. Today is the first lecture in this series. We will talk about the “changes” in majors, which are related to the employment of you or your children.
“Thirty years east, thirty years west”, the former “sinkhole” majors have now become “chosen” majors, and at the same time, new “sinkhole majors” have emerged.
So first, what are the previous and current sinkhole majors? Where is the pit? Second, what is the trend of future majors? What kind of changes in the times are represented behind this? After all, only by knowing the trend can we prepare early.
What is the “sinkhole” major? Where is the pit?
Recently, many places have released the “Annual Report on the Employment Quality of Graduates from Ordinary Higher Education Institutions in 2023”. The “biochemistry, environment and materials”, which were once ridiculed as the “four major sinkhole majors”, that is, the four majors of biology, chemistry, environment and materials, are actually among the top in all disciplines. The employment rate is generally between 80% and 90%, which is a real employment leader. From the employment rate point of view, “biochemistry, environmental materials” has gotten rid of the label of “sinkhole”. But for some majors, from the perspective of employment, the “pits” are bigger and bigger. Of course, I know that there may be some gaps between the employment rate I mentioned and everyone’s perception, but the trend is not wrong.
For example, in Shaanxi, the graduation destination implementation rate of 28 majors such as library science, food hygiene and nutrition, traditional Chinese medicine, world history, management science, and applied psychology, that is, including employment, entrepreneurship, and further study, is still less than 70%. Among them, the graduation destination implementation rate of majors such as urban rail transit signal and control technology is 0%. Of course, because it only has 2 graduates.
In Guangxi, the employment implementation rate of radio and television, architecture, engineering auditing, traditional Chinese medicine, journalism and other disciplines is at the bottom, all less than 70%.
In Guizhou, the employment implementation rate of disciplines such as law, transportation engineering, public management, and information management ranks last.
So some people say that the once pitfall majors “biochemistry, environment and materials” have become natural majors, and the pitfall majors now are “law, journalism, management, architecture and medicine”, that is, law, journalism, management, architecture and traditional Chinese medicine.
Moreover, each of these majors has its own “pitfalls”. Let’s talk about them one by one.
The “pitfall” of law and management is that the demand is saturated.
Since 2013, major universities have begun to expand the enrollment of master’s degrees in law and management. In the past ten years, a total of more than 1.5 million masters of law and more than 3.3 million masters of management have been trained nationwide. Note that this is only the number of masters trained. If undergraduates are included, the scale of training for management talents and legal talents exceeds 10 million. However, the market demand for the two major employment pools of management and law – civil service examinations and the lawyer industry – is far less than the growth rate of graduates.
The “pitfall” of journalism is that it is difficult to transform.
On the one hand, traditional media is already a sunset industry, and the development space of the news industry has reached its ceiling; on the other hand, although the new media industry is developing rapidly and there is a huge talent gap, the requirements for talent skills are more diversified. Journalism graduates do not necessarily have advantages when they transition to new media employment, and there may even be shortcomings. In addition, the industry is not very prosperous, which leads to low salaries for journalism graduates even if they find a job. In a word, it is difficult to transition and low salary.
The “pitfall” of traditional Chinese medicine is that there are few jobs.
There are as many as 40,000 hospitals in China, but the development of the traditional Chinese medicine industry is relatively lagging behind, and there are limited new positions for traditional Chinese medicine in large and small hospitals in China. In some places, the workload of existing doctors has not yet been fully saturated, let alone providing employment opportunities for new doctors. In addition, in the industry of traditional Chinese medicine, the older you are, the more valuable it is, and it is difficult for newcomers to get ahead simply by relying on higher academic qualifications. “Some people have no jobs” is the dilemma of traditional Chinese medicine.
As for the “pitfall” of architecture, everyone should know that the real estate recession has led to a sharp increase in employment pressure for students majoring in civil engineering, architecture, design, etc.
As glorious as it was, it is now deserted. These related majors may have to go through a long winter.
What are the trends of future majors?
So what are the trends of future majors? The reality of the conversion between Tiankeng majors and Tianxuan majors reminds us that disciplines are of the times and majors are cyclical.
The professional settings of universities should have adapted to the times and followed the cycle more quickly. To make an inappropriate analogy, college students are a bit like products in terms of employment. If the product has no sales, it is time to change the production line.
Of course, the education authorities did act quickly and responded to the needs of the times –
From 2022 to 2024, 3,399 undergraduate majors were abolished. In addition, many places have also introduced policies to deal with majors with employment rates below 60% in various universities.
Among them, there are 14 majors that step on the “red line” most frequently, including food nutrition, tourism management, sports management, marketing, animation, intellectual property, radio and television director, performance, art design, broadcasting and hosting, music performance, e-commerce, trade economy, public management, etc.
After the old majors are cancelled, new majors need to be created. The Ministry of Education has also added 24 new undergraduate majors. These majors are “special majors” urgently needed for national strategies and regional development, including: high-power semiconductors, rare earth materials, intelligent marine equipment, biological breeding, intelligent vision, etc. These new majors will be deployed in 54 universities and will be recruited for college entrance examinations from 2024.
And various provinces have also made large-scale adjustments to their own educational resource layout. For example, Jilin directly adjusted the professional layout of more than 25% of undergraduate colleges and universities, and added about 100 urgently needed and scarce majors. There is no way, the small logic of professional development in colleges and universities must obey the big logic of economic and social development.
For many people, a more fundamental change is that the employment competition among Chinese college students is becoming increasingly fierce. It has changed from the past where just being able to go to college is enough, to being able to go to a good college, to being able to go to a good college in a good city, to being able to go to a good college in a good city with a high degree, to now, it is necessary to go to a good university in a good city with a high degree and a good major.
Behind this is the population problem, the problem of educational industrialization, and the problem of employment involution, but in essence it is the process from social expansion to contraction, and from rough to fine industry. And this process will inevitably leave a large number of people behind. Of course, this is another story, which will not be expanded today.
Finally, let’s summarize:
Today we analyzed the phenomenon of switching between “tiankeng” majors and “tianxuan” majors. Through this phenomenon, we have a deeper understanding that disciplines are epochal and majors are cyclical. What we can do as individuals is to pay attention to trend changes and consciously improve the corresponding abilities. Future life choices must be ahead of the times.
