What was your major in college? Ask that question and you’re likely to find out something interesting about a person—regarding their areas of interest, habits of thought, and past or present ambitions.
Often a major matters greatly in determining a career path, and not necessarily in a predictable way. Consider Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter. He has written of how, as a Yale undergrad, he took a double major in the disconnected subjects of physics and medieval history. Their appeal lay in being so different. Moreover, in his words:
“As far as course choice was concerned, I had no interest in between the extremes of medieval history (history, language, philosophy) on the one hand, and science (physics, chemistry, mathematics) on the other…. I have taken exactly zero social science courses in my entire life. My arrogant view at the time was that life would eventually teach me political science, sociology, psychology, and even economics, but it would never teach me linear algebra or Latin. It seemed best to get my tuition's worth from the other topics and get my social science for free!”Whole thing here.
My own majors at NYU were economics and history, which both have served me reasonably well and been frequent subjects of my writing. Still, if I were doing things over, I would have a different mix with significantly more math and science than I was willing to try back then.
