Discussions regarding choice of undergraduate majors by US students

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I've been having lots of discussion with friends and colleagues regarding choice of US students to not opt for Engineering major. Even though most of the people, I've these discussion with, themselves are successful engineers.
Here is the numbers from Department of Education in 2006. I've not tried to get the latest numbers but some one can post if they have.
I would like to know the CC parent perspective why such is the plight of Engineering undergraduate major in USA? </p>

<p>Business .......................................................... 307,149
Social sciences and history .................................. 150,357
Education .................................................. ....... 106,278
Psychology ....................................................... 82,098
Visual and performing arts ................................... 77,181
Health professions and related clinical sciences ........ 73,934
Communication, journalism, and related programs ... 70,968
Engineering ....................................................... 63,558
Biological and biomedical sciences ......................... 61,509
Computer and information sciences ........................ 59,488
English language and literature/letters .................... 53,984
and humanities ................................................... 42,106
Multi/interdisciplinary studies ................................ 29,162
Security and protective services ............................ 28,175
Agriculture and natural resources ........................... 22,835
Parks, recreation, leisure and fitness studies ............ 22,164
Public administration and social services .................. 20,552
Family and consumer sciences/human sciences ......... 19,172
Physical sciences and science technologies ............... 17,983
Foreign languages, literatures, and linguistics ........... 17,754
Engineering technologies ....................................... 14,669
Mathematics and statistics ..................................... 13,327
Philosophy and religious studies ............................. 11,152
Architecture and related services ............................ 8,838
Theology and religious vocations ............................. 8,126
Area, ethnic, cultural, and gender studies ................. 7,181
Transportation and materials moving ....................... 4,824
Legal professions and studies ................................. 2,841
Communications technologies ................................. 2,034
Library science .................................................... 72
Precision production ............................................. 61
Military technologies ............................................ 10
Not classified by field of study ............................... 0</p>

2

<p>POIV: Are the number of students majoring in engineering declining?</p>

<p>My son is going to be an engineering major. I have a science background and my son’s stepfather is an engineer. His grandfather was a science researcher and academic. I think in my son’s case, his choice was because this is what he grew up seeing adults doing and he has an aptitude for it.</p>

<p>I’ve heard it said that science and math in the general school system do not get the emphasis they should. I have a very skewed perspective, since many of my son’s friends are also going into engineering. From that small sample size I’d say we will have tons of engineers :-)</p>

3

<p>Because the average American student absolutely sucks at math. Way more than many other people.</p>

<p>Hell, when I came to the US for 6th grade I found that they were still teaching the type of math I learned in first grade in China (and the Chinese school was so poor it did not have running water or operating bathrooms, so it wasn’t a school for the elite). And taught it wrong, as well (say what you want about Chinese education, but there is no way a Chinese math teacher will teach the order of operations wrong). I laughed my *** off, promptly stopped studying, and got straight As all the way until high school. And keep in mind my I was in the bottom half of the class in China.</p>

<p>Well, of course this is a gross generalization, but it’s my experience.</p>

4

<p>martina99: Yes, it has been steadily declining. Most of the people who themselves are engineer find their children drifting towards other major. Majority of them list peer pressure at schools/college as the main reason.</p>

5

<p>Hm… overwork (in college), underpay (in real world).</p>

6

<p>Certainly Hillbillie that is also one of the reason brought up by many.
But showing their own status which is mainly due to the engineering career they had you can only say
…overwork (in college), …overwork (in real world), …overpaid (in real world)</p>

<p>Engineering ranks as the top major for average pays; so the question of underpay doesn’t seem like the correct one.</p>

7

<p>Look at how few math majors there are! Yet, math-related jobs were some of the the highest paying. (Actuary, accountants, etc.) And why is that? Because math skills can’t be “fudged” the way some other skills can.</p>

<p>To the OP’s question: why so few engineers? I think because it’s a very demanding major. It takes a lot of commitment and i don’t think kids are ready to give up their college years to be so dedicated and work so hard.</p>

8

<p>For most people its unpleasant and boring.</p>

9

<p>As far as the pay, engineering majors make a lot, engineers don’t necessarily. I can look at the engineering recruitment website and see a large portion of the jobs outside of engineering. A lot of those are the ones which are aiming for the best engineering students (high minimum GPAs) whereas the actual engineering jobs go to the people at the bottom. </p>

<p>How accurate are those numbers? That’s pretty absurdly high for education majors.</p>

10

<p>Unlike the rest of the industrialized word, in the U.S. engineering is not seen as a highly respected profession. For the past thirty years finance and other soft skills have ruled and been rewarded. And we are now just beginning to pay the price for that mindset.</p>

11

<p>QwertyKey: The numbers are from US Department of Education</p>

<p>martina99: Here is the trend information for different majors as per US department of education</p>

<p>[Trends</a> in bachelor’s degrees conferred by degree-granting institutions in selected fields of study: 1996–97, 2001–02, and 2006–07](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d08/figures/fig_15.asp]Trends”>Trends in bachelor’s degrees conferred by degree-granting institutions in selected fields of study: 1996–97, 2001–02, and 2006–07)</p>

12

<p>S1= switched majors from EE to double major in Stats and Econ
husb = chem E unemployed in calif last 5 years</p>

13

<p>Sometime I just get confused. </p>

<p>Is there any thing we use in our daily life that is not manufactured, produced or come to life without engineering?</p>

<p>How can we be the leader in the world without top of the line engineers? Are we going to come up with the new Google, Microsoft or Intel or is it going to come from Europe or Asia?</p>

14

<p>You’re assuming that the US actually has to produce top engineers itself. Why do that when it can just poach top engineers from the rest of the world? The US relies on foreign talent much more than most other countries.</p>

15

<p>Each individual can decide their own path in life. It is not reasonable to think “my country needs engineers so I must step up and help out”.</p>

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<p>At our kids’ HS, math & science is the main focus. Basically, all kids who are good at those fields are ENCOURAGED to strongly consider majoring in engineering, with the idea they COULD always opt out if they later choose to. My S is now graduating in EE; his dad wanted to do it in his day but couldn’t handle the advanced math & physics but has gotten on-the-job training & is supervising engineers & considered one for the most part at this point with 40+ years of experience.</p>

<p>I agree that some of the “soft” fields (finance, business, econ) have been paying better than engineering (especially obscene excessive compensation), so many kids choose to “follow the money” and go into those fields rather than take the tough path of going into engineering. The curriculum is very tightly controlled in engineering, but S has gotten several attractive solid job offers and so far is pleased with his choice of field. Hopefully, he will remain happy in this field.</p>

<p>It is not unreasonable for people to choose fields based on lifestyle as well as interest. Many of the people who go into engineering could well have pursued pretty much any field as many are pretty strong in all fields. At the engineering orientation, we were told that the engineers are the top of the top at the U my S is attending. No question, the workload is very tough and many are weeded out in the process. In addition, many go on to grad degrees, some in engineering, some in medicine, some in business, so they lose even more engineers.</p>

17

<p>I believe that many of the colleges don’t even want more engineering students. The majority of schools, it is the most difficult department to get into. If you have to work extremely hard once you’re in, have the highest grades to get there in the first place–with no particular certainty of getting a high paying job…the only ones left will be the kids who do it because they are highly intrigued with engineering.</p>

18

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<p>You can come up with the idea in one country, design it in another country, engineer it in a third country, prototype it in a fifth country, validate it in a sixth country and manufacturer in a seventh country and sell it globally through sales people with engineering backgrounds…you get the idea. Manufacturing is extremely diverse in many ways of which one small component is ‘where’ the actual work for each step of the process is executed. It’s a fine profession, everyone in my family (except for me) is an engineer but fortunately if the statistics above are even close to accurate kids choose all kinds of areas to major in which is a good thing. Great ideas that grow to the next great thing don’t necessarily come just from engineering…the next great idea can spring from anyone with any background.</p>

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<p>I know a fair number of engineers. All have very high paying jobs now (not millionaires, but are affluent and don’t qualify for financial aid for their college-age kids). </p>

<p>Of course, most of them aren’t doing engineering anymore, as their careers evolved over 30 years.</p>

<p>My general impression are that engineers are well-respected and well-paid. But becoming an engineer is very difficult. To get a bachelor of science, students have a very prescribed courseload – two to four classes each semester are mandatory. This leaves little room to take classes in other disciplines, like languages, social sciences, humanities. Not many students are willing to give up practically every other subject. If a school has a core curriculum or distribution requirements, this may mean that a student can take very few electives.</p>

<p>Where I went to school, and I believe at other schools, too, engineering classes grade on a curve. The teacher determines ahead of time that x% of the class is getting an A and x% is getting a B, and so on. And the curve is pretty strict. So grades for engineers are pretty low. This can be discouraging for many students, (especially today, considering grade inflation at high schools).</p>

<p>And I don’t think it’s true that colleges don’t want engineering majors. It certainly isn’t the case at Brown. Problem is that the courses are so tough, admissions wants to make sure that only students who can handle the work are accepted. </p>

<p>Back to the original post – I look at that list, and see 63,000 engineers. Add in computer science, physical science and science technologies and engineering technologies and the number jumps to 155,698 – second on the list. Seems to me like your data does not support your hypothesis.</p>