Students worried about getting jobs are adding extra majors
担心就业的大学生纷纷选择辅修第二专业
After he graduates from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Drew Wesson hopes to begin a career in strategic communication, a field with higher-than-average job growth and earnings.
德鲁·韦森即将从威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校毕业，他希望投身战略传播领域开启职业生涯——该领域的就业增长和薪资水平均高于平均水平。
One year into his time at the university, Wesson became more strategic about this goal. Like nearly 1 in 3 of his classmates, he declared a second major to better stand out in an unpredictable labor market.
入学一年后，韦森对这一目标的规划变得更具策略性。和近三分之一的同学一样，为了在变幻莫测的劳动力市场中脱颖而出，他申报了第二专业。
It’s part of a trend that’s spreading nationwide, according to a Hechinger Report analysis of federal data, as students fret about getting jobs in an economy that some fear is shifting faster than a traditional college education can keep up.
《赫钦格报告》基于联邦数据的分析显示，这一趋势正在全美蔓延：由于担心在部分人眼中“变化速度远超传统大学教育跟进节奏”的经济环境中难以就业，学生们正纷纷做出这一选择。
“There’s kind of a fear of graduating and going out into the job market,” said Wesson, a sophomore from Minneapolis who is double-majoring in international security and journalism. “And having more skills and more knowledge and more majors gives you a competitive edge.”
来自明尼阿波利斯、主修国际安全与新闻学双专业的大二学生韦森表示：“毕业生走出校园踏入职场时，总会有种焦虑感。而掌握更多技能、拥有更多知识、修习更多专业，能让你获得竞争优势。”
The number of students at UW-Madison who double-major has grown by 25 percent over the last decade, the data show. But double-majoring is also on the rise at private, nonprofit colleges across the country, and at other public institutions, including the University of California, San Diego, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
数据显示，过去十年间，威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的双专业学生数量增长了25%。与此同时，全美范围内的私立非营利院校、加州大学圣地亚哥分校、北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校等公立院校，双专业修读人数也均呈上升趋势。
Nearly 5.4 million credentials — degrees or certificates — were earned by the 4.8 million college and university graduates in 2023-24, the most recent year for which the figure is available. That means about 12 percent left school with more than one, compared to 6 percent ten years earlier. Academic minors don’t count as a credential and aren’t tracked..
2023-2024学年（该数据为可查询的最新年度），480万高校毕业生共获得约540万份学历证书（学位证或职业证书）。这意味着约12%的毕业生离校时拥有不止一个专业，而十年前这一比例仅为6%。需注意的是，辅修专业不计入学历证书范畴，相关数据未被统计。
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“Students are feeling a sort of spiraling lack of control in a very dynamic labor market,” said Rachel Slama, associate director of Cornell University’s Future of Learning Lab, which studies how technology and other innovations are changing education. “They’re probably clinging to the one thing that’s in their control, which is the majors they choose. And they think that more is more.”
康奈尔大学未来学习实验室副主任蕾切尔·斯塔马表示：“在瞬息万变的劳动力市场中，学生们愈发感到对局势失去掌控，这种无力感还在不断加剧。”该实验室主要研究技术及其他创新对教育领域的变革。“他们或许只能紧抓自己能掌控的事——也就是所选的专业，并且认为‘越多越好’。”
They may be right, according to one of the few studies of this topic, by scholars at St. Lawrence University and Vanderbilt Law School. Students who have one major in business and a second in science, technology, engineering or math, it found, earn more than if they majored in only one of those disciplines, the 2016 study found.
圣劳伦斯大学和范德堡大学法学院的学者针对该主题开展的首批研究之一（2016年发布）发现，这些学生的选择或许不无道理：主修商科、辅修科学/技术/工程/数学类专业的学生，收入高于仅主修其中一个领域的学生。
Graduates who double-major are also 56 percent less likely to be laid off, have their pay cut or suffer other negative effects in economic downturns, according to another study, released last year by researchers at Ohio State and four other universities. These outcomes show “the importance of diverse skill sets,” the researchers concluded. If there’s a drop in demand for the skills associated with one major, “a double major can pursue a job related to the unaffected major.”
圣路易斯俄亥俄大学及其他四所高校的研究人员去年发布的另一项研究显示，经济下行期，双专业毕业生被裁员、降薪或遭遇其他负面影响的概率降低56%。研究人员总结称，这些结果印证了“多元技能组合的重要性”：若某一专业对应的技能需求下滑，双专业学生可从事另一专业相关工作。
At Wisconsin, nearly 6 in 10 students in computer science who pick a second major choose the lucrative discipline of data science; the number of jobs in data science is projected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to increase 34 percent over about the next 10 years, at salaries that are nearly twice the national average.
在威斯康星大学，近六成计算机科学专业学生会选择热门的数据分析作为第二专业。美国劳工统计局预测，未来约十年间，数据分析领域的岗位数量将增长34%，薪资水平更是接近全国平均水平的两倍。
The unemployment rate among new bachelor’s degree recipients is now higher than for workers overall, and at its highest level since 2014, not including the pandemic years, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. That’s partly because artificial intelligence and other factors are transforming what employers need.
圣路易斯联邦储备银行的数据显示，应届本科毕业生的失业率目前高于整体劳动者水平，且创下2014年以来（不含疫情年份）的新高。这在一定程度上是因为人工智能等因素正在重塑雇主的用人需求。
Nearly half of recent graduates feel underqualified to apply for even entry-level jobs, a survey by the education technology company Cengage Group finds. Only 30 percent say they have full-time jobs related to the fields that they studied.
教育科技公司圣智学习集团的调查显示，近半数应届毕业生认为自己连入门级岗位的应聘资格都不具备，仅有30%的毕业生表示拥有与所学领域相关的全职工作。
Meanwhile, colleges and universities — traditionally slow to transform what and how they teach — are encouraging students to combine majors as a faster way to keep up with changes in the labor market, said Taylor Odle, an assistant professor at UW-Madison who studies the economics of education and the value of credentials in the workforce.
威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校研究教育经济学与职场学历价值的助理教授泰勒·奥德尔指出，向来在教学内容与方式革新上动作迟缓的高校，如今也在鼓励学生修读双专业，以此更快适应劳动力市场的变化。
“Institutions are thinking strategically about how to align their degree programs with industry, and it might be by pairing two things they already have,” Odle said.
奥德尔表示：“高校正从战略层面思考如何让学位项目与产业需求接轨，而整合现有两大专业方向或许是可行路径。”
There are other reasons for the rising popularity of double majors. At UW-Madison, for example, one factor propelling the growth is that there are no minors, noted Taylor Odle, an assistant professor there who studies the economics of education and the value of credentials in the workforce..
威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的双专业热度攀升还有其他原因。该校研究教育经济学与职场学历价值的助理教授泰勒·奥德尔指出，其中一个推动因素是该校不设辅修专业。
Double-majoring isn’t easy. It typically means earning more than the usual minimum number of credits required to graduate, on top of extracurricular and other obligations. Wesson, at UW-Madison, for instance, is an officer of student government, a reporter and photographer for the campus newspaper and an honors student.
修读双专业并非易事：通常意味着要修满超出毕业最低要求的学分。以威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的韦森为例，他身兼学生会干事、校报记者兼摄影师，同时还是荣誉学生。
Some separate majors have overlapping requirements. Even if they don’t, most universities and colleges charge the same tuition per semester no matter how many courses undergraduates take. So unless a second major extends the number of semesters a student needs to complete required courses, or forces him or her to take additional classes in the summers, double-majoring doesn’t typically cost more or take longer.
不同专业的课程要求存在重叠；即便无重叠，多数高校按学期收取学费，与本科生修读课程数量无关。因此，除非第二专业延长修读学期，或要求学生暑期补修课程，否则修读双专业通常不会增加成本，也不会延长学制。
Meanwhile, more students are arriving at college having already knocked off credits by taking dual-enrollment and Advanced Placement classes in high school.
与此同时，越来越多学生入学前已通过高中阶段的双录取项目和先修课程修得学分。
About 2.5 million high school students participate in dual enrollment, according to an analysis of federal data by the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University. (The Hechinger Report, which produced this story, is an independent unit of Teachers College.)
哥伦比亚大学师范学院社区学院研究中心基于联邦数据的分析显示，约250万名高中生参与了双录取项目。（本文由《赫钦格报告》撰写，该机构是师范学院旗下的独立单位。）
This means they have room in their schedules in college for second majors, said Kelle Parsons, who focuses on higher education as a principal researcher at the American Institutes for Research.
美国研究所高等教育领域首席研究员凯尔·帕森斯表示，这意味着这些学生在大学阶段有时间修读第二专业。
Related: After years of quietly falling, college tuition is on the rise again
相关阅读：历经多年缓步下降后，大学学费再度上涨
For some students, double-majoring makes more sense than changing majors altogether. About 30 percent of students change their majors at least once, and 10 percent two or more times, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Adding a second major is less drastic than dropping a first one and starting again from scratch, said Patrick Denice, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Western Ontario.
对部分学生而言，修读双专业比彻底转专业更划算。美国教育部数据显示，约30%的学生至少转一次专业，10%的学生转两次及以上。西安大略大学社会学副教授帕特里克·丹尼斯指出，相较于放弃原专业重新开始，新增一个第二专业的影响要小得多。
“If you add a [second] major, you hedge your bets against a changing labor market without losing those credits and that coursework you’ve already earned” toward the first one, said Denice, who has studied why students at U.S. universities pick and change their majors.
长期研究美国大学生专业选择与更换的丹尼斯表示：“新增第二专业，能让你在不损失已修学分和课程的前提下，对冲劳动力市场变化的风险。”
There’s yet another reason students are increasingly double-majoring. Even as they crowd into specialties associated with career opportunities, such as business and health-related disciplines — which together now account for nearly 1 in 3 undergraduate fields of study — some are adding second majors for which they simply have a passion.
学生选择双专业的原因还有一点：尽管多数学生扎堆报考商科、健康相关等就业前景好的专业（目前这两类专业占本科专业总数近三分之一），但仍有部分学生因个人热爱选择第二专业。
Related: Students can’t get into basic college courses, dragging out their time in school
相关阅读：学生选不上基础课，导致学业周期延长
“They’re trying to satisfy their parents, who want them to be employed,” said J. Wesley Null, vice provost for undergraduate education and academic affairs at Baylor University, where there were more than twice as many double majors last year than there were in 2014. “But they’re also interested in a lot of interdisciplinary kinds of things. They’ll combine biology with Sanskrit or Chinese. These really bright students have a lot of diverse interests.”
贝勒大学本科教育与学术事务副教务长J·韦斯利·尼尔表示：“他们一方面想满足父母的期望——父母希望他们能顺利就业；另一方面又对各类跨学科领域充满兴趣。”该校去年的双专业学生数量是2014年的两倍多。“他们会把生物学与梵语或中文结合起来修读。这些优秀学生的兴趣十分广泛。”
At the University of Chicago, where the number of double majors has also more than doubled, “I see students committing to one career but wanting to have more breadth,” said Melina Hale, dean of the college. “They’re going and exploring all of these other majors and finding one they love.”
芝加哥大学的双专业学生数量也已翻倍。该校学院院长梅利娜·黑尔表示：“我看到学生们确定了一个职业方向，但又希望拓宽知识面。他们会去探索各类专业，最终找到自己热爱的领域。”
Double-majoring is also “a great way for students to demonstrate that they know how to think in different ways,” said Hale, herself a biologist who has collaborated with engineers. “If you’re going into a job in finance and have a deep background in history, you’re bringing different ways of approaching problems.”
本身是生物学家、且曾与工程师合作的黑尔指出，修读双专业也是“学生证明自己具备多元思维能力的绝佳方式。比如从事金融行业却拥有深厚的历史背景，能让你用不同思路解决问题。”
Related: To fill seats, more colleges offer credit for life experience
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This way of thinking is pushing still another trend: More students nationwide are earning certificates, which they can get in a matter of months and alongside their degrees, in subjects such as business management. Seventeen percent of bachelor’s degree recipients also finished college with at least one certificate in 2023-24, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reports.
这种思维方式还推动了另一趋势：全美越来越多学生在攻读学位的同时，用数月时间考取工商管理等领域的职业证书。美国国家学生信息交换中心的数据显示，2023-2024学年，17%的本科毕业生离校时至少持有一份职业证书。
Known as “stackable credentials,” these kinds of certificates “have been talked about for a long time,” said Ryan Lufkin, vice president of global academic strategy at the educational technology company Instructure. “And now there’s really demand for them.”
教育技术公司Instructure全球学术战略副总裁瑞安·拉勒夫金表示：“这类被称为‘可叠加证书’的资质认证早已被热议多年，如今终于迎来了真实的市场需求。”
That’s because — like double-majoring and minoring — they make applicants stand out to employers, said Odle, at UW-Madison.
威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的奥德尔指出，这是因为和修读双专业、辅修专业一样，这类证书能让求职者在雇主面前更具竞争力。
Students, he said, “are trying to emphasize their attractiveness in the labor market. They’re trying to cover their bases.”
他表示：“学生们试图提升自己在劳动力市场的吸引力，做到未雨绸缪。”
Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556, jmarcus@hechingerreport.org or jpm.82 on Signal.
联系方式：记者乔恩·马库斯，电话212-678-7556，邮箱marcus@hechingerreport.org，或通过Signal联系（账号jpm82）。
This story about double majors was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.
本文由非营利独立新闻机构《赫钦格报告》撰写，该机构聚焦教育领域的不平等现象与创新议题。
Data analysis by Marina Villeneuve.
数据分析：玛丽娜·维伦纽瓦
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