I agree with you about "stealth jobs" and that they're not a bad way to back door your way into something. Work experience is work experience. A parable if you will, however: My wife graduated magna cum laude with a degree in math. It did not do much for her. I acknowledge that she's still within that vaunted "STEM" cohort but the "M" is far and away the least useful from an undergrad standpoint. So she spent some time tutoring for Sylvan, she spent some time answering tech calls for Sierra. And, while she was busy being under-employed, she took a couple free courses at Egghead Software (back when it existed) in Microsoft Access. Up jumps one of these jobs about which you speak - back office at an insurance plan administration company. So she applies with her freshly-minted BS in Math, one of too-many applicants, even back then. She got the gig - basic data entry with a pathway towards her CPA, eventually, after a lot of time. Two months go by and a woman from another department stops by her shared cubicle. "I hear you know access." "A little," she said. "Why?" Within 24 hours she'd gone from "data entry" to "database administrator" and within 2 months she'd gone from "database administrator" to "software architect." Her new department head had let the data entry pool take the risk on vetting competent candidates and then skimmed through looking for anyone with the barest database competency. My wife's salary doubled and she went from "being on the path to being a CPA" to "being on the path to being a director." No offense meant to English or its majors - had I not had a driving and substantial need for financial independence as soon as humanly possible, I would have been one. But that drive did put me in the pathway to an elevated salary. Simply by taking "music mixing" as an elective instead of "music performance" gave me an after-school job that is most directly attributable to my current $63-an-hour-when-I-can-get it "profession." If it's remuneration you're after, there's a reason STEM tends to lead the pack.
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. (A quote I used in my latest interview, I think, if I remember correctly.) I have advantages others don't. I can articulate well, I can present nicely - I have all those great people skills of the example-girl in your first comment. I'm smarter than your average bear. People seem to think I'm good-looking besides. Of course, I still make less than half you do ;) but my goal is 100k by the time I'm 30 and trust me, it's a reachable goal. (OKCupid, by the way, tells me I am "very ambitious." That and independence are my most exaggerated bars. It makes one wonder much less why one is single, sometimes.) I think the crux of your comment, (although not perhaps your intended point) is to learn as much as you can across as many useful fields as you can. I've taken like 12 hours of online Excel classes. Some day, maybe it'll come in handy. Maybe I should look into access instead. Maybe Python. I recognize that math and programming and logical thinking are better areas for me to sink time into than poetry if I want to move forward in my career. This, however, is why you help co-workers out. Because it helps you out a lot in the end. If you can establish yourself as a subject-matter expert in something, and let it get around the department, who knows where it will lead. At first you might be like "Ugh this is a lot of work for no recognition" but the truth of the matter is, the recognition comes. - unless you're at a shitty company.
Or, being in the right place in the right time. Those who are prepared have a better chance of being in the right place, and they tend to linger there longer. By and large, yes. And by all means, follow your bliss. If poetry really turns your crank, and you want poetry to be a big part of your life, study poetry. But if you're majoring in "college" and you're choosing majors based on workload, it'll come back to get you. My experience with college English was that it was high school English - in my case, a lot less rigorous at that. The tech writing courses we were required to take in the College of Engineering dusted the shit out of them for stringency but were still no great shakes compared to, say, Mohr's Circle. And granted - I never once applied Mohr's Circle once I was out of college, while high school english I use regularly in online forum fights. So what it comes down to, really, is are you studying stuff that you don't know in order to know it, or are you studying stuff you know in order to know it well? Proficiency goes a long way and excellence is nice, but graded on a curve. Someone with passable grammar and passable Perl will likely make it further than someone with excellent grammar and a deep and abiding loathing of Pascal. Had I learned how to program back before it was cool, hot damn the things I'd be doing now.Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
I think the crux of your comment, (although not perhaps your intended point) is to learn as much as you can across as many useful fields as you can.