As a first-generation college student, my two main acknowledgments go to my parents Bernard and Lillian Edmondson. They made sure that I attended Cabrini College in Radnor, Pennsylvania, and never once pressured me into selecting a specific major. Their lack of knowledge about higher education and its policies served as a blessing in disguise. If ignorance is bliss, then my parent’s ignorance about college majors was indeed my bliss. I declared accounting as my first major and quickly switched to one more to my liking—history. Mom and dad never challenged me about my decision to change majors. They never asked me what I was going to do with a history degree. Many people, then as well as now, label history one of the “useless” majors. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no such thing as a useless major. Without knowing it, mom and dad allowed me to major in happiness. More of today’s students need to major in happiness. The substantial rise in depression and anxiety among today’s undergraduates is frighteningly alarming. All too often today’s undergraduates are pressured by their parents or their own perceptions of how the world operates to go into the right school, declare the right major, secure the right job, get the right salary, and have the right life. Such thinking is outrageous. Yet this is exactly what has been happening, is happening, and will continue to happen until the insanity stops. Major in Happiness: Debunking the College Major Fallacies is my small attempt to stop the insanity. Parents, professors, higher education officials, and other stakeholders have a responsibility to educate our students and each other on the major in happiness campaign.
During the last few weeks of working on this manuscript, my father died. He and my mom went for their daily swim on June 1 and by July 10 he had passed away. In less than 40 days, stage 4 lung cancer eviscerated my father faster than any of us thought possible. His passing devastated my family, especially my mother who had a 59-year relationship with him. During one of his last days, dad told me he was proud of me. He never mentioned my undergraduate major. He was proud of the man, father, and son I had become. In a book about undergraduate majors, this is an important point to acknowledge. The selection of a college major is an important decision, but it is just one of many important decisions an individual will make throughout the journey of life. What you declare as a major has little, if anything, to do with your character, ability to demonstrate empathy, or the manner in which you treat others. Unbeknownst to them, my parents taught me that a college major was merely one element of a very dynamic life. We have lost that perspective today. As a nation, we have failed our young people. Lost in a tsunami of news about college loans, global unemployment, cyber-attacks, and domestic terrorism, we have scared the younger generations into a state of perpetual anxiety, depression, and sadness. The hyper-focus on starting salaries, landing the proverbial “dream job,” and securing full-time employment has taken precedence over a career built on purpose, leadership, and service. I say all this to acknowledge that my parents focused on developing a man who was responsible to himself, his family and to those he encountered. I am forever grateful for that lesson as it has formed the bedrock of my life.
In addition to my parents, I need to acknowledge my staff in the Career Development Office at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, in the Careers/Opportunities/Research/Exploration (CORE) Center. These professionals dedicate their lives to helping students understand the major in happiness campaign. Thank you: Keri Bass, Kevin Carton, Judy Butler, James Connon, Beth Ducey, Rebecca Marion-Flesch, Pastor Kristen Glass Perez, Karen Petersen, Leslie Scheck, Andrew Shearhouse, Lisa Slater, Doug Tschopp, Clarissa Thompson, and Alex Washington. To President Steve Bahls, Provost Pareena Lawrence, the Board of Trustees and the entire Augie community, thank you for your daily support and guidance. Several Augustana students helped with some of the research for this book, including Shylee Garrett, Michelle Dempster, and Cori Duncan. The illustrations included in this publication were created by students in the EDGE Center at Augustana. I would like to thank EDGE Director Doug Tschopp and his students Brittney Cox, Shavaun Grant, Marisa Lara, and Holly Scholl for their assistance in translating my thoughts to the images included in this book.
A special thank you also needs to go out to the thousands of students that I have taught over the past 25 years. I have been fortunate enough to teach at the elementary, secondary, and university levels. Unfortunately, I have witnessed the deep concern that middle school students and parents have over getting their child into the ‘right’ high school that will lead to the ‘right’ college and then land the ‘dream job’ to have the ‘perfect’ life; or the high school student who takes every AP class imaginable and gets involved in multiple activities only to get rejected by every college he or she thinks has the magic elixir to a successful career. Those thousands of encounters formed the genesis of this book. Some students and parents understood the major in happiness campaign. Most did not. I am grateful for all of those conversations.
To the entire team at Business Expert Press, including Stewart Mattson, Rob Zwettler, Charlene Kronstedt, Sean Kaneski, Sheri Dean, and Karen Amundson, I owe my deepest appreciation and gratitude for their constant support. Major in Happiness is my second book with Business Expert Press as they published Marketing Your Value: Nine Steps to Navigate Your Career in 2015 for me. Special thanks to John Christian, Jeremy Osborn, Pastor Kristen Glass Perez, Cindy Szadokierski, Laura Grayson Roselli, and Arun Tilak for their thoughts on a draft of this manuscript. I would also like to extend a special acknowledgment and thank you to my family and friends for their daily guidance and support, including my wife Lori Joyce who made sure that our children Amanda Haley and Jonathan Victor majored in happiness. They provide a much needed perspective and are a constant reminder that a college major is but one small component of a life well-lived.