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<p>Yeah, true, I wanted someone to do market research in Russia, a couple of liberal arts Russian & economics majors applied. But then a mechanical engineer applied too, so I hired him.</p>
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<p>But I mean aren’t those highly specialized? The reason we have so few of them is to keep their quality of work higher. We don’t necessarily need more of them.</p>
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<p>You don’t think college students are willing to take a 10k hit on their starting salary in order to have a more free, enjoyable time in college? Obviously there must be some demand for liberal arts and business majors, since the discrepancy isn’t THAT high.</p>
<p>This thread is one big laughing-stock joke.</p>
<p>I only feel sorry for any kids here getting scared into doing engineering degrees with no interest whatsoever in engineering.</p>
<p>Look, the only skillset a nursing degree gives you are SKILLS FOR NURSING. If you don’t want to do nursing for a career, DON’T do that degree.</p>
<p>Ditto for an engineering degree. Oooh, math-y type skills - those are valuable right?. The same can be said of chemistry, physics, economics, business, and math degrees.</p>
<p>Roger Dooley said he felt engineering degrees were more “rigorous.” That is the sad stereotype that is probably pervasive among many employers, sadly.</p>
<p>Guess what - I’m a double major in social sciences and <em>I</em> took differential equations and multivariable calculus (they were not required for my major). I aced both of them - one of the top grades in the class while everyone else - presumably S/E people - were struggling mightily. Will employers care? No. That’s okay - they’ll only hurt themseles by not taking the brightest people.</p>
<p>The people merely thinkin about $$$ — you will not get far in this life. Sure, its fine to consider it - but if that’s your Opus, your primary goal - you won’t get as far as people who love what they do. I remember a study (that I am too lazy to link right now) - that followed people’s career and life trajectories - like 1000 people, from graduation. They asked them if money was their primary motivator, or something else, excited about something else, etc. I think 70% of the sample were following paths primarily motivated by money. 20-30 years later, they looked at the sample’s incomes. Something insanely high, like over 90% of the millionaires in the group (which was 13 of the 1000 I believe), were the non-money focused people.</p>
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<p>I’ve also talked to a psychologist about a few things once (a professor, not in therapy, lol) — and he’s had several older patients come to him for help before - people with end-of-life issue.</p>
<p>And he told me, you know what, of the regrets and problems, not one of these patients has ever regretted not having that BMW, or not making more money, or not spending more hours at work, behind that desk. In fact, many regretted spending 40-50 years doing meaningless work for, for what? For no real reward in their eyes.</p>
<p>Tell Mark Twain to get a degree in engineering. Tell Einstein he should have got a degree in engineering.</p>
<p>Speaking of which, there’s something you can’t do with an engineering degree. You can’t become a psychologist. pHD programs require a BA in psychology. Door closed. Also, you can’t work in computer science without a comp sci degree.</p>
<p>You CAN become a mindless engineer doing rote work, however, never to rise above management, until 20 years down the road you’re already considered ancient and some other young guy takes your work and puts you out of your misery.</p>
<p>But really, just do what you want and stop advising others what to major in.</p>
<p>By the way, I have a couple friends - one is going to work for Bain, the other McKinsey, top consulting firms. They are the only ones I know who got job offers there, out of hundreds from my school. They are both econ majors.</p>
<p>I honestly do not see a major issue with the idea of tax credit funded towards medicine, the sciences, and engineering.</p>
<p>You say it would drive away students that belong in the liberal arts. I saw an article not too long ago that suggested that for some students - college isn’t even the right option. Coming out with approx. 200,000 dollars in payments and student loans to study English at a private university doesn’t make financial sense. The student - in addition to having saved the majority of that kind of money, could have had some sort of vocational training that could have put them in the workforce earning a good job already. Unknown to most, the middle class of America isn’t all made up of engineers - it’s made up of plumbers, electricians, and repairmen. Train students in these kind of skills so that they’re bolstering the economy, rather than bringing it down. </p>
<p>There has got to be some sort of standardization and accreditation of soft liberal arts majors. If one studies one of the “softer” majors, that is fine, as long as they plan to contribute to the economy through the form of Academia. </p>
<p>Not all students should be in college in the first place - and them majoring in “Women’s Studies” doesn’t really help the issue. The kids serious enough to major in these fields should be able to pursue it - but there needs to be some measure of standardizing the curriculum.</p>
<p>I majored in Philosophy, but wish I would have majored in a technical field like accounting. When applying for jobs, I’m pretty sure the philosophy degree on my resume did nothing for me. Had I majored in accounting, I would have had a degree on my resume that actually means something besides the fact that I am a college graduate. </p>
<p>That said, I have plenty of engineering friends who are graduating unemployed from a top engineering school. A technical degree, especially in this economy, is not a golden ticket to a solid job after graduation. Meanwhile, friends with a liberal arts degree have gotten accepted to top-ranking law schools, and are in good position to make a lot of money in a few years. A lot of what matters is not your degree, but how you do relative to others in whatever you major in.</p>
<p>I would recommend majoring in a pre-professional degree or economics. I would avoid majors like history, philosophy, women’s studies, etc. unless you are particularly passionate about that subject, so much so that you might apply for a PhD program.</p>
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<p>A completely stereotypical, unfair analysis of the field - considering it puts out real discoveries and innovations that change the world. I’d like to point out that out of all surveyed Fortune 500 CEO’s, the top degree held was engineering, seconded by finance.</p>
<p>Not being able to rise above management huh?</p>
<p>@IndianOptimist: I’ll take you at your word regarding the statistics on F500 CEOs, but I wonder if there’s a bit of self selection going on in the first place.</p>
<p>I don’t think peter_parker intended to say that engineers cannot climb the corporate hierarchy; that would be a ludicrous statement. Rather, someone who never really wanted to be an engineer, controlling for natural aptitude, would probably not be as effective in their job, and less likely to rise to the top of the organization. </p>
<p>@tech degree advocates (Mr Payne et al): Honestly, if you really want to encourage students to study engineering, we need to change the cultural perception surrounding the profession (which is…well…nothing)–i.e. Encourage positive media portrayals, engage in policy debates surrounding education at the secondary level (by college it’s too late) etc. Monetary incentives might help, but probably an insufficient condition. The good news? Most people don’t really have a negative perception of engineering. Most people are actually rather ignorant of what engineers do. It’s an incredibly diverse and exciting field (or can be). Are there boring engineering jobs? Yup. But there are plenty of really cool things going on as well. </p>
<p>Honestly, I’m a bit more concerned with the mass exodus of our BEST engineers into finance and other fields. A good portion of the EE students in my year at a top 15 engineering program went into trading. Ditto for MIT. An honors grad friend from Harvard with an MechE degree is going to law school (and no, he’s not planning to do patent law) I think places like Harvey Mudd and CalTech do a better job and keeping talented engineers on an engineering career track…</p>
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There’s 3 reasons for affirmative action (that I know of at least)
- To right the wrongs of the past
- To encourage a more equal society between minorities and majorities
- And because many minorities do not receive the same treatment in education as some of most of the Caucasians so they should be just as capable of success in college given the same opportunities.</p>
<p>I want to make it clear that I’m against affirmative action (or at least the type that is in place) and I’m also against any type of tuition tax credits policy. Actually I’m against most welfare policies believe it or not. But comparing the two is quite absurd tbh. Not everyone is made to be an engineer or scientist, some people are simply instinctively better at one thing than another and discriminating against a major like this is preposterous.</p>
<p>By putting these tuition tax credits into place you are assuming that one major is better than another, but such broad statements can’t be made, these things are very arbitrary. In addition, although I agree that society needs more engineers/financiers/doctors etc, however I’m sure there’s much better ways of going about it than discriminating against certain majors by giving students who pick one major with immediate financial incentive. There’s already been one suggestion earlier that all majors should have ‘‘weeder’’ courses and I think that’s a good solution as well as some others such as make students more aware of what living a ‘‘real’’ life is earlier on, but the fact is that at the moment there is already enough financial incentive to pick a technical major rather than a liberal arts one. That financial incentive lays in your future job prospects, adding another one before you even enter college is imo absurd.</p>
<p>EDIT: and btw if a student want to go to college and come out $200,000 with no idea of how he will make the money back then he shouldn’t be in college point blank no matter what his degree. I personally don’t think there’s too many kids in college but I do think that college is becoming far too expensive nowadays. If govt. could fund education more instead of having all these other social welfare bills to support the baby boomers who are about to retire then I believe that the economy would be in much better shape (but that’s another argument).</p>
<p>My intent is not to persuade those that want to do liberal arts as a major. I’m simply trying to break the elitist sense of superiority when it comes in regarding engineering majors. </p>
<p>It’s common knowledge that while engineers have the highest starting salaries - economics, mathematics, and philosophy majors typically have the highest long term salaries. This cannot be disputed - yet such a phenomena is primarily because of graduate study - MBA’s for economics/mathematics, and law for philosophy. But the issue, is that not every college student can pursue graduate school. For those who can, and plan too, liberal arts majors are a fine proposition. For those who can’t, it’s advisable to consider a major that can land you in a career after college.</p>
<p>I dislike when people who pursue liberal arts majors look down at engineering since it’s “vocational” or “middle class”. It’s a form of study, just like anything else.</p>
<p>@WindCloudUltra. I agree that perception has to do more with it than anything else. That’s why I’m trying to say that an engineering degree is just as educationally stimulating as a political science or psychology major.</p>
<p>Here’s the real kicker: 10-20 years from now, with computers doing even more tasks, we won’t need more math/technical people and we certainly won’t need liberal arts people. We’ll need creative thinkers. </p>
<p>It always amazes me how the creative professions constantly show their value to the business world yet colleges and students practically ignore them at the undergraduate level. Go read Fast Company; it’s a magazine practically dedicated to the subject.</p>
<p>To the poster who referenced IDEO: IDEO is filled with design majors and all-around creative people.</p>
<p>ahaha. I love Fast Company. :)</p>
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And what skills does a humanities degree give you?
Should psych grad programs look at engineers who take psych courses?
Totally irrelevant unless you can prove that people passionate in <em>insert non-technical field</em> are able to continue that passion in the working world.
Also irrelevant. The question is not whether some fields are closed to engineers, it’s whether technical majors have greater or lesser employment flexibility than non-technical majors.
You can’t do theoretical CS research, but many of the software engineering positions that CS grads take are either available to other technical majors or accessible through more-available grad degrees. In any case, CS may qualify as “technical” for the purposes of this discussion.
- Irrelevant given that we are deciding whether technical folks can do other things, not whether they like what their job leads directly to.</p>
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<li>You haven’t shown that this is unique to technical fields.
Irrelevant. You haven’t shown anything about flexibility and you haven’t proven why we should care anyway.
Your point is non-unique. Why can’t technical majors do that too?
Why is “creative” thought mutually exclusive with either technical or liberal arts fields?</li>
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<p>Creativity itself isn’t absent in technical or lib arts fields. But it’s not the focus or even a strong factor in most of the coursework. </p>
<p>The difference is that creative and design professions focus on idea generation itself. Can you get creative when studying physics for engineering or writing a paper about Shakespeare? Maybe, but it’s not the same.</p>
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<p>This has fallen so far back but I wanted to make a comment on this…</p>
<p>Correlation does not equal causation! </p>
<p>Nerdy and awkward people choose engineering. Engineering does not make people nerdy and awkward. </p>
<p>And since I’m sure there’s about 15 more people made this error through the 7 pages I don’t want to read, for everyone who might have thought otherwise…</p>
<p>Correlation does not equal causation!</p>
<p>Obviously, one can’t be creative in any field without the grunt, technical groundwork, whether it’s robotics or graphic design. Still, after the foundational courses, there really isn’t a good infrastructure in most undergrad curricula to encourage creative work. At most, there’s a single capstone project or senior thesis. I actually think some engineering programs do a pretty good job on free-rein design, but obviously this varies from place to place. In any case, it does this better than most liberal arts programs, even at the top schools and regardless of area (hard sciences, social sciences or humanities).</p>
<p>By putting these tuition tax credits into place you are assuming that one major is better than another, but such broad statements can’t be made ~ Xptboy</p>
<p>Whatever you are smoking, pass it this way.</p>
<p>Whether you like to admit it or not, some majors ARE better than others. For example, a neuroscience major is more important to society than a sports marketing major - period.</p>
<p>We NEED neuroscience, we DON’T NEED sports marketing. In fact, you could get rid of the whole damn major and it wouldn’t matter to society one single bit. You get rid of all the future neurologists of the world, and we are in it deep, huh?</p>
<p>What we need to do is ENCOURAGE our youth to enter fields that have a positive impact on our society. You can go do marketing in sports, but don’t lie to me and say you need some specialized 4 year degree to do it, that’s pure BS.</p>
<p>I’m not placing greater value on the individual (although some might), but there is no denying that the one’s service (neuroscience) has a greater redeeming value in society. </p>
<p>Also, tax credits aren’t welfare. I’d wager that %75 percent of US citizens got some form of tax credit (I believe you get one just for being married) this year. As I stated, anyone who made payments on their student loans this year received a tax credit, as will you when you begin paying your loans off. Are you gonna say you aren’t going to take that money on principal? Pfsshhhh doubt it.</p>
<p>You need to do some homework before you start ranting about crap you really have no experience with. These programs already exist in the form of loan forgiveness, the problem is we need to reverse the system and use it as a recruitment tool. Keep in mind, I never said FREE TUITION, or FULL SCHOLARSHIP. I said tax credit, which could be as little as $1,000 (or less or more) per year included in your rebate or paid once your student loans come due. </p>
<p>If you don’t like the idea of small tax credits to encourage students to enter the sciences, then you are gonna hate this program that is already in existent.</p>
<p>[FinAid</a> | Loans | Public Service Loan Forgiveness](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Public Service Loan Forgiveness - Finaid)</p>
<p>So providing a tax credit to help the science is bad, yet we are willing to wipe-out the student loans of government workers?</p>
<p>“Not everyone is made to be an engineer or scientist, some people are simply instinctively better at one thing than another and discriminating against a major like this is preposterous.” ~ Xptboy</p>
<p>Again, pass that my way dawg, that stuff is sweeettttt…</p>
<p>First, I understand that everyone isn’t cut out to be a engineer or M.D., which is way I never suggested everyone should. Nor did I ever say we should discriminate against people who don’t, what I said is that we should use tax credits as a way of encouraging those who can. How you call that discrimination is ridiculous, I think you have a long career as a ACLU attorney in your future.</p>
<p>Like it or not, the government uses ALL SORTS of incentive programs to encourage people to be involved in certain programs/industries or reward people for doing something rewarding for society.</p>
<p>Example: The company I use to work for was incorporated as a Woman Owned Business. That meant that our company was able to exclusively bid on contracts that non-women owned businesses could not. </p>
<p>It’s an incentive for more women to start their own businesses.</p>
<p>Example: People who serve in the military recieve 10 veterans points when applying to civil cervice jobs. That mean, if a Veteran and I take a civil service test, and I out score him by 5 points, he still gets the job because he gets 10 bonus points.</p>
<p>Is that discrimination? Hell naw. That’s just an incentive to help our Veterans transition into the workforce.</p>
<p>Example: I get certain tax breaks because I’m married, ones that single people do not get. </p>
<p>Is that also discrimination? Nope. It’s an incentive for people to get married, buy houses, cars, start families, ect.</p>
<p>Example: Cities are looking for hi-tech companies to relocate to their region in order to create jobs (good paying jobs), and bringing new industry to their area. A way cities do that is by providing incentive packages (tax breaks, zoning changes, developed land) to prospective companies.</p>
<p>Is that discrimination? Ummm, no…it’s an incentive to bring more business into a community.</p>
<p>Example: The government offers a modest tax credit to students studying in-demand specialties in the science discipline.</p>
<p>Is that discrimination? Well, according to you - yes it is.</p>
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<p>I know a guy working in computer science with an English degree. It’s a Phd in English but it’s still an English degree. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, you could get software engineering and computer science work if you could do the work and the state of the industry was that you could learn the material yourself. I know another guy that’s been a software engineer for the last thirty years. He has a high-school diploma. He been a support engineer through project leader.</p>
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Fair enough. I don’t think that’s necessarily as much an argument for design majors as it is for out-of-class research, though.</p>
<p>Of course it is. The economy doesn’t need mindless followers, it needs radical thinkers who are used to generating ideas. Relegating it to out-of-class research defeats the point.</p>