I used to be able to hold my own in discussions with my daughter, not anymore. She can argue most people under the table, her philosophy degree has honed her critical thinking skills greatly. She has done nicely in the job market so far, your degree will not define your limits. It really comes down to how motivated you are to succeed.
Here’s an engaging first-person essay about how two parents took different sides of this debate and possibly settled it after having their rising high school senior take an aptitude test.
http://www.rolereboot.org/family/details/2015-07-on-helping-my-son-on-his-college-search/
Aptitude didn’t help my kid. The artist kid was supposed to be a doctor. She is great with people and can quickly read people really well.
I’m not sure I understand the constant provoking of STEM vs liberal arts major and vice versa. I have one of each and they seem suited to the major they chose eventually.
For the humanities and artist kid, she has acquire lots of business skill at a very young age, well at least when I was that age, I hadn’t hire and fire people within the first 3 years. She did it with grace. No hurt feelings. What I found was useful course she took in college was conflict resolution for potential RA job that didn’t pan out. Not sure if that’s liberal arts or not. But it’s very useful skill. If that is vocational then why the look down on vocational classes.
College used to be more of a luxury for the upper classes, not something to upgrade the job and career prospects of not-necessarily-upper-class people.
Today, the idea of choosing more pre-professional majors and studies in college may be looked down upon because it signals that the student is more likely to be from a lower SES background and thus must prioritize acquiring skills for immediate job finding at graduation, rather than studying a liberal arts field that, while useful intellectually over the long term including in employment, is less directly applicable to immediate job finding at graduation (someone from a high SES background is more likely to have a family safety net to allow for a longer job search, or taking a lower paying job that gives better experience to step up to better jobs in the future).
Critical thinking, like-long learning skills and problem solving are important traits no mater what career one enters. I have a BA in biology from a LAC. On a day-to-day basis I draw on what I learned from my non-science classes as much as courses in my major.
The STEM versus liberal arts discussion has gone a bit overboard. Not everyone has the interest or ability to be a STEM major not do we want a society of all engineers and mathematicians. Have we been told that the US must produce more STEM majors to see the needs of the new economy? Yes. We also need lawyers, writers and thinkers.
I think both camps lobbying grenades, volleying back and forth, making outrageous claims. This observation came from years reading CC.
I’ve never hired anyone based on there college. Wait, I did once, hired a philosophy major because I figured you would know how to analyze different issues. I was right.
Work in media-a growing field
Doh, their college major. I should have majored in linguistics