I’m a sociologist. Long ago I quit counting how many times people explained that majoring in sociology was a really bad idea – and then they would tell me how dismal the employment opportunities were. At times they seemed correct – I am also a pretty good engineering technician and surveyor – skills that made me a living when sociology opportunities were just adjunct faculty. Now, I look and https://nypost.com/2026/07/06/opinion/government-pulling-student-loan-money-from-worthless-degrees/ tells how student loans will not be available for majors that don’t provide a return on investment. I think that will include a lot of sociology majors.
I ended my career as a state demographer. Not at the top of my field, not at the bottom. And I have to remember – I had dropped out of college (3 classes left to take, and it would take a full year to get them) and was employed as a Soil Conservation Technician when I got a postcard from my old department head, Del Samson. It was brief – something like –
“Mike – I looked through your files the other day. If you come back to school this Fall, you can get the three classes you need to graduate. If you don’t, your credits will be aging out and graduation will take four more years. Del“
That postcard got me back in school to finish the bachelors. Later, I took 2 more terms in Ag Engineering to qualify as a professional instead of a technician. Then came the opportunity to teach Soil Conservation at Trinidad State – and on the side I got to teach the occasional Cultural Anthropology class. Dad needed a bit of help at Trego, so I came home, helped, and surveyed with a Cadastral crew.
At FVCC I was able to tutor and teach as an adjunct – and complete a Master’s at Havre: 78 days of classes and 21 thousand miles spread out over 3 summers. That Masters – Guidance – qualified me for assistant professor with MSU Extension. Five years as a county agent and that masters got me to SDSU as the lowest level administrator in Extension – and I took the job with the agreement I could go for a Ph.D. in Sociology at one class per semester. In nine years, working full time, I defended my dissertation and was greeted as doctor.
Three and a half of those years were in the Census Data Center. Then the rest of my career was as the state demographer. There were jobs available in Sociology, and I finished in a good one. And I still think of Del Samson taking the time to send a postcard to a student who had dropped out over four years earlier. I didn’t go through with student loans – I completed my graduate work while working (full-time). And, yes, there are a lot of people with sociology degrees and student loan debt that didn’t wind with jobs in sociology. I heard all of the employment challenges in sociology – and I worked in other fields. But I never closed the door on the subject I liked.
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