Purdue does this, at least in engineering. Every year students are required to take an engineering seminar class where they bring in folks. They also have industry leaders and field trips in their first year design class.
FWIW, my D had that in HS as well in her pre-engineering classes. They tackled a different discipline of engineering every month.
I agree that should be more universal.
Arguably less necessary in engineering :-). More necessary for history / psychology and other majors that don’t have professions tightly tied up with them.
My daughter went to a theater camp for 8 summers growing up. She is invited as a guest speaker this summer with the campers about her career. She has purposely chosen to invite two other alums/friends from camp to join her because she wants the teens to understand that there are many pathways they can pursue. One of the alums/friends is on Broadway. The other teaches preschool and incorporates music a great deal and created her own singer/songwriter album, and produces a major event each year in NYC involving performing artists of renown around advocacy and civil rights. She wants these theater enthusiastic youth to see that pursuing this field in college can lead to many different careers.
This quote probably sums up my philosophy better than anything I’ve said.
Some of us are more comfortable with anecdata because it’s sufficiently extensive (in numbers, time and variety), and fits in with what seems appropriate for our particular kids. And some of us have the information and resources to help our kids maximize success with a college major that the data alone would indicate is higher risk.
Others will be more comfortable focusing on data and trends, and whatever else fits their priorities. Presumably they too are doing what seems appropriate for their particular kids.
Oh, I realized that. My D’s childhood friend majored in music production. She had already had some success as a singer and singer/songwriter. My understanding is that after college graduation she managed a recording studio. She got to know a lot of stars and other people in the music business by doing that and was able to segue into the movie and TV business that way.
Do you know of wealthy parents who helped their (biology major) kids get internships and jobs, or were you using biology as a generic example? What kinds of jobs? I am just curious.
We are not wealthy, my kids attended state schools, and my daughter got her own research position, internships, biology related jobs, etc.
Furthermore, sometimes when data is thrown around and generalizations made, it feels a bit like reading a parenting book that explains the science of getting an infant to sleep through the night or tips for making a preschooler into a more adventurous eater or whatever. Great, except in the moment that you’re consulting the book, you’re not parenting the typical kid or even your kid’s older sibling (for those of us who have had more than one kid). Instead, you are parenting your particular kid in all their particular quirks (or talents or tantrums). At least for me, at those moments, it made me kind of want to tear my hair out to listen to advice aimed at the average parent and the typical kid. It seemed like a pointless exercise to try to guide my individual kid based on the outcomes of the average kid.
I’m not trying to argue that my kids are unique and that trends don’t apply to them at all. Mine aren’t special snowflakes or unicorns. At the same time, for me at least, if I assumed the “trends” would apply to my children, their lives would be very circumscribed indeed. Much ink has been spilled about the trends that face low and middle income brown children and a lot of armchair sociologists like to discuss their prospects in fairly bleak terms. To embrace the data would not help my children and it would lead to a narrow view of their futures.
Instead, I refuse to clip my children’s wings before they’ve even had a chance to try spreading them. Ugh I keep choosing the corniest and most clichéd metaphors 
. My point is that I am uncomfortable with the idea that the education should be designed merely to train a workforce based on data tables of salaries and outcomes… Nor do I believe that only rich children should be afforded the privilege to pursue the subjects that they enjoy or delight in intellectual and artistic enterprises.
Obviously my kids may (or may not) eventually have to compromise on their chosen subjects in order to be practical but that is not a decision that I am willing to make for them in advance of their adulthood. They have plenty of time. I don’t see the downside to allowing them to choose for themselves. It is not my job to protect them from every career risk that they might face in their adult lives before they even get started.
I just want to say I have really enjoyed your eloquent and insightful posts. They’ve definitely contributed to broadening my perspective (even though we appear to be on the same page about a lot of things). Thank you.
In theory, more information improves accuracy. If you know typical outcomes for students in your major, that’s going to me more accurate for students as a whole. If you know typical outcomes for persons in your major at your specific college, that’s likely to be even more accurate than your major as a whole. If you know typical outcomes for persons in your major at your specific college who have similar career goals and apply to similar types of companies in similar regions and have similar employment/skills/stats/… (and have adequate sample size) , accuracy further improves. The more you can isolate to your specific situation, the better.
However, it’s been my experience, that many instead focus on anecdotal examples or specific subsets that are not appropriate for their situation… Some examples I see regularly on the forum are similar to below:
Most of the people I know who are working in music/art/biology/… seem to be doing well, so I’ll probably have similar results. (biased sample, you don’t see the ones who quit the field because they were not financially successful)
I have 2 friends who majored in x that are a lot like me, and both of them are doing well, so I will probably also do well (too small sample size to draw that conclusion)
The top end of the salary range is $x, so I can make $x with the major… I know many/most in the field struggle, but I’m different and will be successful. (the few persons at the top end of outcomes likely had something unique that relates to why their outcome is so much better than typical, most people don’t have that unique combination of factors)
I know lucrative job(s) that hires students from major x, so students in major x can expect a high salary (only a small portion of students from that major are often eligible for such jobs, students with other majors/background/skills may be favored, there may be little overlap in interest)
Thanks, that is very kind. You say eloquent and insightful… my eye-rolling teens say long-winded and “cringey.”
I think that I’ll just go with your review! 
You do write about the push and pull factors well. On one hand this, and the other hand that.
Yes. I don’t know them “well well” so I will say that if one donates to a major lab, is it so wrong to get a lab internship out of it?
I guess if parents donate to major labs, they may expect their kids to get internships or research positions there.
Students/recent grads can get these positions without their parents making large donations.
I have many friends and acquaintances in academia, and I have never heard of anyone getting internships via that route (give a donation, secure a spot for the kid). Normal networking - yes, happens all the time.
However, be careful of:
Embracing the data does not mean preventing your kids from going into a particular direction. But it can make your kids more fully informed about the choices they have in front of them.
True, but on the positive side employers are less holistic than selective colleges, meaning that any biases they have (such as seeking to increase women in underrepresented fields) are pretty transparent and readily understood.
I haven’t noticed that being stated here. Speaking for myself, I’d be the first to share with an aspirant to a highly competitive field what the odds are and that it is highly competitive! I just would not stop my kid or any kid from going into it, unless I truly believed they were completely unsuited, unqualified, or uncompetitive for it, similarly to how I’d advise someone seeking a highly competitive college.
Huh?
Employers for the desirable jobs talked about here in this thread generally are more holistic, more subjective, and less transparent to applicants in hiring than colleges are to their undergraduate applicants.
The cost to most employers of hiring a merely average applicant for a job that requires a high performer because that applicant checks certain boxes is much greater than the cost to a selective college of admitting certain applicants because they check those boxes. Interview results may still be subjective, but that’s because employers care about the interview and selective US colleges don’t.
More “average” students still graduate and may make the college more attractive to top applicants seeking diversity or a good sports team, or to a college president seeking donations or to hire faculty who want admissions advantages for their kids.
In a work setting top performers rarely benefit by having to cover for low performing team members, and in most such employers they much prefer to work with other stars.
Not in our experience for jobs in CS or finance. It’s pretty easy to predict who is getting called for interviews based upon GPA, classes taken, and prior internships. And if your college is a target for the company, then you have lots of help on how to do well on the interviews from upperclassmen and alumni.