In These Times: Practical vs. Follow Your Heart

Parents Forum
41

<p>I grew up in a town where there were engineers, and I remember when lots of engineers lost their jobs in the 1970s. </p>

<p>It is very hard to predict trends when it comes to employment. Many jobs that our kids will eventually work in haven't even been created yet. </p>

<p>I think there are great advantages to having a liberal arts education that teaches one how to think including how to apply knowledge to new situations.</p>

<p>As quickly as society changes (and this includes recessions becoming boom times), it could be a big mistake to force a student to major in a tech field. By the time they graduate, the field may be outmoded or there may be many more opportunities for liberal arts majors.</p>

<p>I've been impressed by the skills that S is acquiring as a liberal arts major. These are skills he'll be able to use in any career: including excellent verbal, written, and analytical skills plus a broad base of knowledge he'll be able to use in any career.</p>

42

<p>A degree in Classics vs. a degree in something practical...</p>

<p>Guess who said this:</p>

<p>Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me. </p>

<p>I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. </p>

<p>They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.</p>

<p>I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom."</p>

<p>[JK Rowling]</p>

<p>Sometimes taking the safe, practical route takes you off the path of your destiny.</p>

43

<p>i say nursing if ur daughter is thinking of medicine....very practical, good pay after just undergrad and very high job satisfaction!</p>

44

<p>I fail to see how a law degree could ever be construed as "impractical", especially in light of the current economy.</p>

<p>Lawyers are among the few professions benefiting the most from the current economic chaos, with all these businesses filing for bankruptcy, shutting down, being bought and sold, etc.</p>

45

<p>I am currently working with a young woman who sounds similar to your D, though her leanings are more towards CS than engineering. She also did not want a straight tech oriented school. The schools she is looking at are ones that have cognitive science departments or majors (not minors) and she is looking from the CS angle rather than the psych angle (though the programs seem to involve many classes in both fields). Perhaps something like this would interest your D too? Unfortunately, I do not know the job market for those with a BS in this field, but might be worth pursuing.</p>

46

<p>Today's college entrants are, unfortunately, sitting on a demographic bulge. A huge number of student are competing for the same college seat. AND THAT HUGE NUMBER OF STUDENTS WILL BE COMPETING FOR THE SAME JOBS YEARS FROM NOW. The current downturn may have abated, but the demographic bulge will remain.</p>

<p>A student will an aggressive major/course of study can alway step back to do the non-tech. However, the student who majored in gender/bunnies/self actualization does not have that flexibility and will be doomed to the bunny track.</p>

47

<p>That's funny, my son just got a great paying job in the computer science field, which he will move to the West Coast for after graduating from college in May.</p>

<p>He, and I , are so conscious of the fact that the demands of the computer science major made it hard to get a "real education." He's taken some political science classes, and a couple of English classes, but, he really does not have the cultural knowledge one would expect.</p>

<p>Of course, this is becomingly increasingly true of many students. College has become very vocational, which is too bad. It used to be more about intellectual exploration, and living the rest of your life with some development of mind and knowledge.</p>

<p>BUT, your husband is right, those good old days were for the rich. Now that just about everyone, from all walks of life, tries to go to college, which is often a financial stretch for many, college education has changed. Not too many can afford to explore in college, or, for that matter, in the extended adolescence that many humanities majors may have, in their 20's.</p>

<p>That said, there is too much emphasis in defining vocational goals altogether. many great jobs don't fall into any category, and life tends to take people in unexpected, wonderful directions.</p>

<p>Engineering is no more secure than some humanities majors, in some ways. There are many great jobs out there for people who can think, write, and know how to access information, a hallmark of humanities majors.</p>

<p>One other thing: graduate school does not have to be the financial burden that your husband seems to anticipate. There are fellowships and teaching assistant positions, grants and so on.</p>

<p>Let your daughter decide, without undue pressure either way. She can apply to a range of options and decide in April. A lot can change in those few months.</p>

48

<p>
[quote]
There are many great jobs out there for people who can think, write, and know how to access information

[/quote]

This is true but CS and other engineering majors aren't precluded from these characterizations. It's not an either/or situation. My Ds have taken plenty of humanities and courses not directly related to their major. It's required and available. My older D decided to get a chemistry minor to go with a CS degree - an unusual and difficult combo but that's what she wanted. She also took opera (knowledge/appreciation - not singing) and other non-engineering courses. Getting an engineering degree isn't purely vocational.</p>

<p>The CS major at their universities require a lot more courses to be taken for a degree than many of the other majors like polisci/psych/etc. so they actually often end up taking a lot more courses than the other majors and a number of these courses are not directly CS courses.</p>

49

<p>I've been thinking about this topic a lot. I have one majoring in psych with a neuroscience certificate, and one freshman who is interested in music, creative writing, african american studies....</p>

<p>I think we need to think about this issue differently. Every education will have some component of "liberal arts". Every education will have some component of "vocational training". It's just that the definition of each component needs to be broadened.</p>

<p>For example.</p>

<p>Majoring in English and wants to be an English professor? Liberal arts and vocational training are the same.</p>

<p>Majoring in English and wants to go to law school? Liberal arts with law school as vocational training.</p>

<p>Majoring in Computer Science, reading the New York Times every day, wants to be a software engineer? Vocational training with some "liberal arts".</p>

<p>My psych major, who has also taken religion and history and spanish literature courses, if she wanted to be a researcher and go to grad school, both components would be handled. Since she isn't sure she wants to do that, luckily, she is conversational in Mandarin Chinese, is learning to read a functional magnetic resonance image, and can program in intermediate Python. Those are her vocational components. The skills that can be valuable in an entry level job. For those who do not have their entire career trajectory mapped out, that's all you need. A place to start.</p>

<p>My loves music and creative writing student? I have asked him what his vocational component will be. Making that child try to be an engineer would be a parenting disaster of historic proportion. So for now I have suggested sound engineering courses at a community college. Or that he think about keeping his grades up enough so that if he reaches senior year without an entry level skill that law school will be an option. Lots of people become lawyers, make some money, and then change in their 30's.</p>

<p>This is the only framework I could think of to make sense of how to give my kids useful advice, do what I could to help them decide how to become gainfully employed after graduation, enable them to pursue their multiple and changing interests while in college, and still allow for serendipity.</p>

<p>For many it's pretty hard to choose at 19 what you will do forever. On the other hand, it's really good to have a job when you get out of school.</p>

50

<p>My bright, quirky son is completely undecided at this point. If he remains undecided, I am strongly encouraging him to provisionally select engineering as a major, because it is more difficult to switch into later. At the end of freshman year, he'd only have a couple of hours that wouldn't convert into a different major, should he pick something else. However, if he starts out "undecided" and takes generic courses to fill his gen-ed requirements, switching to engineering would be much harder.</p>

<p>Also, all things being equal (which I understand they AREN'T) I'd prefer that he major in something that does increase the probability of financial independence (at least from his parents). If he feels equally drawn to 12th century medieval literature and mechanical engineering, I'll be happy to pay for the minor in medieval lit....</p>

<p>(full-disclosure: I double majored in Math and French... with a minor in Computer Science... have used ALL of the above in a series of interesting career paths..)</p>

51

<p>Many doctors were humanities majors and didn't even take the required 'pre-med' courses until after graduation from college.</p>

52

<p>At my kids' HS, they STRONGLY encourage all kids good at math & science to seriously consider majoring in engineering if they don't know what they want to study, like M23 in #50. They figure the kids can switch thereafter much easier than switching into engineering later. Our HS ends up with LOTS of kids graduating in engineering--many of whom also take other courses/subjects along the way, depending on the kid.</p>

53

<p>I think this is one of the few reasons why so many students have 2-3 majors or minors. The minor could be for practical purpose, it could help one find employement after graduation. Eventhough my own nephew graduated with 3 majors(literature, bio, Japanese), he still has a hard time deciding what to do. At least he kept very high undergraduate GPA. But nobody dares asking him what his future plan is.</p>

54

<p>Thank you all so much.
It is very helpful to hear the perspectives of parents who are engineers, or whose children are engineers or engineering majors, and from those who chose or found other paths that were satisfying and employable (gotta love the jk Rowling story!). </p>

<p>I feel that you, collectively, have gotten to the heart of the matter. Alumother's last line says it well. It is hard to choose as a teenager-- and we do hope to have a job. </p>

<p>I think Engineering, as a major, makes this a tougher decision than it otherwise might be. You can major in engineering and go to law school (MIT even has a track for Materials Engineers who want to do this!) and yet, to go through even two years of college and then decide upon engineering is, as many of you attest, rather an unfortunate approach. </p>

<p>I am in awe of the knowledge some of you have. I would never know to suggest math and econ in lieu of engineering, as oldfort did. (Our exposure to econ is limited to reading The Economist magazine, for world news!) </p>

<p>It is reassuring to see how your children have taken such different paths-- a blending of interests and talents: Engineering and opera. Religion and lit and mri reading. </p>

<p>And it all seems to work out, somehow. Is that the moral of the stories?</p>

55

<p>I hope the following doesn't seem to contradict my previous post, but I really want my kids to study what they love (I'm reaping the results of this advice with son #1, who will have a degree in a low-paying, hard-to-find-work-in field). If son#3 decides that philosophy is what he LOVES, then philosophy is what he should study. OTOH, if he has no idea, and he's really strong in math and science (and he is) then what's the HARM in starting out in engineering? :-)</p>

56

<p>
[quote]
I fail to see how a law degree could ever be construed as "impractical", especially in light of the current economy.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I get the ABA weekly feed and there are stories of the layoff and closing firms in every issue. My nephew was laid off at his firm from a six figure income, lost his house and he and wife and child are now living with my sister. There is no safe job these days. </p>

<p>BTW - he was a high standing grad in a well respected program, at what was supposed to be a good established firm. Business is down and they are shrinking the associate staff many places.</p>

57

<p>mom2three-- your post above sounds like a discussion in my house: well do what you love...but you love many things...so may as well choose your practical choice ...</p>

<p>on the other hand...</p>

<p>vicariousparent says what I have said in discussions with my husband! (You can major in ANYTHING and be a doctor! ) </p>

<p>:)</p>

<p>Singersmom07 that is exactly what my husband says-- an abundance of lawyers, job prospects unpredictable for the future.<br>
But heavens, looking at the news, the layoffs left and right... prospects of all sorts seem unpredictable. Where is that crystal ball when I need it???</p>

58

<p>There is a book out now that is germane to this topic. It's called "Talent is Overrated." The premise is that the truly successful aren't that way only because of their talent. It turns out that the truly successful are those who practice. Those in particular who practice the hard stuff, the stuff that they aren't good at. And, not surprisingly, it turns out that people are usually much more willing to practice difficult or painstaking skills in an area they love. </p>

<p>Of course one can also imagine that people aiming for a cherished end goal, becoming a doctor and enduring the medical school/internship/residency path comes to mind, also practice a lot. But it helps if you love what you do. Helps a lot. May even help you make $$$. </p>

<p>And if your kid loves lots of things, nothing wrong with steering them towards something that has a more straightforward early path to income. I myself might have said "Sure, you could major in Religion, but it's a lot harder to get work..." But I'm not telling.;).</p>

59

<p>
[quote]
I marvel sometimes at those who believe that "engineer" is somehow bullet-proof when it comes to jobs. Has your husband never heard of the engineering/tech jobs being outsourced? A friend of ours is an engineer for Ford, another for Graumann - great job security, isn't it? Engineers get laid off, too.

[/quote]
I laugh when people say this. Engineering has one of the lowest unemployment rates of any career track. In this environment I'd be scared to graduate with anything <em>other</em> than an engineering degree. Some of my friends are still getting interviews. Hard to say that about huge sections of majors.</p>

<p>I have no pity for those my age (early 20s) with poor job prospects living at home with their parents. Self actualization doesn't pay a mortgage.</p>

60

<p>I'm starting to think that one of the worst results of the economic downturn may be that our fears crush our kids' dreams. I guess I'll advise my music major daughter to marry an engineer.</p>