California State University-Long Beach Rankings by Salary Score™

I attended CSULB for several years and received a degree in Chinese studies. I have to say this was probably the worst possible decision I made, but it was due to the fact that professors who had zero clue about jobs or the economy convinced me that this degree would be "valuable" and that "companies really need people who speak Chinese." I had more than one person tell me this, and since I did well in my classes that were Chinese I thought "why not?" I graduated with honors, participated in an extra language... Read More program, and well - there are NO jobs for people who major in this field. Zero. I was shooed-away at the career center with a "we cannot help someone with your major." The truth is businesses want someone who is natively bilingual, and they can easily fetch someone who is Chinese and grew up here with the right skill set. Businesses want business/data analyst/econ/math/science majors. Employment outcomes for this major are garbage. I only know of 1 person (yes ONE) who ended up becoming a Chinese teacher after living abroad and getting an MA in another country and a teaching credential (something the teachers at the BA level never tell you to get). They teach high school. Everyone else? Nope. For the rest of us Chinese is a side-note on our resume or we are asked "why did you study that?" it has zero market value in the real world. ZERO. The people who I knew who ended up successful were double majors with business (which isn't permitted anymore due to "impaction"). So please if you are considering this as a major RUN- the professors know nothing about work, and in some cases are just trying to be employed. As for the classes themselves they were a joke. I was able to get an A by studying maybe 2 hours a week (if that). My classmates were either Chinese Americans who were washed up and just trying to please their parents by saying they were studying about their culture (but couldn't get into chemistry/bio/engineering) or were Americans who were told the degree would be valuable. While there were about 2 talented teachers in this department (both lecturers) most of them were pathetic. We had a whole class on the i-ching- which we were forced to take because the Department Head at the time only wanted to run her classes so she could get her full hours in. Teachers loved to talk religion, politics, and other nonsense in class. Most of the culturally oriented classes could have been massively overhauled to be relevant to maybe working in law enforcement or government, but I doubt the fossils would want to touch their sacred syllabi to make it worthwhile to students. Reading assignments were at high-school level (or below). In one class students who couldn't write a sentence without a grammatical error ended up with Bs! At one point they were worried about the accreditation people coming (as they should be!). I know the graduate level Asian Studies stopped admitting people for a bit then restarted due to "issues." I think Chinese (language only) would be ok as a minor if you had an interest and were majoring in anything else. But please don't do it as your main major, as it is a MAJOR disappointment being unable to be employed anywhere. The college itself is massive- 30k students. Most people are commuters. During my time there I witnessed sexual harassment (no one did anything even after it was reported), there was a campus rapist, flasher, and also homeless who smacked people off their bikes (not making this up). I really don't have much that is positive to say about CSULB, except they just want your $$$$

I came to CSULB nearly burnt out of mathematics; here I found professors that mentored their students through the program; as a student wanting to go on into a PhD, I found several professors more than willing to help. I got one on one help at office hours many times, and found my classmates to be of a very high caliber mathematically. We were constantly discussing, and even ran our own graduate student seminar in geometric-topology. This place is a hidden gem, and will always be special in my heart. Go Beach!... Read More