443776

MCQ

Articles

What Are You Going

to Do With That
Major?Colloquial
Speech and the
Meanings of Work and
Education

Management Communication Quarterly

26(3) 423452
The Author(s) 2012
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0893318912443776
http://mcq.sagepub.com

Daniel J. Lair1 and Stacey M. B. Wieland2

Abstract
This article explores the function of the ubiquitous question, What are
you going to do with that major?, in advancing particular meanings of work,
higher education, and the workhigher education relationship. Analyzing
110 student descriptions of encounters with the question suggests that
the colloquialism powerfully shapes student interpretations of work and
education, cementing vocational understandings of higher education and
perpetuating a linear view of careers. Such interpretations pressure students
to make early commitments to particular identities and induce significant
anxiety, particularly in those whose majors are not seen as preparing them
for preferred forms of work.
Keywords
colloquialisms, higher education, meaning of work, work

University of MichiganFlint, Flint, MI, USA

Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA

Corresponding Author:
Daniel J. Lair, Department of Communication and Visual Art, University of Michigan-Flint, 303 E
Kearsley St., Flint, MI 48501, USA
Email: danlair@umflint.edu

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Management Communication Quarterly 26(3)

Historically, organizational communication has focused on communication

at work rather than communication about work (Cheney, Zorn, Planalp, &
Lair, 2008). For instance, as Zorn and Townsley (2008) observe, the term
work is not even indexed in the now decade-old New Handbook of Organizational Communication (Jablin & Putnam, 2001). While organizational
communication has always concerned itself with how communication
informsand even performswork and work environments, only within
the past few years has the discipline begun to devote attention to the role
communication plays in shaping the meaning of work as a social institution
as organizational communication scholars take up Ashcrafts (2007) call to
turn our attention back to work.
Largely outside of the discipline, a parallel set of questions has emerged
about education in general and higher education in particular. Increasingly,
higher education has been subjected to the imperatives of the market, transforming education into a commodity to be consumed (McMillan & Cheney,
1996) and educators into an increasingly contingent and precarious workforce
(Ross, 2009). As Newfield (2008) observes, such changes are not exclusively
economic, but rather a part of a broader cultural and political discussion about
the meaning and purpose of higher education as an institution. Higher educations role as a central front in the culture wars (e.g., Horowitz, 2007) is
inextricably linked with its marketization, transforming the institution from
one cultivating citizen-subjects into one producing worker-consumers.
Because one result of this contest is the increasing vocationalization of
higher education (Watkins, 2008), contemporary education debates are tied to
the imperative to understand the meaning of work. Surprisingly, however, education as a site where the meaning of work is contested has remained largely
absent from the developing agenda for organizational communication scholars.
For example, educational institutions are notably absent from Cheney et al.s
(2008) list of discursive sites central to the growing interest in the meaning of
work. In short, the workeducation intersection, we observe, has been remarkably absent from the growing body of literature exploring the meaning of work
from a communicative perspective.
This article places the workeducation intersection on the organizational
communication agenda by exploring how these domains are connected in
everyday, colloquial speech. As Zorn and Townsley (2008) observe, such
speech exerts a powerful influence on the meanings attributed to work (see also
Cheney, Lair, Ritz, & Kendall, 2010; Clair, 1996). Inspired particularly by
Clairs analysis of student experiences with the commonplace, a real job, we
explore how the meaning of work is shaped in and around higher educational
contexts by examining student encounters with the frequently asked colloquial
question, What are you going to do with that major?

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425

The Contemporary
WorkHigher Education Nexus
In turning to higher education as an institutional context in which the meaning
of work is actively contested, we take up Ashcrafts (2007) call for scholarship that simultaneously dislocates the organization as a privileged site of
analysis and reworks organization studies by privileging work itself as a
central construct. Such a move, we argue, is particularly timely as the meaning of the workeducation intersection is currently an active site of cultural
and political contest, driven by the vocational pressures associated with a
decades-long trend in the commercialization (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2009)
and corporatization (Tuchman, 2009) of higher education institutions. As Bok
(2003) points out, students are turning to universities in increasingly vocational terms, dramatically altering social understandings of the meaning and
purpose of higher education (Cox, 2009).
The workeducation intersection is particularly salient in the wake of the
ongoing global economic crisis, which has dramatically changed prospects for
the future working lives of young people. Worldwide youth unemployment
rose to a record high in 2010 (Allen, 2010), leading ILO Director-General
Juan Samovia to flag youth unemployment as a world priority (World
Jobless, 2011, para. 10). Predictably, young workers with only a high school
education (or less) were the hardest hit, but even recent college graduates
received a disproportionate share of the impact, peaking at an unemployment
rate (9.7%) nearly double that of college graduates over the age of 25 (4.5%;
Shierholz & Edwards, 2011).
Even as unemployment rates for recent graduates begin to drop (down
from 8.6% in November 2010 to 6.2% in November 2011; National
Association of Colleges and Employers, 2011), the effects on young workers are pervasive and long term, depressing earning power for decades
(Kahn, 2010). As Atlantic Monthly reporter Don Peck (2010) noted, When
you add up all the earnings losses over the years . . . its as if the lucky
graduates had been given a gift of about $100,000, adjusted for inflation,
immediately upon graduationor, alternatively, as if the unlucky ones had
been saddled with a debt of the same size (para. 24). That metaphorical
debt does not account for the actual debt that college students have incurred
in an era of rising tuition costs: Average student loan debt is now US$25,000,
and the total student loan debt held by U.S. students now exceeds 1 trillion
dollars (Lewin, 2011). Recent graduates are slower to get a start on independent lives, with a 25% increase in the number of young adults moving
back in with their parents over the past 3 years (Thompson, 2011). So even
as the economic conditions for recent graduates begin to show signs of

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Management Communication Quarterly 26(3)

improvement, evidence that inexorable damage has already been done has
led many commentatorsperhaps most notably in Business Week (Coy,
2009)to fear a lost generation of workers whose economic lives will be
indelibly changed at great individual and social cost.
In response, questions have arisen regarding the value and purpose of
higher education in a manner that brings together longer-standing concerns
over the meanings of work and education. Such questions range from the
worth of a college education as an individual investment to whether or
not higher education and the current employment market are complementary. At the personal level, for instance, a 2011 Pew survey found that 57%
of Americans say that a college education no longer offers a good return on
value (Taylor et al., 2011). Mishel (2011) argues that a narrative of a growing mismatch between job seeker qualifications and employer needs has
become an increasingly popularbut economically questionableexplanation
for persistent unemployment even after the recession officially ended. In
other words, educationhigher education in particularhas emerged as a
culprit in a growing narrative that casts persistent unemployment, particularly among younger workers, as structural rather than cyclical. Certainly,
the relationship between higher education and work has become an increasingly important site of cultural contestation.
This contest also points to a broader range of concerns, from the degree
to which it links the university to trends in the contemporary division of
labor (Bousquet, 2008) to the occlusion of longer-standing university goals
such as the production of a democratic citizenry (Newfield, 2008), making
higher education an important institutional context in which the meaning of
work is actively negotiated. And while education has remained largely
absent from organizational communication scholarship on the meaning of
work, the discipline has long noted the theoretical basis for such exploration.
Jablin (1985) laid the groundwork by naming vocational anticipatory socialization as a part of the organizational socialization process, and others have
sought to detail the space and time in which such processes were seen as
occurring (Smith & Turner, 1995). Most notably, Clair (1996) called for a
more expansive understanding of the communicative processes shaping
work socialization.
Where organizational communication research has sought to explore
communication about work in microsystems (Jablin, 1985) beyond work
organizations, the focus has been primarily on how communication in the
family (e.g., Medved, Brogan, McClanahan, Morris, & Shepherd, 2006) and the
media (e.g., Hylm, 2006) shapes views of work for children and adolescents. Educational settings in general, and higher education in particular,

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427

have been largely overlooked. While some recent research has begun to
explore work socialization in education related to careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM; see, Kisselburg, Berkelaar, &
Buzzanell, 2009; Myers, Jahn, Gaillard, & Stoltzfus, 2011), communication
about the relationship between work and education in broader contexts has
received little attention.
Following Ashcraft and Allens (2009) call for a reflexive move on the part
of academics to consider our own organizational settings as significant cultural sites that organize common notions and configurations of work (p. 11),
we explore student understandings of the relationship between work and higher
education by considering how the commonplace question, What are you
going to do with that major?, operates in and around higher education institutions, shaping and organizing student understandings of the meaning of education and its relationship to their future work lives. In our analysis, we focus on
how students experience and make sense of their encounters with the question
as well as the meanings of work, higher education, and the workhigher education relationship that are (re)produced through such conversations.

Colloquial Expressions and

the Meaning of Work
Organizational communication scholars recent interest in the meaning of
work stems from a desire to make sense of work as an institution in transformation, building upon several strands of research that have been developed over the past decades (Cheney et al., 2008). These lines of research
include explorations of worklife balance (Duckworth & Buzzanell, 2009),
contingent forms of organizing labor (Gossett, 2006), the communicative
constitution of professional (Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007) and occupational
identities (Ashcraft, 2007; Meisenbach, 2008), identity and organizations
more broadly (Wieland, 2010), gender and difference (Ashcraft, 2007), and
representations of work in popular culture (Dempsey & Sanders, 2010; Lair,
2011). The meaning of work focus that results is thus a new domain of
inquiry grounded in an already substantial body of scholarship.
This domain draws scholars attention to communication not as it occurs
in or by particular organizations, but rather as it constructs work across and
beyond organizational contexts. Based on the idea that what counts as good
work is socially constructed, scholars have found that work has been interpreted as meaningful based on a variety of material and nonmaterial benefits,
including monetary rewards, satisfaction, recognition, stimulation, structure,
and belonging (Cheney et al., 2008). Perhaps most important in the modern

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Management Communication Quarterly 26(3)

age, work provides individuals with a sense of self and has become a primary anchor on which identity is built (Wieland, Bauer, & Deetz, 2009) as
occupational groups and work organizations become primary targets of
identification. Because some organizations and occupations are perceived as
more prestigious than others, individuals working in stigmatized jobs communicatively construct positive self-identities (Tracy & Scott, 2006). As
Cheney et al. write, Communication studies are well situated to theorize
not only meaning construction but the enactment and co-production of
meaningful work (p. 164). This emerging domain of organizational communication inquiry promises to contribute to increased awareness and
understanding of why and how we work and to actions that would enhance
the quality of our work experiences and our lives in general (p. 172).
Our analysis here focuses on how everyday colloquial speech shapes
individual understandings of work. While Cheney et al. (2008) identified
everyday expressions as an important site through which the meaning of
work is negotiated, few studies have focused on such speech. Examples
include its not personal, its business and just a job (Cheney et al.,
2010), but to date the most prominent examination of a work-related colloquialism has been Clairs (1996) analysis of a real job. As Clair
argues, this colloquialism privileges certain qualities of work, particularly that taking place in legitimate organizations, with regular hours,
and appropriate for the workers socioeconomic position. In short, the
colloquialism crystallizes a set of generally accepted assumptions about
appropriate work.
According to Clair (1996), such expressions powerfully present takenfor-granted knowledge from a position of anonymous ubiquitywith no
direct source, such wisdom is tough to question. As Billig and Macmillan
(2005) observe, the transparency of everyday speech obscures its role in
framing to frame the world in a subtle, but ideologically powerful, fashion.
Accordingly, as Cheney et al. (2008) observe, these expressions serve dual
purposesas a cultural repository in which deeply held but often implicit
values, beliefs, and attitudes are sedimented and as topoi drawn upon to
persuade. Recognizing the capacity of such expressions to contain particular
meanings of work and to reinforce those meanings as they are deployed in
the everyday, our investigation of the role played by the question, What are
you going to do with that major?, is guided by two central research
questions:
Research Question 1: How does the colloquial question, What are you
going to do with that major?, function in students everyday conversation?

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429

Research Question 2: What do student responses to the question reveal

about dominant and alternative meanings of the workeducation
relationship?
In exploring these research questions, we argue that the question, What are
you going to do with that major?, is positioned as a productive site through
which to explore the ways in which the meanings of work and education are
shaped by everyday speech.

Method
To explore these questions, we solicited student narratives of encounters with
the colloquial question by offering extra credit to students enrolled in public
speaking at midsized private university in the Western United States.
Students were asked to respond to the following prompt:
Describe a time when you used or encountered the question, What
are you going to do with that major? You may write about a time
when someone asked you this question, when you asked someone
else this question, when you overheard a conversation about this
question, or any other circumstances in which you encountered the
question. Please describe your encounter in as much detail as you can
remember. Who was involved in asking/answering the question?
Why was the question asked? How did the participantsincluding
youfeel about the question? Your essay should be a minimum of
three paragraphs.
Following this prompt, students were asked to provide basic demographic
information, including major, year in school, gender, and socioeconomic
background. In total, 132 students completed some part of the survey instrument. Twenty two students did not provide narratives of an encounter with
the question, yielding a corpus of 110 narratives. The sample roughly approximated the institutions distribution of students based on major, age, sex, and
race and ethnicity (see Table 1).
Student responses were coded in two stages. In the first stage, we conducted a content analysis of the narratives in order to provide an overview
of the data. Each author independently read the narratives, paying particular attention to the characteristics of the narratives to inductively generate a
coding scheme describing the conversational role of the colloquial question.
This stage enabled comparison across the narratives, which varied widely in

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Management Communication Quarterly 26(3)

Table 1. Participant Characteristics

Characteristics
Sex
Female
Male
Academic yeara
Freshman
Sophomore
Junior
Senior
Ethnicity
Asian
Caucasian
Hispanic
Other
Degree program
Arts and humanities
Business
International studies
Math, computer sciences, and
natural sciences
Social sciences
Undeclared

Percentage of participants
51.8
48.2
59.1
30.9
2.7
7.3
10.0
79.1
6.4
4.5
8.18
50.91
10.00
10.00
14.55
6.36

a
Students primarily fell in the 18- to 22-year-old age range, with two respondents falling
outside of that age range; this distribution conforms to the traditionally aged student body at
the university.

the level of specificity and narrative style. The coding scheme that emerged
from this process was organized around three distinct questions:
1. What is the nature of the narrative? Despite the request for a specific
encounter with the question, many students described their experiences with the question more generally. Accordingly, we coded each
narrative in terms of whether it provided a concrete description of an
encounter with the question or an abstract discussion.
2. Who asked the question? Respondents also indicated a wide range
of individuals who asked the question, often noting this variability
within their narratives. Accordingly, each narrative was coded by the
student-identified central party asking the question (see Table 2).

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Lair and Wieland

Table 2. Who Asked the Question in the Encounter?
Type of individuals who
asked the question

Number

Percentage

7
20
4

6.36
18.18
3.64

18

16.36

22
0
14
8
6
5

20.00
0
12.73
7.27
5.45
4.55

5.45

Adult friend
Family member
High school academic
authority
Individuals from multiple
categories
Not specified
Other
Peer
Self
Stranger
University academic
authority
Work contact

Table 3. Students Feelings About the Question

Feelings

Number

Percentage

Positive
Neutral
Negative

18
45
45

18.18
40.91
40.91

3. How did the student feel about the question? Our initial reading indicated a range of emotional responses, leading us to code
each narrative as indicating whether the student indicated a positive, negative, or neutral emotional response (see Table 3).
After developing this scheme, we independently coded each of the 110
narratives. Disagreements in coding were then addressed collaboratively.
Next, we randomly selected 25 narratives (23% of the corpus) to be coded
by two trained, independent coders to assess the reliability of the coding
scheme. A Cohens kappa test indicated substantial agreement, both between

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the independent coders (.82, p < .005) and between each coder and the
researchers (.73, p < .005; .74, p < .005), enabling us to characterize the
general nature of the narratives reliably.
We then engaged in a second stage of coding, conducting a thematic
analysis in order to develop more nuanced understandings of the meanings of work and education in students responses. This stage enabled us
to develop the inductive analysis that is the focus of this article. Each
author individually engaged in several iterative readings of the corpus
while conducting open coding to begin to identify, elaborate, and refine
analytic insights (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995) from the narratives.
We then discussed the results of this open coding, synthesizing the data
into three meaningful themes: the conversational functions of the question, assumptions about what constituted an acceptable response, and student acceptance/rejection of the fundamental premises of the question.
With these themes established, we returned to the data, individually and
then collaboratively, for another set of readings where we engaged in
focused coding in order to [connect] data that initially may not have
appeared to go together and . . . [delineate] subthemes and subtopics that
distinguish differences and variations within the broader topic (Emerson
et al., 1995, p. 160).

Results
In this section, we discuss our analysis of the corpus of student narratives in
light of our central research questions by first explaining the conversational
functions of the colloquial question and then exploring how work, education, and their relationship are inflected with dominant and alternative
meanings, depending on how students seek either to answer appropriately
or resist the question, respectively. Before doing so, however, we highlight
two important characteristics of the corpus informing our analysis: widespread recognition by students of both the ubiquitous and the emotionally
charged nature of the colloquial question.
The question is clearly experienced as ubiquitous. All students were
familiar with the question, and only one student reported not having asked
or been asked, relating instead how her frienda communication major
is frequently challenged by the question. In addition, students referred to a
wide variety of relationships between the persons asking and answering the
question (see Table 2). Although the most commonly identified questioners
were family members (18%) and peers (12%), in 17% of the narratives the
student referred to the question being asked by multiple individuals across

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433

categories despite instructions to narrate one particular encounter with the

question. Similarly, 40% of the students discussed their experience with the
question in more abstract terms rather than describing a particular encounter. One student, a freshman business major, highlighted the ubiquitous
nature of the question as he resisted our request for a specific narrative: To
me, the importance and relevance of this question has not been based on
any individual occasion of it being asked, but in the repetition and constancy with which it is asked. In short, the colloquial question occupies a
pervasive presence in conversations about higher education.
Second, the narratives demonstrate the emotionally charged nature of
the question as well. Many respondents (41%) indicated a negative emotional response to the question, demonstrating the significant anxiety surrounding it. As one student explained, I just dont know at this point, so
the question makes me very uncomfortable! I like to think Im a driven
person with goals and drive, but it makes me feel unfocused and unorganized. Students frequently described their uncertainty as making them
scared; for example, one student reported having a mini heart attack
every time she is asked. Only 18% indicated positive responses to the question, typified by the math major who wrote, I personally like being asked
this question because it lets me tell people what I am going to do and I am
proud of that. The remaining students (41%) offered no direct indication
of an emotional response. Significantly, however, many of these students
framed their positive or neutral reactions to the question as not negative
rather than positive or neutral in their own right. Several students, for
instance, noted that the question doesnt really bother them, while another
noted, I was not offended when asked this question. Such responses indicate that students interpreted our prompt to reflect about how they feel
about the question as anticipating a negative response, suggesting that students readily recognized the highly charged nature of the question. These
two broad characteristicsthe ubiquitous and emotionally charged nature
of the questionserve as an important backdrop against which to understand the following discussion of the questions conversational functions,
as well as how student attempts either to answer appropriately or resist the
question highlight its implicit meanings about work and education.

Three Functions of the Question

Our first research question asked how the colloquial question, What are
you going to do with that major?, functions in everyday conversation.
Student descriptions demonstrate three main functions of the question. First,

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Management Communication Quarterly 26(3)

the question fills out everyday conversation as a form of small talk. Second,
the question serves as an exploration device for students seeking knowledge
about themselves and others. Finally, the question expresses judgment of
choices made about the relationship between work and education. These
functions are distinct but related, and often invocations of the colloquial
question perform the three functions simultaneously.
Conversation. Students reported encountering the colloquial question in a
variety of conversational settings, from formal conversations with academic
professionals in secondary and higher education institutions to informal
conversations at family events, college parties, and workplaces. One student reported being asked by her grandparents while sitting on their patio.
Another described how he and a female classmate used the question to flirt
at a party. Others reported the colloquialism in social media conversations
with friends or being asked at their workplaces by clients who were strangers.
In short, students encountered the question in a wide range of contexts
where the topic of conversation turned to what course of study they were
pursuing.
A significant number of studentsapproximately one fifthdescribed
the question as being used to break the ice or make small talk, in the sense
that Coupland (2003) identified as being understoodoften pejoratively
in academic and popular circles alike as a formulaic and superficial form of
talk (p. 1). As Coupland (2003) notes, however, such small talk should not
be dismissed as inconsequential banter because it performs important social
functions like relationship building and filling conversational gaps. In other
words, as Coupland (2000) observes, small talk plays an important role in
organizing conversations around multiple interactional goals that go well
beyond . . . the transmission and reception of factual information (p. 8).
Student narratives indicate that they view the question as taken-for-granted
conversational commonplace. One student described the colloquialism as a
common part of college small-talk, especially in the first few weeks of
school or just meeting someone. You ask them their name, where theyre
from, what theyre studying, and then of coursewhat are you going to do
with that major? Another described it as generally one of the first questions people ask you, when first meeting them. Underneath such descriptions is an assumption that the question is a natural, even inevitable, part of
conversations about higher education. One student described the question
as perfectly normal, perhaps interpreting our request for narratives as
somehow marking it as a questionable practice. Another student captured
the seemingly inevitable conversational logic of the question: I guess they
asked because thats usually what people ask after Whats your major?

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435

Each of these instances highlights the largely phatic role of the colloquialism as a conversational device. Students also noted the relationship between
the conversational function and the exploration and judgment functions
described as follows.
Exploration. The question enabled exploration through the students seeking knowledge of themselves and others. First, some students said that the
question provided them with an opportunity for broader self-reflection. A
freshman majoring in finance said that it gave him an opportunity to assess
my life; another student described it as helpful for thinking about your
future. Several responses in this category referred to college professors
asking the question, causing the student to consider seriously the question
for the first time. While some reported that the question encouraged such
general self-assessments, most students describing the self-exploration
function of the question focused on how it helped them to explore specific
career options. Some saw the question as helping them figure out their own
answer to the question by exploring other students plans to use their majors.
A sophomore with a general business major wrote, I ask people all the time
what they plan on doing with their major, mostly because I am searching for
ideas on what to do with mine. A freshman double-majoring in political
science and international studies described a helpful encounter at her workplace in which a customer asked her what she wanted to do with her major.
After she answered that she wanted to be an ambassador, the customer
encouraged her to expand her options: The reason why this is so memorable
to me is because he was trying to explain to me what this major could lead
me to like law school. Now I am thinking about law school. A freshman
majoring in real estate and construction management expressed his surprise
at being asked the question on his first day of college because he had always
assumed that the answer was self-explanatory. The student discussed how
being asked opened his eyes to a variety of options for using his major.
The second way the question enables exploration is by helping students
get to know others. One student explained:
These discussions happened mostly during the first couple of weeks
here as people were getting to know each other and get a better sense
of who people were. . . . In a sense, a major is the focus of a persons
life and dictates who they are and what path they will follow in the
future. (freshman, business administration)
Many students indicated that the question was helpful in trying to understand
and connect with others, grounded in the assumption that major and career plans

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Management Communication Quarterly 26(3)

are central to identity. As one student put it, A major leads to a profession and
certain professions speak of what a person is about and what their life could look
like in the future. Another described it as like putting labels on people. Here,
the presumption was that major choice and future profession projects a sense of
ones identity. Thus, the colloquialism constructs ones future work and ones
identity as closely tied. Student responses indicate that their encounters with this
question caused them to reflect uponand in many cases challengedtheir
future plans and their sense of self. In this way, the question and responses participate in the process of identity construction. As one reviewer of this article
noted, while the students reported that the question functioned to help them
explore their options, the ways they described their encounters indicated that it
more often functioned to build identification with particular options. As we will
discuss further in the conclusion, the question encouraged identity foreclosure
by pushing students who were unsure of their answer to identify with a particular answer without fully exploring the options available to them. This tendency
is likely because the exploration function of the question is most often eclipsed
by the judgment function.
Judgment. Many students indicated feeling judged when asked the question, often mentioning that the act of asking, in-and-of-itself, conveyed
judgment of major choice. As a senior finance major wrote,
There are certain majors that people feel are less credible for different
reasons. People who have different backgrounds often downplay other
peoples majors. For example a person who is in business may ask that
question to a person who has say a psychology major with a negative
connotation. . . . People can ask that question very respectfully; they
can also insult people. (senior, finance)
In addition to feeling judged by simply being asked the question, students
also felt judged by reactions to their answers. An undeclared freshman
wrote, I often feel as though I am looked down upon for not knowing what
I am going to do with my life. A senior majoring in hotel, restaurant, and
tourism management described a moment when one person responded to
him, You shouldnt go to an expensive school for hotel, restaurant, and
tourism management like that. As such responses demonstrate, students
often received unsolicited advice in such conversations.
Students responded negatively to the question primarily because they
believed that both the asking of the question and the reactions their answers
received delegitimized their choices and conveyed judgment. Students
demonstrated that they had a clear sense that beyond simply having an

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437

answer to the question, their answer should be perceived as acceptable.

Student descriptions of their encounters indicate that some answers were
better than others and that they felt strong pressure to answer in a way that
fit others expectations for the appropriate response. Because the colloquialism functioned to express judgment, it accomplished identity regulation,
calling into question students identities and prompting them to engage in
identity work (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002).
Students often mentioned feeling judged even when the question was
asked as a part of small talk. Such feelings were particularly tied to encounters with strangers but were also apparent elsewhere. A finance major
described an interchange with a family friend:
The conversation was awkward, fake, and drawn out. While most of
these people do not really care about what I am going to do with my
life, they still expect a high [school] graduate to know their major and
in some ways know what they are going to do with that particular major.
Despite the claim that the question often occurs during trivial conversation, the overwhelming conclusion by students who had negative reactions to
the question is that their answers were anything but trivial. That is, students
readily recognized their ability to answer the questioneven when it functioned as small talkas high-stakes and anxiety-producing, particularly
given their clear awareness that some answers were seen as more acceptable
than others. Whether the questioner intended judgment is irrelevant; what is
significant is that the students felt that critique was embedded within the
question. Even in small talk, the colloquial question powerfully shaped student senses of self and meanings of work and education.

Dominant Interpretations of Work

and Education:The Appropriate Answer
Our second research question asks what student responses to the question
reveal about dominant and alternative meanings of the workeducation relationship. Students fell into two broad categories based on their response to the
question. The first category included students who accepted the question and
the associated dominant interpretations of the workeducation relationship;
the second consisted of those who resisted, constructing alternative interpretations of the meaning of that relationship. The majority of students fell into the
first category, with many describing how they worked hard to provide appropriate answers. In this section, we will explore the elements of the appropriate

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answer more closely in order to understand what it tells us about dominant

interpretations of the meanings of work and education.
Many students who indicated anticipating the reactions of others discussed framing their answers to mitigate negative reactions. An undeclared
potential English major made this clear, noting I quickly learned to formulate what I thought was the proper answer. Students often reported fabricating appropriate plans when they had nonesuch as a student who
reported coming up with a plan on the spot to impress his girlfriends parents. Others sought to obscure their unacceptable actual plans, like the
senior international studies major who wanted to work in international
human rights but changed her answer when bartending: I usually tell customers that I want to work for the government or be an ambassador so they
will leave me alone. Another student described in detail how he would tell
his parents and friends how his psychology degree would benefit his future
career in business because psychology is the foundation of everything.
Despite this typical answer, however, the student commented: Actually, I
want to be a psychologist. Students who reported engaging in deceit,
regardless of the form, described their actions as motivated by seeking
approval or avoiding reproach. That is, students either actively sought to
impress their questioner or, at least, to avoid being judged by them.
Considering what students described as the appropriate answer demonstrating that the student had a sensible plan that promised the students future
successprovides insight into the dominant meanings of work and education associated with the colloquialism.
Appropriate answers demonstrate a sensible plan. Answers were expected to
indicate a sensible plan expressing a direct connection between major content and long-term (paid) work plans. As one psychology major put it,
I was somewhat interested in philosophy, but my dad said that philosophy majors didnt have as many job opportunities and that, Youll be
asking Do you want fries with that if I were to choose it. . . . My
parents didnt like the idea of [psychology] either because it was something I would have to get a graduate degree in.
Answers not directly related to paid work were deemed unacceptable
(and almost entirely absent), as were answers indicating an indirect work
major relationship. One student observed that choosing a major first was
backwards: It is important for me to decide what field I want to venture
into in before deciding what major I want. I needed to choose a major that
would taxi me to the career I am looking at. This response typifies a common

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439

view of education as tightly coupled with future work opportunities, where

major choice locks students into a particular trajectory. A sophomore
English major said that people find his plans of using his major in the Peace
Corps to be unfulfilling because I dont have a larger career goal in mind.
As one student wrote, When thinking about what you are going to do with
your major it is important to think about what you are going to do with the
rest of your life.
A sensible plan must also be perceived as realistic, requiring students to
walk a fine line, articulating specific goals that were not too precise. Too
specific answers were deemed unrealistic. Responses that seemed to fit this
middle ground included working for a pharmaceutical company or going to
medical or law school. To be perceived as realistic, ones plan should also be
ambitious yet attainable. As a sophomore business major hoping to start his
own business explained, Many people think of my goal as too lofty and
unattainable, and I am always self-conscious of their judgments. Similarly,
a creative writing major hoping to write fiction or poetry refused to tell new
acquaintances her plan because of negative responses, due not only to the
ambitious nature of her planswhich made them insensiblebut also
because of the perception that writers struggle financially, violating expectations for student success. This expectation comprises the second criterion
determining appropriate answers.
Appropriate answers promise future success. Students recognized that as
they answered the question, others were judging them in terms of their
potential to succeednarrowly interpreted as financial success. One student described angst about selecting a major that would provide me with a
lucrative career, noting, Money is a big part of choosing a major. An
English major remarked that people often incorrectly assumed that she
planned to teach because they cant comprehend what else someone could
do with such a major and actually make any sort of stable money with it.
Another student described telling her father she would go to law school: I
answered this way because truly I felt he was really asking me how are you
going to make the most money with this major? Demonstrating ones
potential to succeed by getting a job and making money was key in crafting
an acceptable response. Students primarily understood good work as that
which provided economic rewards.
Student responses indicated that appropriate answers demonstrated that
majors would not provide sufficient but substantial income, though this
threshold was never discussed in concrete detail. This ambiguity led to a
presumption that more was better. In this way, students future job plans
were generally not informed by reflection about what constituted a decent

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living, what kind of quality of life students desired, or what enough might
be. Instead, appropriate answers describing jobs that might lead to a merely
sufficient income were seen as illegitimate, reducing the range of acceptable
job possibilities to a narrow-yet-unspecified window of careers associated
with high-paying future incomes.
This pressure to pursue high-paying careers was evident in student discussion of the need to be practical in their plans, which was often placed
in tension with following their passion. Students wrestled with this tension in different ways, with most ultimately privileging practicality. One
wrote, Many students are majoring in areas where there are more realistic job opportunities, not necessarily where their passion lies. A minority
concluded that they should follow their passion, trusting that things would
work out. For example, an undeclared student wrote, I know that whatever I major in, I will still do what I love. A third way of navigating this
tension was through practical choices affording space for passion. For
example, an art major decided to pursue a career in advertising or design
because they were real world jobs that could lessen the chance for me to
be a starving artist. She described seeking to account for both what she
was capable of and what the real world wants from me. But whether
students complied with or rejected the expectation for a practical answer,
students readily recognized the overwhelming pressure to be practical in
their choices. This recognition indicates that students understood the
meaning of workand subsequently, educationfirst and foremost in
economic terms. To be perceived as acceptable, student answers needed
to demonstrate a sensible plan that promised future success by looking to
the long term, making close majorwork connections and appearing realistic. These answers demonstrated the dominant interpretation of the
workeducation relationship as tightly coupled with major selection,
leading individuals directly and more or less permanently into particular
types of work.
Such a connection is not surprising, given the current economic situation,
but it is worth noting that only two students mentioned their education in
relationship to the contemporary economic crisis. One business student
described having been asked the question by a client at his workplace:
It is a very tough question for me to answer because I am unsure about
using my major for anything corporate related because of all the obvious inner turmoil with corporate business. Also, I have lost very much
faith in the ethics of capitalism in the U.S. Being asked such a question
sometimes makes me uncomfortable because I am not proud of the
social reputation my major of choice has earned.

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441

An international business major reported being asked the question somewhat sarcastically by his uncle. This student dismissed what he perceived as
the implicit challenge in his uncles question as stemming from the uncles
misconception that business opportunities no longer exist. While these students offered different takes on the prospects of the business major in the
economic crisis, what is particularly noteworthy is that they were the only
students to acknowledge the influence of the crisis. We suspect that this is
likely because the current economic situation has simply heightened the perceived urgency of the question rather than fundamentally altered dominant
meanings of work and education.

Alternative Interpretations of W
ork and
Education: Resisting the Question
While the overwhelming majority of students appeared to accept the question
at face value, about 10% described resisting in some form. This relatively
small number speaks volumes about the force the question exerts as taken-forgranted conversational commonplace. Moments of student resistance also
cast light on possible alternative interpretations of the workeducation relationship. In this section, we describe two forms of student resistance:
refusal to engage and rejecting the premise of the question.
Refusing to engage. One way students resisted the question was by refusing to engage the situation. One student, for instance, said that he was willing to discuss the question with peers as a part of information-seeking small
talk, but refused to tell adults his major in order to avoid the conversation.
Several students described having rote answers to the questionways, as
one student described it, to just answer the question to answer it rather
than to engage in meaningful conversation. Others reported leaving situations when they felt judged for their answer, and some admitted to ignoring
the question when asked, such as the English major who reported, I generally ignore this when new acquaintances ask me this question because it
annoys me how often I receive an eye roll or a scoff in response. Student
refusal to engage the question can be understood as similar to the resistance
strategy of organizational exit. As Lutgen-Sandvik (2006) notes, the exit of
the marginalized simply perpetuates the dominant system. While this resistance strategy provided students a way to push back, it does not reflexively
challenge the meanings of work and education embedded in the question.
Rejecting the premise of the question. A second, more powerful strategy for
resisting the question was to reject its fundamental premises and assert alternative interpretations of the workeducation relationship. While most of the
students implicitly consented to the pressure to map out their career plans

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and connect them closely to their major, several students expressly rejected
this approach to major selection in particular and university education in
general. Students rejected three relatively distinct premises of the dominant
view: that ones college major and future career are tightly coupled, putting
the future of students without clear career plans in jeopardy; that students
should expect to work in one career during their working lives; and that
higher education should be primarily oriented toward career preparation.
First, students questioned the assumed tight coupling of major and future
career and the requirement of that coupling for future success. One student,
for instance, took issue with the presumed permanence of the education
work relationship, noting that there are . . . so many unpredictable factors
that finding the perfect major to find perfect job placements seems silly at
this point in my life. Another wrote, I believe this reflects the societally
accepted notion that all young people must choose a career then work towards
an ultimate goal. It seems as though this is all that many people are concerned
with. An undeclared freshman rejected the idea that her future career is in
peril because of her uncertainty:
Even though I may not have a major, I do in fact have many interests
and ideas of what I could major in. My interests include studying art,
studio art, photography, environmental science/issues, and traveling.
These are my passions. I am not too worried because I know that whatever I major in I will still do what I love.
While most students at least tacitly accepted the dominant assumptions
about work and education embedded in the question, this small group of students preferred an alternative framing of the workeducation relationship.
They rejected the idea that college majors and careers were tightly coupled and
the implication that they should decide now what work they would pursue
throughout their lives. Instead, they saw their education as equipping them for
a variety of careers and believed that decisions about work were not final.
Second, students rejected the questions assumptions about the job market.
One student wrote, The work world is changing so we shouldnt plan on one
job. Similarly, another wrote, The business world is much too vast and continuously expanding for students with business majors to define their plans
based solely on their major. These students untangle the relationship between
particular majors and jobs, preferring preparation for a wide variety of future
jobs. As one student put it, We have the chance to live and experience so
much in this world, and go through a variety of work. I dont want to follow a
certain path of what my major will do for me, and work only in one area or one
company. That is not the purpose of my pursuit in education and skills. These

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students preferred an interpretation of education as equipping them to follow

a variety of paths throughout their lives.
Finally, some students rejected the premise that higher education is primarily related to paid work, constructing alternative interpretations of higher
education as connected to various aspects of life. One students suggestion
to reframe the question as What are you studying and do you love it? demonstrates resistance to the dominant view of the relationship between higher
education and work and reframes higher education as creating a variety of
possible directions for students futures. These alternative interpretations of
the workeducation relationship helped relieve the pressure around major
selection by emphasizing students potential to use education creatively to
succeed over their long-term working lives. Such moments of resistance,
while rare, demonstrate that students were not simply passively engaging
the colloquialism but rather reflexively questioning its legitimation of particular meanings of work and education.

Discussion
As the results above demonstrate, the question, What are you going to do
with that major, exerts considerable influence over how students (and others) interpret meanings of work, education, and their intersection. Our
analysis suggests that the colloquialism functions through its ubiquitous
presence in the lives of college students, who expect to encounter the question as a part of normal conversation. Students indicate a pervasive sense of
anxiety surrounding the question; even in seemingly casual conversations,
students feel judgment waiting for them if they fail to provide an appropriate answer. While the question certainly has its positive functionsspurring
students to engage in useful reflection about the relationship between their
major and their future working livesour analysis demonstrates that the
question is imbued with assumptions about the relationship between work
and education that are problematic for reasons discussed as follows. Even
when these assumptions are not intentionally invoked or are outright
rejected, their attachment to the question is recognized and understood.

The Colloquial Question and

the Meaning of W
ork
The question implicitly invokes particular meanings of work warranting critical attention. First, the potential for judgment highlights how the question
elevates particular types of work by perpetuating narrow interpretations of
what constitutes good work. High-paying, high-status work is privileged. Not

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surprisingly, students who felt that their major was preparing them for such
workparticularly in business and engineeringwere most likely to express
comfort, while the question generated the most anxiety for students (mostly
in the Liberal Arts) less sure of their majors connection to work. Such views
are predictable responses to the reality of the job market students see waiting
for them upon graduation. For jobs requiring a college degree, graduates in
education (71.1%), engineering (69.4%), and math and computer science
(68.5%) exceeded the average national employment rate of 55.6% (the precise
rate of employment for business graduates), while graduates in communication (51.1%) and the humanities (45.4%) lagged behind (Rampell, 2011).
Rampell also reports that those majors followed a nearly identical pattern of
distribution around the national median income of US$26,756 for graduates
employed in jobs requiring a college degree. Responding to these economic
realities, then, the colloquial force of the question functions much like the expression a real job (Clair, 1996), loaded with implicit assumptions about what
kind of work (i.e., requiring an education, offering substantial pay) is most
acceptable for students to pursue.
A second manner in which the question appears to shape the meaning of
work for students is by implicitly perpetuating a view of work grounded in
the linear career model (Buzzanell & Goldzwig, 1991) that does not accurately represent the working world students are likely to face. As mentioned,
responses demonstrated that students primarily see major selection as tightly
coupled with future work, indicating anxiety over the perception that decisions made in the present box them in, determining their future careers. In
short, the majority of students indicated a direct and permanent relationship
between college major and postcollege work. However, these assumptions do
not align with the realities of the global economy. As Buzzanell (2000) notes,
the current social contract between employers and employees has shifted
such that neither expects the relationship to be long term. Instead, individuals
can expect to work in a variety of companies over the course of their working
lives and, likely, work in a variety of different professions. The permanent
view of career that is perpetuated through the colloquial question, What are
you going to do with that major?, conflicts with what students are likely to
experience postcollege, hindering students from approaching higher education in a way that will equip them better for the long term.

The Colloquial Question and

the Meaning of Education
Our analysis suggests that the colloquial question, What are you going to
do with that major?, plays an important role in cementing vocational

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meanings of higher education. Doing appears to be taken as synonymous

with working, suggesting that the question enables discursive closure
around the meaning of higher education, squeezing out possibilities for
conceiving of purposes for education beyond the occupational (Deetz,
1992). Significantly, out of the 110 students responding to the survey, only
one reported a nonvocational dimension to her plans, explaining to her boss
how her major will
help me with everyday conversation throughout the rest of my life.
Being an international studies major, I explained that I will develop a
comprehensive knowledge and understanding of global issues. I
explained how, as a result, I would be able to have significant conversations about such issues with people throughout my life.
Here, intelligent and informed conversation is framed as something that
this student will be able to do with her major that is not directly tied to
workalthough the student did first mention how she hoped her major
would position her for a career in the intelligence community. Beyond this
singular example, however, no students expressed a potential for their
major to enable them to do anything nonvocational. While equipping
students to contribute vocationally is an important function of higher education, our findings demonstrate how vocational goals have replaced other
goals as the focus of higher education, such as cultivating citizen-subjects
or helping students to wrestle with questions of how to live a meaningful
life (Deetz, 1992; Watkins, 2008). In our study, students viewed education
as an instrumental means without indicating a sense that learning could be
an enriching end in itself or that a college education would enhance other
roles that they might play in society, such as citizen, parent, partner, volunteer, or community member.
Furthermore, the questionand surrounding conversationsperpetuates
a very narrow view of vocational preparation. Students saw majors as
providing vocational preparation if they were oriented around clearly
identifiable skills that would directly apply to ones future job. Majors
such as those in the liberal artsproviding students with more nebulous skills such as critical thinking and problem solving that could be
applied in a variety of ways to future work were seen as less valid preparation for work. Students majoring in such subjects were expected to
justify their major choice by connecting the dots for the questioner. The
question, What are you going to do with that major?, constructs the
purpose of education very narrowly in terms of directly translatable
occupational skills.

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Conclusion and Implications

The considerable influence of the question reinforces the need for the intersection of work and higher education to occupy a prominent place for organizational communication scholars interested in exploring the meaning of
work. While there has been a long disciplinary history of interest in education writ large as a socialization microsystem, this study demonstrates that
colleges and universities serve as a crucial site in which meanings of work
and education are negotiated. As higher education is seen in increasingly
vocational terms, it becomes a progressively more important space where
assumptions about what constitutes good work are being constructed, maintained, and, potentially, transformed, with long-ranging implications for
students future livesat work and beyond.
Our research demonstrates that the colloquial question functions as a
form of identity regulation, calling into question students identities and
prompting them to engage in identity work (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002).
We see this specifically in the ways that students perceive the question and
others responses to their answers as indicating judgment. In their discussions of what the appropriate response was and how they worked to provide
it, we see that students identity work was guided by a particular view of the
ideal self (Wieland, 2010). Having a response that fit this ideal reassured
students that their identity was socially acceptable; failing to genuinely have
such a response caused them severe anxiety.
This study also indicates that conversations in higher educational contexts around major selection encourage students to conceive of their identities quite narrowly, equating self with work. Given the close connection
between identity and work, it is not surprising that students felt great pressure to have a solid response to the question. The relative permanence suggested by the questions implicit invocation of a linear career model appears
to pressure students to enter what Arnett (2004) has described as identity
foreclosurea state in which they have not explored, yet have committed
to, an identity. Students discussions of their encounters with the question,
What are you going to do with that major?, indicate that the question
exerts tremendous force in encouraging commitment to a work identity
without full exploration. This force is especially problematic in an era in
which they are unlikely to have linear careers.
While this study suggests that identity construction processes are stimulated by conversations around major selection, the nature of our data prevents us from fully exploring how students engage in the intricate process
of identity construction. Future research should use in-depth methods such

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as qualitative interviewing to explore how the question prompts identity

construction. Focusing on identity would better equip researchers to consider the intersections between everyday discourse and macro-discursive
trends related to education and work. In-depth interviews would provide a
deeper understanding of how the socioeconomic context shapes students
identities related to work and education, providing insight, for example,
into the implications of the current economic recession for meanings of
education and work.
The implications of this current research are inevitably constrained by
several key limitations. First, because the study focuses on traditional-age
college students, it overlooks the experience of those returning to higher
education institutions later in life, often to pursue new careers. Future
research could productively explore these students encounters with the
question in order to gain insight into how they make sense of education and
work while living a nonlinear career model. Second, because the colloquial
question at hand deals with students majors, this analysis necessarily sets
aside student perceptions of the meaning and purpose of general education,
suggesting another focus for future research. Third, the type and location of
the institution that participants attended likely influenced the particular
meanings attached to the colloquial question, given its location as a private
institution in the U.S. academy, as notions of appropriate work are likely to
be significantly different for students attending institutions serving different populations. Finally, a question not addressed by this study is how do
higher education institutions seek more directly to shape students understanding of the relationship between work and education? Future, related
research could more directly tackle this socialization process as it occurs
through communication with students about the meaning of work and education by higher education organizations.
Despite these limitations, the current study suggests several important
implications. Taken together, the pressure that students feel from the question
to foreclose prematurely on their work identities (combined with a nagging
sense of permanence attached to such decisions) and the seeming prevalence
of the question outside of educational contexts suggests the importance for
college and university educators to provide meaningful opportunities for students to understand, and reflect on, the relationship between their education
and their future work lives. In an era when we repeatedly (and accurately) tell
our students that they can expect to have multiple careers and many more jobs,
it would seem imperative that we help our students think through the role that
their education will play over the course of their professional, personal, and
public lives, particularly in the face of everyday talk that encourages them to

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make early, and seemingly permanent, decisions about what to study and what
to do with their lives as a result. As Ashcraft and Allen (2009) argue, organizational communication scholars are especially equipped to work with students not only to critique and transform educational practices, but also to
discover how the vocabularies they use and the ways they communicate influence their ability to do so (p. 25). We suggest it is especially important to
extend critical conversations about the meaning of work and education beyond
the classroom to formal and informal advising and mentoring roles. As our
analysis shows, students would benefit from conversations that help them confront sedimented meanings of work and education. Given that work is so central to their lives and well-being and that models of work are changing in a
way that our everyday language may not yet reflect, organizational communication scholars have an opportunity to help students imagine alternative ways
of constructing higher education, paid work, and the relationship between
education and work.
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge Jim Barker, Patricia Sias, and the anonymous reviewers for their thorough and helpful feedback and advice on earlier versions of this
manuscript. In addition, we are grateful for Arianna Molloy (PhD candidate,
University of Denver) and Lakshmi Balaji (MA, Villanova University) for their assistance in the data-gathering phases of this project.

Authors Note
The alphabetical listing of the authors indicates joint authorship and the equal contribution each author made to this manuscript.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Bios
Daniel J. Lair (PhD, University of Utah) is a lecturer at the University of Michigan
Flint, Flint, MI, USA. His main research interests include meaningful work, work
socialization, organizational rhetoric, and the representation of work in institutional
contexts such as higher education and popular culture.
Stacey M. B. Wieland (PhD, University of Colorado, Boulder) is an assistant professor at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA. Her main interests
include meanings of work, worklife issues, and intersections between identity, culture, and work.