The double major question is a gray area IMO. I’m some disciplines, double majoring can dilute the depth of the classes for primary major. As most things in life, it depends on the major and also the school.
there a ton of pathways to plan happiness and success and everyone defines that differently.
I was always amazed by my kid’s friends and their individual talents. Everyone has unique gifts. Finding and nurturing that is important.
Actually the hours can be long regardless of your interest in a field, and at some point long hours and interest may not compensate, for example, for time spent away from family.
Definitely. Travel and time spent working factored into many decisions we’ve made as parents. International travel or even extensive weekly travel can be a real burden with a family. So can excessive work hours, even if done for high pay. I think many people switch jobs/careers to accommodate their families.
I did not mean that you should not have a broad education. I am keen my kids touch many different areas during the four years. Whether you have something called a double major or not on your resume matters little. In fact double majoring reduces the room you have to take a really broad spectrum of courses.
I think your perceptions tend to be narrow in the sense of not valuing other versions and experiences. My own life disproves your theory. In addition, how could a double major not be applicable in certain fields? Most STEM companies cross fields.
I have seen others who are in engineering ( mostly) or a particular field (usually STEM) undervalue other degrees. They believe that one field alone is where all the smart people go. It’s never been the case. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Coming from a family where most of our income has come from STEM and having owned multiple businesses ( STEM and non-STEM), I understand the challenges and staffing involved. Intelligence, high income, and personal success in a career is not limited to any one field. Nor are the best workers in a society. Our arts side of the family is doing quite well too.
As for resumes, I am often looking for the intersection of what a person has done. Why did they take that path is applicable. I’m not sure where you ever got the idea that a double major matters little. To business owners, it matters a lot. Especially if the education is a fit.
I encourage the kids to be very broadly educated. I was thrilled when my son told me that he got into a 10 person creative writing class with Joyce Carol Oates, or that he got into a grad seminar with Peter Singer. I also want him to pick one or two courses in genetics before he leaves college. Or do a quantum mech course. Or courses on political philosophy, or Chinese politics. He did a music theory class freshman fall. He has enough material to get a second major in Math. Princeton doesn’t offer a double major. Nobody cares.
The jobs and internships he gets are not based on all what you put on your resume. It really depends on the job and company as to what they care to look at.
The thread has moved on a bit before I could respond, but I had some thoughts on the topic of whether posters are “devaluing” certain things or merely expressing their own opinions.
• We tend not to see anything objectionable in the posts we agree with.
• We’re all speaking fairly casually, and this thread moves rapidly. We mostly don’t take the time to write out all the exceptions, nuances, other sides to our opinions in every single post. That is to be expected in a forum like this, but can give the impression that we have a limited view.
• It is difficult to read “tone of voice” in these sorts of discussions. A poster may feel dispassionate and impartial about a subject, but a post can come across as disparaging or one-sided to some, for any number of reasons.
• Last but not least, very early on in this thread it was stated flat out that any student without wealthy parents must be pre-professional in college. That post got a lot of “likes”, which I interpreted to mean many agreed with that sentiment. This was more than expressing an opinion about their own family and priorities; it was telling the majority of this country what they are supposed to do. Perhaps the wording was hyperbole, but for me at least it rankled, and perhaps colored the way I’ve reacted throughout this thread. I suspect I’m not the only one.
Agree. I find many folks on CC to believe there’s only one path. Often there’s an overemphasis on STEM. But, it’s definitely not the case with all. And agree calling out specific ways of thinking, likely won’t change it. Kids are going to follow their own paths. Some will be influenced by parents perceptions, some won’t.
I honestly think that having an open mind about some of these observations is helpful. IF I can learn something new from someone and pass it on to my kids great.
Not at all. But I have spent five years telling my son to “please don’t ignore money”. You need more of it than you think you do. At 14, 16, or even 18, my kids don’t fully grasp what their life style costs. Part of the reason may just be that they live very frugally.
My advice is finding something you like to do and make a lot of money, might as well kill two birds with one stone. Sorry, it’s a joke, I never said anything like that.
This is one aspect of my engineering job that I liked, no traveling, my husband barely travelled in his career either, maybe one week a quarter at most.
In-depth specialization doesn’t mean a student has to give up the breadth of her/his college education. High degree of specialization in many highly specialized areas is often very difficult to achieve post college. On the other hand, breadth gives the student the ability to adapt, or even reinvent her-/himself.
Double majoring may not be beneficial in some circumstances:
I’ve done that and I strongly suggest my kids do the same. My kids also have mentioned the number of hours each of us work as a possible factor in future job choice.
Wouldn’t almost every student need to have some pre-professional considerations, since they need to launch a career after graduation?
This does not necessarily require an explicitly pre-professional major unless the desired career path (or backup career path) requires it.
The courses that they take in college don’t have to be academic to be helpful. I encouraged my daughter to apply to RA, Residential Advisor, but in order for her to be picked she had to take a course, even though she didn’t get picked, but she learned a lot of useful skills, like conflict resolution strategy, very useful in many things in her life, I can see that when she talks to her younger sister, I can see when her business partner messed up, she turns out to be the kind of person people like to work and deal with.
Count me in the group that doesn’t care at all what other people’s kids major in except to demand they are able to service any taxpayer-funded debt when due, or ideally not incur such debt to begin with.
Fair enough in general. Re my comment, subsequent posts by that same poster, as well as their reaction to other posts, made it clear they were referring to majors.
Agree generally with your observations on the nature of the posts on this thread and people’s reactions. I do think though that the vast majority of posters are advocating informed decisions by students as they choose majors and consider various career paths. Questions of both practicality (compensation, career prospects, etc…) and personal career satisfaction and lifestyle must all be considered. Some posters emphasize one side of the formula, especially in response to a post of another poster that emphasizes the other side. Both perspectives are valuable. It’s not either/or, but individual preferences on what they value, which is the way it should be as long as the decision is informed.
A separate question is the role of the parents as their kids make these decisions, which shows different philosophies in parenting and probably differences in parental circumstances and experiences.
Shawbridge, I’ve noticed this phenomena as well. It’s truly tragic, and honestly should be a crime… letting FGLI students major in the humanities (or life sciences without grades high enough for medical school) seems almost criminal to me. These FGLI students will do things like TFA if they’re lucky (or end up in retail/low wage work most likely) and struggle to pay the bills and build intergenerational wealth (which IMO is the whole point of attending an elite college if you’re FGLI). I remember reading this article about an FGLI Dartmouth alum who majored in Romance Languages and ended up in a homeless shelter after graduation because she couldn’t find a high-paying job:
What strikes me about this article is that the FGLI Dartmouth student attended Tuck Bridge (a business training program for liberal arts majors) after graduation, but still couldn’t get a job after graduation. Just getting into these elite schools is nowhere NEAR enough to earn a living. Students now must plan and prepare aggressively, majoring in lucrative subjects and filling their electives with quantitative-heavy courses while actively searching for internships every summer and joining pre-professional clubs (if students don’t plan on attending law school or med school after graduation). It’s a whole different world.
Sad to think how the woman in this article would’ve been much better off going to a community college and majoring in nursing.
This is very true. By the time my kids are ready for college, they’re ready to make their own path. We raised them to be very independent and while they take our advice in stride, they also have their own opinions and desires.
We’d never chose classes for our kids or get them internships. But we’d definitely add input in terms of the benefits and costs of different approaches. They are expected to make their way in the world knowing we are there to help them but not support them as adults.
I was surprised how independent my kids were at a pretty early age. I’m not sure I could change their life path even if I wanted to. And when they get together with friends, those kids are also forces of nature. They all have dreams, desires and destinations. In some cases, parents have thwarted those plans or pushed them down another path. The kids have a plan B in those cases. Kids who weren’t allowed to chose their major or college because the parent was instrumental have a plan to graduate then do something else. Means to an end type of thing. The parent is paying for the education so kid has to follow. But plan is once they graduate to move far away, get an advanced degree in something else etc.