Introduction
Not all university degrees are made equal and they are a dime a dozen. No one goes to earn a college degree without knowing what return on investment he or she will get at the end. This return on investment may be intrinsic or extrinsic in nature. Some do it for passion or ego, others do it for financial reward, and still, some do it for social prestige.
As an online marketer, if I were to make the choice of a major in college all over again I would choose the below 7 majors for the training it would give me to do my job better. That is if the major exists at the university in my country or elsewhere that I can also afford.
These desirable college majors or degrees for online marketing success would be:
Psychology
Psychology helps one to know how the human mind works. One learns about what and how individuals think, feel, and behave in diverse life situations and how they react. It deals with individual mind issues and tries to resolve them with counselling therapy without medications.
Communication Studies
This is a fun major that takes input from other majors such as education, psychology, sociology, politics, and many others. It is a multidisciplinary major for the “Jack-of-all-trades” kind of people who want to have flexible choices in their future careers. Communication studies is one of the most misunderstood and underrated majors.
Marketing
This major is quite popular in the world and speaks for itself. Marketing helps people to learn how to exchange value between buyer and seller. This major also blends other majors into itself such as economics and psychology. It is also fun and practical-oriented in its approaches to issues.
Economics
This is one of the oldest majors that has enjoyed a lot of patronage from students. Some people swear by it that with economics you can almost do anything under the sun, even to become president or lawyer or an entrepreneur. That may be true to a large extent because we see economics graduates in almost every field.
Sociology
What to understand how people behave in groups? Whether political, national, family, or transgender groups? Whether rich or poor? Whether educated or illiterate? This is the major for you. It is very interesting and eye-opening to know how various social segments are divided into ideological lines and how these divisions are also intertwined at various interactive points.
Public relations
How to have a mutually beneficial relationship with the public(s) who make or break your business is the work of this major. Public relations absorbs the energy of other majors such as education, politics, psychology, and sociology just to name a few. Public relations may or may not be a specialization under Communication Studies in some universities.
Journalism
Journalism is one of the most common, practical, and useful majors for communicators. Just like Public relations, Journalism may or may not be a specialisation under Communication Studies in some universities. If you want to learn to analyse effectively, read a lot, and write a lot, then this major is for you.
Conclusion
The above-mentioned majors helps you to read and analyse many materials to bring out the “bones” in them. You also learn to write well and speak in many situations. Research skills, which are a component for almost all majors in universities without which you cannot graduate, are also acquired in these majors. These advantages make any of the above majors very useful for aspiring online marketers to pursue.
Relax, if you do not see your major in this list. This is not an exhaustive list of the best majors for online marketing careers. Almost all majors can make you a good online marketing expert. Bear in mind that even if you don’t have a college major, you can still become good at online marketing or anything you choose to be. A degree or talent will not take the place of practice and passion.
However, a general social science major will just put you in a nice spot to become good in online marketing careers, but you have to put in the effort to excel in whatever you want to do in life.