Colleges, STEM, humanities...

Parents Forum
1

This resulted from me starting to post a reply to the STEM vs liberal arts thread and as I put my thoughts down I realized I needed to start a new thread instead to discuss what had been slowly coalescing in my mind over the past year.

So, my first degree was in Engineering, and the next 2 in business management and investment management. I never worked in the STEM world, and instead went straight to wall street. You know why that happened to me? I was great in math and sciences in high school so engineering seemed like the logical choice for a 17.5 year old entering college. But by the time I got to be aware of what I liked - I was already midway down the engineering path so I told myself you might as well complete this and then change your field to something else after graduation.

Having a STEM degree absolutely helped me succeed in the narrow field of finance but of course, I now wish I had had more exposure to topics that I now find to be relevant. As my daughter gets ready to embark on a college education, I have become increasingly critical of the educational system as I observe it from a different perspective.

I now strongly believe that a K-8+4yr HS+4yr College model is too inflexible and wrong. We are creating a system that is neither addressing the way the world is changing nor are we imparting adequate STEM tools to those who choose to focus on humanities nor enough critical thinking tools to the STEM majors.

The fact is that this system generates college freshmen who are neither aware of what they want to do in life, or would be best suited for nor are they even aware of the world of possibilities. We spend too much time on repetitive learning instead of broadening the horizons of the students. There is a reason a large majority of kids change their majors.

I believe we should have an 8+2+2+2+2+2 system - the last extra 2 only for professional degrees.

a. K-8 would be standard.
b. Grades 9-10 should be focused on traditional humanities, history, english, math, integrated sciences, 2nd language, visual art or dramatics etc etc.
c. Grades 11-12 should be just communication, creative writing, critical thinking, philosophy plus heavy workload core courses in whichever fields interest you - economics, psychology, math, physics, chemistry, biology, history, humanities electives and so on.
d. The next 2 years (13-14) should be in junior college likely continuing on what path you chose during grades 11-12 and further specializing or broadening the scope of knowledge. I am kind of recommending a community college type first 2 years of college for all.
e. Years 15-16 should be then about either finishing up your education in senior college if you were a traditional non-professional major (non Engineering / Medicine / Law / Business) or would be the 1st stage of embarking on a full fledged professional degree.
f. Year 17-18 would then be about the final 2 years of your professional major.

I believe engineers graduate too early from college having not acquired enough communication, critical philosophical thinking skills. I also believe that you should not have to spend 4 years in undergraduate college before enrolling for a law/medical degree. It is a waste of 2 years. So in this system you would graduate with a B.A. in Psychology in 8 years after 8th grade, or a law/medicine/engineering degree 10 years after 8th grade.

At every stage in this +2 method, you would get a diploma and then decide if that is enough for you or do you want to invest another 2 years. This should reduce dropouts (2 years to the next goalpost, not 4), give everyone a path to carefully planning their future and adjust it as they go along and match us with the realities of the world we live in.

This debate of funding STEM at the cost of non STEM majors is too simplistic. We certainly need more STEM graduates but well-rounded ones please. I have seen both worlds and understand the both points being debated have merit.

Thoughts?

2

I’m not sure I understand… for example – “b” – two years to cover math, sciences, history? You mean like all of it? in just 2 years?

3

No, just a concentrated base version. You should be able to decide if you wish to study more math in c.

4

Well, there’s a debate going on right now in civil engineering over whether Professional Engineering licensure should require a master’s or the effective equivalent (it doesn’t now), and so if that goes through we might indirectly get part of what you’re after.

5

Funny. You think STEM majors aren’t being taught enough critical thinking, yet on another thread many parents are up in arms because STEM professors are asking their students to solve problems that may not be identical to problems they have seen before.

I do agree that it’s odd to offer so little breadth in high school. Most of the college majors aren’t represented in the high school curriculum. I would love to see the excessive focus on literary analysis year after year replaced by much broader reading and writing drawn from a number of disciplines.

6

@dfbdfb interesting! that would make a lot more sense for sure. i don’t think just a bachelor’s in engineering should be enough. also i believe an engineering curriculum should have more internships/real world experience than it currently does. it is still not interactive enough.

7

@mathyone I completely agree with your comments. high school has to prepare kids for college. and there are many majors kids know nothing about so how can they choose their majors effectively? thats why so many kids switch majors

lol, yeah i don’t know why there is so much resistance to making kids more critical thinkers. i think most engineering parents just want to push their kids through the system faster so do not recognize the value of being more mature. i wish i could have spent 2 years studying other topics to make myself a more rounded person than I was when I suddenly was told i had already graduated.

8

Wouldn’t such increasing educational requirements for professional credentials desired in the job market be part of the reason why college costs are increasing (by increasing the demand for college education)? Also, the extra cost of additional years of education may reduce access to such professions by students from lower income families.

Other credentials have raised educational requirements over the years:

  • Medicine: used to require only two years of college, now requires a bachelor's degree before medical school (except for a few special accelerated programs).
  • Law: used to not require any undergraduate education.
  • Accounting: recently increased the college credit requirements to five years' worth for CPA licensing.
  • Occupational therapy: recently changed from bachelor's to master's degree minimum.
  • Nursing: employers have increasingly favored those with bachelor's degrees over associates degrees.

That is not unique to engineering majors (and many H/SS majors graduate rather deficient in logical, mathematical, and statistical reasoning). Perhaps you would want colleges to follow the lead of those like MIT and Harvey Mudd in having more general education requirements in H/SS (as well as math and science) for all students than colleges typically require? (Of course, this means that “open curriculum” would be undesirable, though ABET currently will not accredit an engineering bachelor’s degree program without some H/SS requirements.)

9

Regarding the lack of basic math skills in many non-STEM majors or critical thinking skills in general, a large part of that IMO is due to the poor coverage of foundation skills and not much emphasis of the latter in most K-8 environments.

In fact, far too many K-8 environments/teachers/admins regard students who are proficient or trying to practice critical thinking skills in class tend to be regarded as “troublemakers”.

Changing around how we structure post-8th grade education while leaving K-8 unchanged won’t really change much IMO.

My engineering relatives who have been following such debates are wary of that as they fear it will add more financial burdens on families, unnecessarily delay students’ entry into their first job in the field, and further promote what they feel is rampant credential inflation in many fields.

And nearly all of them have gone on to get graduate degrees in engineering and/or other fields. They are of the opinion the BS degree should be enough to be allowed to take the first part of the professional engineer licensing exam*.

I agree with their views that a much better coverage of foundational skills and critical thinking and a reduction in redundant and time-consuming repetition of material already covered in K-8 and to a lesser extent, high school would be a far better solution to this issue.

  • Second part is usually taken after passing the first part and gaining relevant work experience in the engineering field in question.
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@ucbalumnus yes agreed, from my own experience i would like the engineering programs to have more HSS content. it is important for kids not to be just engineering and math whiz kids but to have a broader world view as well. and similarly it is important to have some incremental STEM exposure in the humanities majors as well.

on your 2nd point, i think there is no reason to require more than 2 years of regular college to apply for a medical or law degree but engineering grads have much lesser grounding in the liberal arts than appropriate. 2 years should be enough for all such professional degrees. again i am not any kind of expert but this is only based on my own experiences and observations.

11

Engineering bachelor’s degrees do have substantial liberal arts: 25% in math and science, plus whatever H/SS is required by the school (about 25% for schools like MIT and Harvey Mudd, 22.5-30% for CSUs, but only around 13% for Brown – probably most others are in-between). Since engineering majors at MIT, Harvey Mudd, and CSUs are able to fit full engineering majors into four academic years’ worth of schedule space with all of those H/SS requirements, perhaps you may want to lobby ABET to increase the minimum H/SS content to something closer to the MIT, Harvey Mudd, or CSU level (which would bring total liberal arts to around 50%), rather than force aspiring engineers to take two extra years (like your proposal in the first post) if increased H/SS content is what you want.

12

One other place where there has been credential inflation over the years: the expectation of or preference for a bachelor’s degree for many jobs where (a) the job is not associated with knowledge, skills, and practice taught in college (usually some type of major), and (b) the job does not require the higher level of generalized thinking skill that a bachelor’s degree (in anything) is supposed to indicate. I.e. jobs which in the past may have only asked for applicants to have a high school diploma now ask for applicants to have a bachelor’s degree.

13

I think the current system, though it doesn’t serve all equally as well (what does?), is quite good and preferable to the European and Asian systems I’m familiar with. This is plenty of time to get a well rounded education. It does allow those young adults who need it plenty of time to choose a major and thus a general (specific sometimes) career path. Many change their minds, which is fine from my point of view. But I agree that trying on too many options is too expensive for most.

This could be remedied in most cases by offering competent career guidance in high school and college. This is a weakness in our system. High schools need to be given a budget for more highly trained counselors. Pay them a decent salary. Given how quickly technology and globalization are / have been changing the job market, it’s difficult for parents and teachers to stay on top of the market shifts and act as competent advisers. Young people often don’t have enough perspective to make good choices. That’s where a highly competent counselor comes in.

I do agree that critical (and creative) thinking skill are not being taught well in many schools. Teaching these skills seems often at odds with the role of teachers to convey cultural norms. Teacher training should be enhanced and of a universal standard, but there are too many obstacles here.

My bias is toward more education not less, a belief that a better educated citizenry would more thoughtful participation in community and political life, and thus lead to a more democratic society. Off topic, but of compelling importance.

14

The East Asian systems was modeled much more on the European systems which emphasizes greater specialization at the undergrad level(taking most/all courses in one’s major in ways which places it closer to a US standalone Masters than a US bachelor’s degree.

US undergrad distribution/Gen Ed requirements partially originated as a result of uneven and weak K-12 college prep education available in the US in comparison with what was available for college aspirants in Europe.

In Europe, such requirements were supposed to be covered sometime during one’s pre-college education…especially in the last few years of high school or sometimes even in middle school as some European systems expect some specialization in college prep oriented high school*. That’s one reason why most European and Asian systems don’t have gen-ed/distribution requirements for undergrads.

Like those European systems, the Asian system also emulated the heavy tracking of students which meant only students who were deemed to be the top portion of students by teacher/admin evaluation and/or exams at the end of middle school continued onto the academic-track for those aspiring to academic universities whereas the rest of the students were placed into various vocational high schools at various levels, apprenticeships, or even expected to leave school to enter the workforce.

  • Germany's gymnasiums which specialize in humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and were regarded by some US WWII military reports and educational writers as the equivalent to US college-prep high schools and first-2 years at an academically respectable/elite US 4-year college.
15

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1863950-nyt-subsidize-stem-and-defund-liberal-arts-p1.html

This is a related discussion going on currently.

16

Incidentally, the uneven quality of K-12 education in 19th century America was also a reason why West Point briefly made their entire program 5 years instead of 4. The extra year was meant to provide intensive remediation for cadets whose academic preparation was deemed inadequate as raising admission standards was felt by many politicians and corners of early-mid 19th century US society as “too elitist”.

Another purpose of the 5th year was to add time for more instruction in subjects we’d view as “gen-eds” today as some concerned critics of the time felt its academic curriculum emphasized STEM far too much at the expense of the humanities. The 5-year curriculum was implemented for less than 10 years and was eliminated by the time the Civil War started in 1861.

Source “The Best School: West Point 1833-1866” by James L. Morrison

17

It’s my understanding based on conversations with my UK friends and my own research that the European education system also channels many students into vocational pathways early in their teen years, forcing choices too soon for many. I’m in favor of both allowing students more time to choose career paths and enhancing our current systems to produce more inquisitive minds and critical thinkers. In addition, high school students must receive competent college and career counseling. What else can be done realistically? Even this seems like pie in the sky, particularly for the poorer states.

18

Your proposed system is not any different that what currently exists. There are many electives available to today’s HS students. The exception is that you propose the best students dumb down and attend a junior college instead of starting at the major U they will finish at. There are breadth requirements for engineering students plus all students need to meet competency reqs at some schools. I think a better approach would be to require mastering those writing critical thinking skills and the problem solving critical thinking skills by all students.

Medical students can still enter after 3 years of undergraduate study- many 7 year BS/MD programs exist for some students.

Breadth requirements cover the need for students to go beyond the major.

19

The critical thinking cannot be developed without developing the analytical skills. The analytical skills are developed by one subject - MATH. However, his subject is not taught correctly in the US k - 12. I say, forget humanities vs STEM, it all does not make sense as something like History cannot be absorbed correctly without well developed analytical skills…and it is not understood by the most,…most could see any connections, because they cannot think in “if, then, else” terms, and thinking this way is all it takes, not more, not less. The only class that is teaching thinking this way is MATH.

20

Excuse me, but the discipline of philosophy* is on the phone and wants to have a word with you.

  • Among others, really.