“But CYA.”
@MaterS, engineers with soft skills don’t tend to stay only as engineers their whole life.
Here’s my take:
If you make it through engineering, CS, or a quantitative field in a good school, being average in your class still sets you up well for a good job and career.
If you’re majoring in humanities/social sciences/sciences, being top 10% should be set you up well. Earlier years may be a struggle but the skills you learned will likely be useful later in your career.
If you’re studying arts (outside of several pre-professional majors like industrial design and other design fields, where being top 10% is fine), being even top 1% may not be enough, life may be unstable, and you probably need a decent amount of luck (but as many of these are winner-take-all fields, there would be a few who really make it big).
If you’re top 10% in 2 or more aspects (quantitative/soft skills/writing/artistic/street smarts/etc.) and have a decent amount of drive, the world’s your oyster.
(just to be clear, I, um, make zero money writing poetry, haha)
This I agree with but people can take programming classes to enhance their marketable skill sets. Even if they never code a day in their professional lives, just having it on their resume at the start of their career would be a plus.
I’m sure you meant to put “to me” before the comma. :-?
Of course, don’t the above scenarios assume that the graduate is chasing jobs and careers directly related to his/her major?
Many graduates in these majors look elsewhere (e.g. general “business” jobs), since (particularly with winner-take-all arts) there may not be much in the way of directly related job prospects for most. In that case, wouldn’t drive and being able to apply knowledge and skills learned in school to things that one may not have initially thought about while in school be important factors in whether the graduate will be successful?
Just so you know you are not alone…
My daughter wants to study Econ and Poly Sci. Her first choice schools are Wellesley and Barnard.
My husband wants her to do STEM - preferably Engineering. He also thinks that women in the tech fields are ideally placed to rise quickly (as he is under pressure to hire and promote women rapidly.)
It has been very challenging to balance everyone’s hopes, dreams, plans.
There are cultural issues as well in that certain groups are more disposed to focus on the “what will pay the most” and other groups that are more “follow your passion.”
This will be a balancing trick for sure. In the end, when you are an adult you will be able to drive your own choices.
Best of luck!
There have been a lot of good insights for OP and her family to consider. Since she says she still has another year until college, it may be that the college she intends to go to may not be a ‘sure thing’. It is very good to do a lot of career exploration and soul searching.
H and I prepared and supported our DDs to apply themselves well all the way through grade 12, and assisted them in the college testing and selection process - which included the financial constraints they had (cost/benefit on attending various schools, but both were happy with in-state schools that were a great match for their majors and wonderful scholarships, and finishing UG degrees w/o debt). Important for them to be able to be self supporting with UG degree, although both will probably seek out and complete graduate degrees - one will finish a graduate degree under a program at her current school, the other will probably continue a graduate degree in her field after a school break and working FT - is currently on a mission trip.
If student’s HS offers a personal financial management course, it is helpful to see how to live on a budget and income/expense understanding. DD1 understood these concepts, is pretty frugal. DD2 took the one semester course at her HS - I didn’t realize it was Dave Ramsey’s course until DD brought home her work book (a friend highly recommended it as his DD gained an adult perspective on the big picture).
Certainly parents have their S/D best interests at heart - and for some, there is a process of ‘letting go’ as the student matures and is faced with some major decisions. A decision on a college, a major, a career path - all of it is win/win with the right attitude and flexibility to adapt to the situations and the student’s perspective.
Wellesley allows cross registration with Babson College, a well respected college specializing in business. I would major in Econ and IR at Wellesley but also, if feasible, take Babson courses to get specific skills or knowledge (e.g. Marketing, Finance, even Accounting). It’s not the same as majoring in engineering but engineering doesn’t sound like a compatible discipline. This approach may satisfy your father.
Oh yeah, Wellesley also has cross-registration with Olin, which is a tiny tech school.
“CS without having a fondness for math is very limiting.” - Disagree 100%. Maybe others have to use lots of math writing their programs. I did not have to in any single of mine and I cannot even imagine how many I wrote, debgged and modified in my almost 35 years in IT / IS or whatever other names of these departments are used this days. After 9 places of employment in industries that have no relations to each other, on several computer platforms, working with different languages and various computer software and having to learn anew at each place, there was no single instance of me using math. Oh, I wish, that I could use my favorite school subject! But other than not having math in my life, the CS is still very fascinating and exciting job, the one that it is very hard to retire from…one of the reasons why I am working past my full retirement age even after buying my second (retirement) home. Frankly, the life is pretty boring without playing this game! Nothing else out there is as exciting!
But some math concepts can play in the decision making, understanding efficiencies.
More accurate to say that for CS, logic is important (though math is really just stylized logic with numbers).
In any case, CS =/= programming.
Wellesley also has cross-registration with MIT. Another little tech school. 
Econ from Wellesley IS a practical major.
Well, if CS =/= programming, then, first, I do not know what CS is and second, I was saying that one who does not like math could easily become a computer programmer while the position may be called something else. Most people with CS degree are software developers (programmers), no matter how you cut it. The assumption that I used is that we are discussing the most common job placement with the CS degree. And by far the most common that would outnumber all other positions is the computer programmer (whatever other name is used for the position is not relevant), a.k.a. person who writes new programs, debugs and modifies the existing ones. It is only small part of the job though, I agree with that. First, the developer needs to collect the information from the users of his software in connection to what users are looking for having in the new / updated software. Then he needs to design (or picture in his head) what actually needs to be done and break it into smaller pieces. Then there is testing and approval process after the programs are in place in the test environment. So, the actual coding, I would say, is the smallest part of the whole development.
Lots of excellent advice here. A few more comments.
- A "major" consists of a relatively small subset of all the courses you take in college. So you should use the opportunities outside the major to explore and develop interests. Don't necessarily be too career-centered in this exploration. Take some courses not only for their practical value to your career but because you are intrigued by the subject matter. This is your last best chance to explore for ideas and subjects that might pique your interest. Test the fringes of your intellectual comfort zone.
- The OP may be making some unnecessary choices at this stage. "IR" is a subfield in most "Political Science" majors. But "international STUDIES" is often an interdisciplinary focus that can include history, sociology, language, and other disciplines (geography, anthropology, literature and art, etc.).
- Study abroad for a summer, semester, or year. Start planning on this in your first year. This is not only valuable experience but it's an excellent résumé item.
- Be as "mathy" as you can. For example, within political science, economics, and sociology there are usually some core statistics and research design courses. Don't shy away from them. They provide basic tools or applied skills. This may include computer coding. It could include exposure to something like GIS (geographic information systems), which can be valuable for both international and domestic studies and research.
You might surprise yourself by how interesting it is to do a quantitative analysis of real issues in health policy, education, political conflict and wars, etc. You won’t gain graduate-level skills yet, but having basic ones will open up a range of subjects for further exploration.
@1Wife1Kid - Buy a lot of lottery tickets?
@Pizzagirl - Have you seen Wellesley’s “Wellesley women make great secretaries…” shirts?
Yes; in fact, I had taken a picture of them and put it on my FB last year during D’s graduation weekend.
Unless they love what they do.
What would I do if I win the lottery? Invest the award into more lottery tickets, of course.
Aside, I believe economics and political science are very viable majors. However, I would recommend that the OP doesn’t talk about getting low paid jobs at NGOs with his/her parents, and instead points out the high paying jobs that come from such professions (typically advisory services) even if (s)he doesn’t intend to pursue such jobs. Also, I would recommend that the OP learns as much mathematics as she can. One cannot be a good economist these days without a solid foundation in Analysis.