10 Bachelor's Degree Programs You Never Knew Existed

A lot of people want to be the best at what they do, so they seek higher education. That's tough if you're talking about something broad like math or English; but if you get hyper-specific then it becomes easier. Just imagine graduating summa cum laude from one of the tippy-top of the nation's bachelor's degree programs specializing in citrus. You're going to be on the cover of Citrus magazine, one of the "thirty-under-thirty in citrus," and citrus magnates will be talking about you when they angrily scream, "Get me the best!" into their cellphones. Here are just ten pathways to being the best at something you didn't even know you could be the best in.

Yacht Operations

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has a yacht big enough to have two helicopter pads. You best believe it takes an education to be entrusted with that sort of nautical technology. So, if you want to be rubbing elbows with billionaires or just regular Joes with yachts, you can enroll in the Yacht Operations program at South Devon College. The institution offers both a two and four year program. Students who double major in criminal justice will also have the opportunity to become boat detectives.

Ethical Hacking

Crank up the Meat Beat Manifesto and throw on your leather: it's time to get a degree in hacking. No, this isn't the premise of a 90s cyber thriller whose title is also a URL; it's a legitimate pathway to employment via the University of Abertay in Dundee's Ethical Hacking program. Boasting an 88% employment rate among graduates, it's a pretty safe bet as far as bachelor's degree programs are concerned. Just be okay with working alongside high school students who never had to attend classes to get the real world computer skills you spent four years acquiring at an institution of higher education.

Comedy

Humber College in Toronto, Ontario, Canada offers a degree in Comedy Writing and Performance. And before you laugh off the thought of humor centric bachelor's degree programs, just remember that most of your favorite comedians have spent thousands of hours doing stand up and improv for free in the very real world of Irish bar basements. Those who'd like to devise their own comedy program can also follow in the foot-steps of standup comedian and Bob's Burger's Gene Belcher Eugene Mirman, who created his own major at Hampshire College.

Logic

You can't reason from a general to a particular. After all, just because a brick wall is big doesn't mean that the bricks are big too. If intellectual rigor is among your mind's desires (logicians don't think with their hearts!), then you might want to consider bachelor's degree programs in logic at institutions like the University of Pennsylvania or Carnegie Mellon University. Just remember that your milage in logic is contingent upon how invested you are in the assumption that humans are fundamentally rational beings. Answering the question of just how rational humans are is a different major.

Nature Adventuring

If your favorite shows are Naked and Afraid, Survivor Man, and Man Vs. Wild, then you're a prime candidate for Plymouth State University's adventure education program. There you'll learn how to make it through the wilderness, and how making it through the wilderness can lead to emotional development for everyone from aspiring leaders to high school aged at-risk populations. Or you can hang around bars just waiting for someone who needs a tracker to come in seeking your services. And someone always needs a tracker because the forrest never stops taking lives.

Turfgrass Science

Don't you dare tell a Turfgrass Science graduate that they majored in lawn maintenance. Those are fighting words! Real world applications of the major entail manicuring golf courses, stadiums, cemeteries, and other places that have been designated by society as deserving of collective reverence. Do you want a grieving couple to discover that their son's plot isn't looking good? Do you want to be the one to tell America the Superbowl is off because the field isn't ready? No! And that's why we need turfgrass experts.

Viticulture and Enology

Tales are told of the one class you can take as an undergrad where you just drink wine. And while you might enroll in "wine science" even though it's at 9am because you're expecting it to be a weekly bacchanalian feast, the actual "wine science" majors are going to resent you for not know that enology is "wine science" and that they have to take microbiology and chem labs to graduate. Surprise: "wine science" is hard!

Recreation and Leisure Studies

Yes, there are bachelor's degree programs in recreation and leisure and, no, they are not a four year nap you take like a college aged Rip Van Winkle. Instead, they are a rigorous exploration of an indispensable need all humans share that, as such, serves as the foundation of countless institutions with their own cultures, practices, and management methodologies. Ew, boy, this is worse than when you tried to sneak two buck chuck into "wine tasting" class!

Citrus

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. And if you're always telling people lemons aren't naturally occurring but are actually a hybrid of citron and bitter orange, then maybe you should head to Florida Southern College. The institution of higher education boasts that it decimates the competition's bachelor's degree programs in citrus and horticultural science. There you'll find enough people that know that lemons aren't naturally occurring that you'll never have to bother anyone else with that fact again.

Mortuary Science

Alkaline hydrolysis is an alternative to cremation and burial that entails putting the body in a highly pressurized container filled with hot water and lye. The result is a viscous body goop that's disposed of using traditional sewage filtration, and 30% more skeletal remains to transform into ash. That's just a sampling of what you'll learn at one of the nations many Mortuary Science bachelor's degree programs. And, yes, body goop is a technical term.