Agriculture was ranked as the No. 1 most useless degree, according to a Jan. 19 Yahoo article.

Fashion design, theater, animal science and horticulture followed.

The article has received backlash from university departments and faculties across the country.

According to a Yahoo article, Agriculture was considered the most useless major in the country. FILE/The Red & Black

Scott Angle, dean and director of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, said the article could not be more wrong.

“I’m still not quite sure how they could have gotten it so backwards,” Angle said. “All over the country there have been responses written showing exactly the opposite of what he had written.”

The article projected a 5 percent decrease in the number of jobs from 2008 to 2018.

Keith Bertrand, department head of animal and dairy science, said the article only looks at the decrease in jobs on actual farms and ignores the constant demand for jobs needed to support the farmer.

“We have a lot less people on the farm than we did 50 years ago because of efficiencies, but we put a lot of our students in support industries that support the people on the farm,” Bertrand said.

Bertrand said because farming has grown more efficient farmers now depend on a massive infrastructure of support industries to keep up.

“The support of that infrastructure has grown because of the high science and technology needed to support that efficiency,” Bertrand said. “You need people out in the industry to support the individual farmer in each area of the farm, from feed to vaccines, that farmers utilize to make them more efficient.”

Bertrand said the shift of jobs away from the farm that Yahoo shows does not reflect the increase in the jobs in the industries that support the farmer, where most but not all graduates are going.

“They didn’t do their homework,” Bertrand said. “They are just looking at jobs on the farm, and they aren’t looking at the scope of agriculture.”

Yahoo’s article cites information for 2008 and employment predictions for 2018 from the U.S. Department of Labor, but a recent study released by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce shows that recent graduates with agriculture majors have some of the lowest unemployment rates than any other major.

Bertrand said that the Georgetown statistics show that agriculture graduates do not have problems finding jobs. The study shows that experienced graduates with degrees in animal science have about a 3.5 percent unemployment rate.

Tim Smalley, associate professor and undergraduate coordinator for the department of horticulture, said the article also misrepresented employment opportunities.

“Our department has had 100 percent placement of students since I began in 1990,” Smalley said. “We have always had a greater demand by employers than available students.”

Smalley said majors in his department have even continued to find jobs despite the downturn in the economy.

“I know of no recent graduate of our department who is looking for a position who has not been offered other positions,” Smalley said.

Angle said the demand for graduates from the CAES has become so much of a problem the University is actually having trouble retaining employees and students.

“We actually have a problem in retaining our employees and also with hiring a number of the students,” Angle said. “The big international companies, Monsanto, DuPont and some of the poultry companies, have been very eager to hire University graduates.”

Angle said the philosophy of the program prepares graduates for the needs of the industry and the demands of the future, making them some of the most competitive candidates for job opportunities in the nation.

“It’s a philosophy of problem-based training, so it’s not an ivory tower based mentality,” Angle said. “It’s what are the problems of the state and how do we design our teaching programs around them to solve what society needs.”

While the University does not have a fashion design major, it does have a fashion merchandising major in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and a Fashion Design Student Organization, open to students of all majors interested in fashion design.

Patricia Hunt-Hurst, department head of textiles, merchandising and interiors, said she was also surprised by the Yahoo article.

“I thought Yahoo really watered it down and made it seem like all fashion design majors just do sewing, but it’s really intense,” Hunt-Hurst said.

Hunt-Hurst said students who do any kind of design program are working around the clock in their studios and are not just sitting in lecture rooms taking notes and then going back to their dorm to study.

While fashion design focuses more on apparel, the University’s fashion merchandising major prepares students for careers in the industry with product knowledge and the opportunity for students to focus on specific areas in the industry, ranging from retail, visual merchandising and the history of dress and fashion.

Hunt-Hurst said the Yahoo article shows a narrow-minded view of what you can do with a degree in fashion, the opposite of what the department wants to show their students.

“We try to teach our students that there is so much you can do with your degree,” Hunt-Hurst said. “Not just, I have to be a buyer or in retail.”

Hunt-Hurst said the article does not capture the entrepreneurial drive that many graduates have to start their own business.

Ginger Howard, a University graduate in fashion merchandising, made the Bulldog 100 for 2011, a list produced annually since 2010 by the University Alumni Association of the fastest growing alumni businesses.

Ginger Howard Selections, Howard’s apparel business based in Atlanta, ranked 93 on the Bulldog 100.

Hunt-Hurst said Kohl’s recently spoke to students about job opportunities with the company, and Neiman Marcus representatives are also coming in the next few weeks to talk to students.