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so you want to know whether an
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international relations major or
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international relations degree
00:00:05
is going to be worth it that's why you
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clicked on this video and we are going
00:00:09
to go over
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if it's going to be worth it for you to
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spend four years of your life and
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probably go around 40 000
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in student loan debt in order to get
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this degree so gently tap the like
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button
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sit back and we are gonna go over
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whether it's worth it and the first
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thing we're gonna do
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is define what exactly is international
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relations
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well this is gonna be the study of
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politics economics and law on a global
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level and it has an emphasis
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on the political science side of things
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things like
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various current issues and conflicts
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around the world how various foreign
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countries are going to be governed as
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well as their relationship
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with the united states as well as other
00:00:45
countries now for this major
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every year here in the united states of
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america around 8 000 people are going to
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graduate with this degree and a few
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examples of career paths they might go
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into would be political scientists
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fundraising manager as well as public
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relations specialist
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so first let's briefly go over the
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salary or earning potential of this
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degree and if you look on payscale.com
00:01:07
it shows that international relations
00:01:09
majors will make around 49 000
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a year starting out and 96 000 in mid
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career pay
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you can compare that to a good one and a
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bad one and you'll see that it's
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somewhere in the middle
00:01:19
now we can also look at a few different
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career paths you might go down and one
00:01:22
would be political scientist
00:01:24
and you have to get a master's degree
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for this one but you'd make around 122
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000 a year
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and that's 58 an hour you could also
00:01:32
become a public relation or
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fundraising manager and they make around
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116 000 a year or 55 dollars an hour
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however it is going to require quite a
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bit of experience
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those are two of the higher paying
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options something that's probably a
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little more realistic just because it's
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more common
00:01:47
would be a public relations specialist
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and they make around 61
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000 a year or 29 dollars an hour now
00:01:54
according to the us censor spiro
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social science degrees on average are
00:01:58
going to make around 2.5 million dollars
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over an entire lifetime
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and that's compared to the average of
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2.4 for all different types of degrees
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however that's in the last 40 years so
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nobody knows what will happen in the
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next 40 years
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and another thing you want to keep in
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mind is a lot of social science degree
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graduates end up getting a master's or a
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doctorate
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and so it's not really a fair comparison
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you're sort of comparing apples to
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oranges
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because other degrees like engineers for
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instance only get a bachelor's
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and so you're comparing the pay from a
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master's or a doctorate to a bachelor's
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degree so
00:02:31
it's a little bit difficult to do so
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overall for this one it's not
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amazing but at the same time it's not
00:02:36
bad i'm gonna give it a
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7 out of 10 when it comes to salary now
00:02:40
the next thing we're going to go over is
00:02:42
satisfaction and i like to break this
00:02:44
down into meaning
00:02:45
and job satisfaction so basically
00:02:48
meaning is how much you think your
00:02:49
career
00:02:50
positively impacts the world now for
00:02:52
this degree you can see on pay scale
00:02:54
that the meaning score is 49
00:02:56
and you can compare that to a good one
00:02:58
and a bad one and you'll see that it is
00:03:00
on the lower side
00:03:01
however that is going to vary depending
00:03:02
on what career path you end up going
00:03:04
down so for instance for public
00:03:06
relations manager it's 65
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which again you can compare that to a
00:03:10
good one and a bad one and it's slightly
00:03:11
above
00:03:12
average additionally when you look at
00:03:14
job satisfaction which is basically just
00:03:16
how much you enjoy doing your job
00:03:18
on a day-to-day basis it scores around
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73
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and you can compare that to a good one
00:03:23
and a bad one like before and you'll see
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that that's
00:03:25
also above average so basically what
00:03:27
this is saying is depending on what
00:03:29
career path you're going for if you are
00:03:31
able to actually
00:03:32
secure a job you're probably going to be
00:03:34
relatively happy with it now when it
00:03:36
comes to how much people regret their
00:03:38
college majors
00:03:39
social science degrees in general are
00:03:40
the fourth most regretted type of degree
00:03:43
and the main reasons is because it's too
00:03:45
general and practical hard to find a job
00:03:47
without further studies
00:03:48
and that is somewhat true with this one
00:03:51
but also not true at the same time so
00:03:54
there is a good chance that you won't be
00:03:55
able to find a job with further studies
00:03:57
a lot of the time people have to get a
00:03:58
masters or a doctorate in order to get
00:04:00
into those positions that they're aiming
00:04:02
for however when it comes to being too
00:04:04
general it really depends on what you've
00:04:06
done during college so for instance
00:04:08
let's say you want to work in a specific
00:04:10
country i'm just gonna pick a random one
00:04:12
let's say you want to work in russia for
00:04:14
instance
00:04:14
you would want to tailor everything you
00:04:17
do around that you would want to be
00:04:19
trying to get work experience and doing
00:04:20
internship with people who have
00:04:22
experience working in russia
00:04:23
etc etc etc so this is where the
00:04:26
planning part comes in
00:04:27
very important that you plan ahead with
00:04:29
this degree you don't want to just get
00:04:31
it and then you know
00:04:31
the end of the four years comes and
00:04:33
you're like oh what am i going to do
00:04:34
with my life
00:04:35
you want to know what you're getting
00:04:36
yourself into however it is a little bit
00:04:38
impractical unless you really plan ahead
00:04:41
so this is one of those degrees where
00:04:42
it's kind of high risk high reward
00:04:44
because
00:04:45
if you do plan ahead and you know what
00:04:46
you're getting yourself into this one
00:04:48
can be great because there's a lot of
00:04:50
opportunities that are happening out
00:04:51
there internationally whether we like it
00:04:53
or not business is becoming more and
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more international
00:04:56
and that is going to change the world in
00:04:58
a lot of ways so i would say your
00:05:00
satisfaction is going to be relatively
00:05:02
good if you're the right person
00:05:03
in the right situation that has a really
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good plan but
00:05:07
realistically speaking that's probably
00:05:09
not going to be the case most of the
00:05:10
time
00:05:11
so this one is really tough for me to
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call and it's also extremely subjective
00:05:15
satisfaction in general
00:05:17
is extremely subjective and a lot of
00:05:19
these things are it's really going to
00:05:20
depend on the person
00:05:21
and their passions and all kinds of
00:05:23
other things that are outside of our
00:05:25
control
00:05:25
however with that being said i'm going
00:05:27
to give this one a score of 7 out of 10
00:05:29
when it comes to satisfaction next we're
00:05:31
going to be talking about demand aka how
00:05:33
much
00:05:33
need there is for the skills you're
00:05:35
going to learn with this degree out
00:05:36
there on the job market
00:05:38
so for political scientists for instance
00:05:40
there's only seven thousand jobs
00:05:41
available but it is growing at six
00:05:43
percent which is faster than average
00:05:45
meaning over the next 10 years there's
00:05:46
going to be 400 new jobs that are
00:05:48
created for a public relations or
00:05:50
fundraising manager there's around 88
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000 jobs and it's growing at nine
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percent which is much faster than
00:05:55
average
00:05:55
and for a public relations specialist
00:05:57
this is a very common one there's around
00:05:59
274 000 jobs available and it's growing
00:06:02
at seven percent which is faster than
00:06:04
average
00:06:04
so it does look like some of the career
00:06:06
paths you might end up going down have a
00:06:07
decent amount of demand but what about
00:06:09
the degree
00:06:10
itself well one thing i like to do is
00:06:12
type in the degree name onto monster.com
00:06:14
and see how many job listings have that
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name
00:06:17
in their job description so for instance
00:06:19
with international relations degree
00:06:20
there's 279 job listings and you can
00:06:24
compare that to a really good one like
00:06:25
computer science with 141 000
00:06:27
or a bad one like anthropology and
00:06:29
you'll see that it's actually
00:06:31
lower than the one that i usually use to
00:06:33
set the low bar so that is
00:06:35
not generally a very good sign that
00:06:37
means that not a lot of business owners
00:06:38
and hiring managers are actively looking
00:06:41
for someone who has this degree
00:06:42
now one thing i like to look at is
00:06:44
surveys that are sent to
00:06:45
businesses throughout the country asking
00:06:47
them what college degree types they're
00:06:49
looking for what majors they're looking
00:06:51
to hire for their business
00:06:53
and whenever you send these surveys out
00:06:54
you're going to see that companies are
00:06:55
going to be looking for a lot of people
00:06:57
who have business degrees engineering
00:06:59
degrees
00:06:59
math science sometimes technology
00:07:02
degrees are up there as well
00:07:03
and then depending on you know what
00:07:05
industry it's in sometimes health
00:07:06
degrees are good
00:07:07
social science degrees tend to be in the
00:07:09
middle or the bottom depending on what
00:07:11
industry it is and if you look at the
00:07:12
specific degrees that these companies
00:07:14
are looking for you'll see
00:07:16
that economics is number one and then
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political science or international
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relations is number two so 95
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of companies that are looking for social
00:07:23
science degree graduates are looking for
00:07:25
economics
00:07:26
but only 35 of them are looking for
00:07:29
people who graduate
00:07:30
with a political science or
00:07:31
international relations degree but at
00:07:33
the same time it is the second most on
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the list
00:07:35
so kind of good news and kind of bad
00:07:37
news there so it's in the group of
00:07:38
degrees social science degrees that not
00:07:40
a lot of companies are looking for
00:07:42
but at the same time it is second on
00:07:44
that list of social science majors so
00:07:46
overall not very impressive when it
00:07:48
comes to demand and this is one of those
00:07:50
degrees where you really have to plan
00:07:51
things out because you're going to be
00:07:53
going down specific career paths
00:07:55
you're probably going to have to plan
00:07:56
things out way into the future
00:07:58
because you might even be working in a
00:08:00
specific country when it comes to demand
00:08:02
i'm going to have to give this one a 6
00:08:04
out of 10.
00:08:05
next we're going to be talking about x
00:08:07
factors and this is basically anything
00:08:08
that i didn't mention before but i still
00:08:10
think is pretty important so we're going
00:08:12
to be talking about things like
00:08:13
flexibility how easily automated or
00:08:15
outsourced it would be
00:08:16
things that are going to happen in the
00:08:18
future trends that i kind of predict
00:08:20
will
00:08:20
maybe happen in the future that could
00:08:22
potentially influence this so when it
00:08:24
comes to social science degrees in
00:08:25
general they make around 2.5 million
00:08:27
dollars over a lifetime now keep in mind
00:08:29
that's going to vary greatly depending
00:08:31
on the degree you get yourself into
00:08:33
as well as a bunch of other different
00:08:34
factors so for instance a lot of the
00:08:36
people who get social science degrees
00:08:38
end up going back to school getting a
00:08:40
master's or a doctorate which of course
00:08:42
they're going to make a lot more money
00:08:43
with that because of the fact that they
00:08:44
got higher education
00:08:46
so in many ways it's kind of like
00:08:48
comparing apples to oranges because
00:08:50
a lot of these people who get social
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science degrees in fact quite a few of
00:08:53
them there's some of them where over 50
00:08:55
percent of the people who get the
00:08:56
degrees end up going back to grad school
00:08:58
and that's not really fair to compare
00:09:00
someone who has a phd or a masters
00:09:02
as someone who maybe got an engineering
00:09:04
degree and only had to get a bachelor's
00:09:06
another thing to keep in mind is this is
00:09:08
u.s census data and you know a person's
00:09:10
lifetime or at least their work life
00:09:11
would be about 40 years or so
00:09:13
and so this is data from the last 40
00:09:15
years and that doesn't necessarily mean
00:09:17
that 40 years from now when you're ready
00:09:18
to retire
00:09:20
it's going to be the same way now one
00:09:21
thing that's interesting to look into
00:09:23
here is the different
00:09:24
types of careers people go into and how
00:09:26
much money they make in each of those
00:09:27
career tracks
00:09:28
so for instance people who get social
00:09:30
science degrees and then end up working
00:09:31
in computer or
00:09:32
math i assume that's like technology
00:09:34
industry probably coding for instance
00:09:36
will make 3.2 million over a lifetime
00:09:38
and people who end up working in
00:09:40
management will make around 3.4 million
00:09:42
however it would be much easier to get
00:09:44
into a technology related career path if
00:09:46
you got an engineering degree
00:09:48
tech degree or a mathematics degree than
00:09:50
getting a social science degree much
00:09:52
more likely that you might end up
00:09:53
working in office support where you make
00:09:55
around 1.8 million over a lifetime which
00:09:57
is much lower than the average
00:09:59
so this isn't one of those degrees like
00:10:01
engineering for instance where it pretty
00:10:02
much doesn't matter what career path you
00:10:04
end up going down
00:10:05
you're probably going to make pretty
00:10:06
good money so you definitely want to
00:10:07
keep that in mind and that's why it's so
00:10:10
important especially if you decide to
00:10:12
get a social science degree
00:10:13
that you plan ahead now one thing i like
00:10:15
to do is look up the zip recruiter
00:10:17
skills index and unfortunately
00:10:19
international relations isn't on there
00:10:21
it seems like it's just a little bit too
00:10:23
general to be on there however something
00:10:25
very similar would be public relations
00:10:27
and that is a 46 out of 100 on the
00:10:30
skills index now you can compare that to
00:10:32
a good one and a bad one
00:10:33
and you'll see that it's kind of average
00:10:36
maybe like
00:10:37
maybe on the lower side i guess now
00:10:39
let's say you became a political
00:10:40
scientist
00:10:41
chances are it's probably not going to
00:10:43
be automated so that's one of the great
00:10:45
things about liberal
00:10:46
arts and social science degrees is a lot
00:10:48
of the time they are going to teach you
00:10:49
skills that aren't going to be automated
00:10:51
because of the fact that it's all about
00:10:53
critical thinking
00:10:54
you know writing things reading things
00:10:55
making arguments communicating with
00:10:57
other people and that sort of thing so
00:10:59
in that way these degrees might not
00:11:00
teach you skills that lead to you
00:11:02
directly making money aka getting a job
00:11:05
however indirectly these skills will
00:11:07
likely lead to you having a more
00:11:08
successful life not only financially
00:11:11
but in other areas as well now this
00:11:12
degree is very closely related to
00:11:14
political science and interestingly
00:11:16
enough
00:11:17
poli sci was number 10 on the list of
00:11:20
the top 10 degrees that create the most
00:11:21
millionaires
00:11:22
however the big thing here that i am
00:11:24
considering that's extremely important
00:11:26
is
00:11:27
flexibility and with this degree there's
00:11:29
not that much room for error so even if
00:11:32
you have a great plan going in
00:11:34
and you've really done your research
00:11:35
you've talked to people who are in the
00:11:36
career path that you're thinking about
00:11:38
going down
00:11:39
and you've made sure that this is a
00:11:40
degree that they recommend that you get
00:11:42
and you know the exact steps it's going
00:11:44
to take in order for you to get to your
00:11:45
goal
00:11:46
even if you do all that life sometimes
00:11:48
is going to throw curve balls at you
00:11:50
so a lot of the time if anything goes
00:11:52
wrong with your plan
00:11:53
unfortunately this isn't one of those
00:11:55
degrees that's extremely flexible and
00:11:57
you're going to be able to very easily
00:11:59
go into a different career path so for
00:12:00
that reason i do have to give this one a
00:12:02
score of 5 out of 10
00:12:04
when it comes to x factors so when you
00:12:07
add all four up and divided by 4 the
00:12:09
final score is going to be
00:12:11
6.25 out of 10. so with this degree it's
00:12:14
honestly
00:12:15
kind of like a dark horse sort of degree
00:12:17
10 or 15 years from now it could be
00:12:19
really good
00:12:20
or it could be really bad and there's
00:12:22
just a lot of things that we can't
00:12:23
predict there's a lot of things
00:12:25
outside of our control and there's just
00:12:27
no way for us to tell whether this is
00:12:29
going to be a good degree or a bad one
00:12:31
it also depends on the person so it's
00:12:33
going to depend a lot on
00:12:34
you know your personal background what
00:12:36
your strengths are what your weaknesses
00:12:38
are what your passions are
00:12:40
and all kinds of things like that if you
00:12:42
do decide to go for this degree
00:12:44
make sure you really do your research
00:12:46
and know exactly what you're getting
00:12:48
yourself
00:12:48
into i would say it would be a good idea
00:12:50
if you decide to
00:12:52
major in this degree to double major in
00:12:54
something else that would be a little
00:12:55
bit more practical that aligns with your
00:12:57
plans
00:12:58
or maybe consider not majoring in it at
00:13:00
all just minor in it take extra classes
00:13:02
on the side or study it on your own
00:13:04
and like i mentioned before planning
00:13:06
ahead is going to be very
00:13:08
important so you want to figure out what
00:13:09
country you're going to be working in
00:13:11
probably like a sub-region what
00:13:12
sub-region
00:13:13
of the country do you want to eventually
00:13:15
live because chances are a lot of the
00:13:17
jobs you're going to be going for
00:13:18
are going to be international which for
00:13:20
the right person that's going to be
00:13:21
awesome
00:13:22
but you're going to want to know the
00:13:24
language you're going to want to know
00:13:25
the customs
00:13:26
you know everything about that country
00:13:28
and even about the region of the country
00:13:30
you're going to want to know extremely
00:13:31
well and a great thing here is to make
00:13:33
sure that you have some really
00:13:34
invaluable skills
00:13:36
outside of your knowledge about that
00:13:38
culture or country so for instance if
00:13:40
you're somebody who knows a lot about
00:13:41
you know russian culture
00:13:43
and you also have skills in accounting
00:13:45
or finance
00:13:46
that could be extremely valuable to a
00:13:48
business who has branches in both
00:13:50
countries
00:13:51
anyways i've got a huge backlog of
00:13:53
suggestions from you guys for different
00:13:55
videos that you want me to do
00:13:57
but if you want to kind of skip the line
00:13:58
a little bit and you don't want to wait
00:14:00
for me to make the video because it
00:14:01
takes a long time to make these videos
00:14:03
and it's a lot of work
00:14:04
then check out my college degree ranker
00:14:06
down in the description below in my
00:14:07
patreon
00:14:08
in my opinion this is going to be the
00:14:10
best resource that is available on the
00:14:12
internet
00:14:13
and i have done hundreds and hundreds of
00:14:15
hours of research in order to make it
00:14:17
and pretty soon i'm gonna be updating it
00:14:18
and making it even better if you haven't
00:14:20
done it already go ahead and gently tap
00:14:22
the like button in order to defeat the
00:14:23
evil youtube algorithm
00:14:25
hit that subscribe button ring the
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notification bell comment down below any
00:14:28
thoughts comments criticisms etc that
00:14:30
you have on the video
00:14:32
and share the video that actually helps
00:14:34
quite a bit and then
00:14:35
don't leave don't leave come on check
00:14:37
out my other videos right here i made
00:14:38
them
00:14:39
just for you
00:14:45
you
