@gwnorth interesting. Some US schools may be that way too, but many are not. Good reason to consider programs individually.
However, initial advantage or disadvantage can affect what starting job one can take. I.e. the first job that comes up (or the highest paying one) to pay the bills and student loans, or wait for something good for career development because your wealthy parents can support you during an extended job search, lower paying job, or unpaid internship? Also, whether you enter the job market in a good economy or recession matters – recession entrants to the labor force tend to be disadvantaged even a decade or more later.
Of course, your own choices can matter as well. Among those who earn significantly more than subsistence, those who live below their means are more likely to be able to make a downward move or get off the wall for some time at a later date, living off of saved money. Those who live at or above their means will not have such options because they must chase short term money at every turn (and later put their kids at a starting disadvantage mentioned above).
ABET accredited engineering programs require at least 1/4 of the curriculum in math and natural science, 3/8 in engineering, and an unspecified amount in humanities and social studies (in practice, probably at least 1/8, based on Brown). That could theoretically leave up to 1/4 of the curriculum as free electives. But, in practice, most programs have more than 3/8 in engineering, and many have more than 1/8 in humanities and social studies, so completely free electives may be few or none.
But technical course work may include technical electives, and humanities and social studies requirements often allow wide student choice in what subjects to take.
The use of “STEM” as a general term is overly broad. There are plenty of underemployed or unemployed chem and (especially) bio majors–those degrees are seldom more applicable to higher level jobs than a social sciences degree, perhaps less so. When people talk about STEM majors that bring more automatic job prospects, they mean engineering and computer science, maybe math and physics IF those had an applied concentration and were more or less functionally engineering degrees. And even in engineering, subfields can be murky–the oil industry (which employs a lot of engineers) can be incredibly cyclical, and layoffs are often brutal in down cycles.
If only this were the case in academia. The percentage of faculty over 65 doubled from 2000 to 2010, a trend that has only worsened since. My graduate department had several faculty members in their 70s who refuse to retire.
I’dd geology as well, though the geology job market is pretty volatile, and it helps to have a MS. I graduated from college at the height of the recession, and it was my geology degree that netted me decent job offers, not my classics degree.
Students should study what makes them happy but the data on College Scorecard shows the median starting salaries from STEM/engineering focused schools like RPI, and Stevens are 80K or 90K while the average salary after attending Julliard (one of the best performing arts schools in the world) is $32,800.
https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/
The mention of geology raises a point- the jobs that ARE there are not always where one is willing to live.
Ya know, not all kids, stem major or not, are qualified to work for the STEM companies that pay top salaries. As in admissions, it takes some effort to match onesself, some polishing to be the right hire. That’s before the HR folks do their thing.
So what about the stem vs arts salaries? So what?
I have a kid who is a professional freelance musician. He does a large variety of music related things…but he is self supporting and loves what he does. He would hate being an engineer, and the only STEM stuff he had any interest in was recording engineering which he does as well.
I wish folks would stop dissing kids who are in the arts. Thank heavens for the actors, musicians, artists, dancers, etc who make our lives ever so much enriched.
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I would stress that It’s the activity – the type of work, how interesting and challenging it is – that makes for a satisfying career path. Material rewards really do matter, but they’re usually not the first priority in developing a career after college. And as I wrote above, most people do not make a career out of their first job. They adapt as they move along, learn of opportunities to apply their skills and follow their interests.
For my non-stem son (BA in economics – maybe that’s sort of stem because of the quantitative skills required), salary was never a problem. However, finding an employment situation that allowed him to be creative was a problem for the first 4-5 years. He then quit his job and went out on his own, in a transition that eventually (9-10 years after graduation) not only allowed him to use his creative and technical skills but has also brought him income that is something like 15-20X his initial salary after graduation.
In the case of my non-stem daughter, who studied design in earning a BFA at an art school, she discovered that she really liked the business side of design as much as the artistic side. After several jobs and employers she went back to school to earn an MBA at a top-10 busines school. With that degree, combined with her background in design, she has made an interesting career that is materially rewarding as well.
Both of my kids’ careers illustrate the value of being multi-talented but also flexible, willing to take some risk, and willing to change jobs to create one’s own career path rather than work one’s way up in a specific bureaucratic hierarchy that may be a dead-end and boring.
(My own career is one in which I definitely have climbed a formal career ladder, but as an academic I’ve had a great deal of autonomy and spend most of my time working on research projects of my own design, funded through external funds [NSF, NIH, etc.] that don’t come from my employer – who, however, pays my salary and rewards me for my teaching, publications, and grant-getting).
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One very practical issue on how a person’s major does have a huge impact on opportunities: outside of the very top elite schools (e.g. the typical public flagship), on-campus recruiting is often restricted by major. Google and Goldman Sachs might come to your campus, but unless you’re an engineering or business major, you can’t even apply for an interview slot (much less get an interview or job).
I went to Illinois and majored in finance (in the business school) and economics (in the liberal arts school) and the difference in on-campus opportunities between those majors was absolutely staggering (despite how a lot of laypeople often see finance and economics majors as largely interchangeable). On-campus recruiting for finance majors was constant and off-the-charts with the volume and variety since it was coordinated by the business school, while it was essentially non-existent for economics majors. I couldn’t even imagine what it would have been like for the English majors and other humanities students. That’s not to say that economics majors couldn’t find jobs, but at our school (and many others with similar profiles), they were largely left to find jobs on their own, whereas the business and engineering programs got jobs brought to them.
This was nearly 20 years ago and, having spent time on the road every year recruiting college students in my profession since that time, the focus on specific majors is actually even more intense. Hiring companies simply don’t have the training programs that they used to have, so they expect new graduates to hit the ground running much more quickly (and that means grads increasingly need defined skills that generally only come from having majored in a specific field). It doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to get a job as a humanities major, but the average college grad certainly has a more direct path to a job when he/she has specific skills that are in demand as opposed to just a generalist position.
Too many people seem to give major choice advice that’s geared toward Ivy/Ivy-level students (who can legitimately major in anything that they want and they’ll be employable because of their school branding), whereas it’s an entirely different world for the vast majority of other students (where lifetime earnings generally depend much more on their major choice than their school ranking).
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I agree that ‘dream jobs’ are overrated and don’t happen much no matter what you love and what you major in – having a job that you can enjoy and get satisfaction out of (which part of is making a decent living for the rest of life’s activities) is a win. Major in what you wish you know, but don’t be shocked when that basic major isn’t lucrative right out of the gate (or in some cases ever)
I don’t know about retirement – I mean I made some moves and shifts in my career over time, and as I got more experienced I was aware of market shifts and worked to keep myself marketable through continuing education and step by step position shifts – started as a finance major upon graduation eventually got my PMP and now I am a Director in a learning and development organization for a huge consulting firm. I went from Finance to Training in steps over time making progress salary wise the whole time.
My wife and I are both retired from engineering jobs. Our two kids are engineers. Engineering is something we all have a passion for, have a good understanding of and feel for. We have done well and are doing well both in job satisfaction and financially.
HOWEVER, if you don’t have a passion for engineering; you won’t do well. It will be a 40 year career of torture. And that is assuming you survive engineering school, which is hard but even harder without a great amount of passion and understanding. And you probably won’t do well financially. Companies all use a pay for performance type of policy and a lack of passion doesn’t translate well into job performance.
Choose a career that you have a passion for and have the understanding of. Whether it is STEM or arts or business, you’ll be happier and do better.
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I believe the true meaning of STEM is a major with math at its core or as a foundation. So econ and statistics are more of a STEM major than bio and chem.
I’ve never heard anything so contrary to the definition of STEM. It includes math, but you know, math isn’t everything.
That “S” is “science” after all.
^^If you talk to anyone in STEM, who isn’t a mathematician, s/he will tell you that math is just a tool.
Funny. Others think that engineering is simply applied mathematics.
And applied maths is for those who need to write things down (or use a computer) so can’t cope with pure math 
Unless pre-professional qualifications are involved, employers are mainly selecting for numeracy. So I’d pick a statistics major over a biology major (all else being equal and assuming it’s not computational Bio) any day of the week. Econ is more case by case, lots of economics students skate by without doing any hard math.
Math requirements for economics majors vary considerably. For example, an economics major at Penn State or Florida State may not have taken calculus, but one at UC Santa Cruz had to take some multivariable calculus.
But those who want to go to PhD study in economics need a lot more math.
Little pet peeve of mine:
LACs have nothing to do with your point. They all offer STEM majors.
Universities offer humanities majors.