<p>The author of this article talks about how getting a specific major may not be as good of an investment as a liberal arts degree, since you never know what job prospects may be, and you may not want to be locked into a certain career path (with notable exceptions, like med school, law, engineering).
I do wonder about this with my D being interesting in research science. It seems that STEM education is the big push now, but STEM jobs may not be so easy to come by. Would a liberal arts degree, maybe heavy on the sciences be better?</p>
<p>Do you mean something like “general liberal arts”, since “liberal arts” includes a lot of subjects, ranging from sciences to social studies to humanities?</p>
<p>Some of their examples of too-narrow majors are very specific:</p>
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<p>What it comes down to is that some majors do have significant major-specific job and career prospects, so students graduating in those majors can seek those jobs as well as the general bachelor’s degree jobs. However, majors which are too specific (e.g. hospital financing, casino management, pharmaceutical marketing, video game design) may have limited major-specific job and career prospects, and may be seen as a disadvantage in the general bachelor’s degree job market. But this is less likely to be a problem for some more general majors like math, statistics, economics, computer science, or even business (general, or major subareas like finance or accounting).</p>
<p>However, it is true that some graduates look only or mainly for jobs related to their majors, even if the major-specific job market is poor enough for their majors that they may get better results in the general bachelor’s degree market. It may be a hard thing for someone to give up what they just spent four years and thousands of dollars to study (and which may be their passion of some sort) in order to expand the job and career options at graduation.</p>
<p>On the one hand, I’m happy WSJ wrote this article as it’s an argument for broad liberal arts education. A good broad liberal arts education trains students to think critically and learn fast, which is really what employers should want from their employees. Those are the people who will move smoothly into management in 5-10 years, because they don’t just know skills, they know how to communicate with people, how to solve problems, and how to innovate.</p>
<p>But I also see some silliness, like the idea that 1) any undergraduates are only learning how to market pharmaceuticals and 2) that there aren’t any skills that are transferable from marketing pharmaceuticals to marketing something else, like cosmetics or clothing or cars.</p>
<p>To me, I think the point is that students should pursue a good well-rounded liberal arts education at a solid institution because you never know what the new craze/surge field is going to be, and if it will last long enough for you to finish an undergrad and possibly grad degree in the field. But students should also develop skills and experience by doing internships during school and the summers.</p>
<p>But yes, the sciences are part of the liberal arts. And no, research science jobs are not easy to come by, but I also believe in doing what you are really passionate about - as long as you have a back up plan. I am trying for that academic life, but I’m realistic about the job market and my chances and have developed skills to parlay into a different career.</p>
<p>I don’t think this article is saying anything like what you are getting from it. It talks about overly specialized vocational training as being something to be cautious about. A general liberal arts education will teach more powerful writing and communication and critical thinking skills. And that will likely make them prepared for a variety of jobs.</p>
<p>But if you have a science researchy oriented student, she won’t likely be prepared for graduate school if she doesn’t decide at some point on the field she wants. If she does a general degree, she might then have to take additional prerequisites to be an attractive or even eligible grad candidate. That can work too, of course. But if you are planning for grad school, you want to find opportunities to do some research projects as an undergraduate and that may also be harder to find if you are not in the department.</p>
<p>I always advise students to focus on skills at least as much as on disciplines or concentrations. Writing, statistics, computer programming, foreign languages, etc. Your hobbies can also play into career opportunities at some points. And so will your EC’s if they’re not simply recreational but also involve teamwork, team building, leadership, making things, etc.</p>
<p>Careers these days are often segmented, in which you move from one job to another every few months or years, partly because there are so few strictly hierarchical career ladders any more. In fact, I heard this piece of advice from a commencement speaker a few years ago: think of a career less like climbing rung by rung up a ladder, and instead more like going up a climbing wall. To “get ahead” you may need to go up, then sideways, downward, or even get off the wall entirely (perhaps to get another degree or some training). But you will gradually advance in you career, find new opportunities and angles on things, get new ideas, if you focus on longer term objectives. </p>
<p>With both of my kids, their careers developed in roughly 3-4 year segments, but they are “progressive” careers in the sense that the kids are gaining experience, finding new opportunities, making connections, building a reputation, doing some retraining if necessary (e.g., masters degree, or special courses of study), and earning more money as they advance. A kid who is a polymath or is willing to stretch out or try new things can work this system well. Liberal arts? By all means! But it’s not the only way to go. And of course luck still plays a big role in career movements.</p>
<p>I learned from my own (adult) kids about how this can work. The market rewards flexibility. Don’t get stuck too long at a job you really don’t like, but use the experience to define new goals or establish connections and credibility, or develop skills “on the job.” This means having a broad skill set or tool kit that you can call on opportunistically.</p>
<p>Note that students in most majors have ample schedule space (and often the requirement, depending on the school) to take a selection of liberal arts courses. Even engineering majors typically have about 45-50% liberal arts courses in their curricula (about 25% required math and science courses, and 20-25% breadth requirement courses in humanities and social studies at most schools, although a few schools have as little as 13%).</p>
<p>However, some students of all majors think of breadth requirements as uninteresting annoyances to be fulfilled with the easiest courses that they can find.</p>
<p>If your D is looking into research science, and is considering a liberal arts education, just be sure that there is sufficient depth in the sciences. The beauty of a LA major is the broad base that (hopefully) teaches you to think. The downside is that you don’t get nearly the depth of expertise that you might get with a Biology degree (for example). </p>
<p>As an aside, I would draw parallels between an engineering degree and a LA degree in that an engineering degree (at the BS level) is a very broad based education with a focus in applied sciences.</p>
<p>A case can be made that a strong LA/social sciences background is more marketable than a general business degree or a general science (Bio/Chem) degree. Many firms like LA majors because they can think on their feet and can communicate effectively–often these grads are on the fast-track to management. Many firms like to train their own people but expect them to be smart self-starters.</p>
<p>This has been true of two members of my family. One was an anthropology major and she’s having a very successful career with a big financial firm, climbing the ladder of management, etc. Another was an econ major and he is in his third year of medical school. He was able to get in all of his med school prereqs alongside the econ degree and is doing quite well in med school. He wasn’t completely sure about med school when he started school and thought econ would be more desirable than a bio degree if medicine didn’t work out for him.</p>
<p>Agree that a very narrow educational focus can come back to haunt a new grad. Clearly has a lot to do with the personality, intelligence and personal drive of the individuals involved.</p>
<p>I don’t think it makes one bit of difference what the degree is in for most situations. You have a kid with a stronger interest in a field who would so much prefer a job in that field that might be very difficult to get, but it is possible, then of course having a directed major, showing more knowledge and interest in that field is preferable. BUt when you throw it all in the pot, it is’t going to make a difference overall as to what the degree is.</p>
<p>Say your kid has a passion or maybe an interest in it over most things, in, say anthropology. Of course, he should take the courses as it interest him and to deliberately be a generalist instead makes no sense. Not gonna give him a better shot at jobs in general, and with the specific knowledge he gains in the field he prefers he just might be in the running for a job in that area. </p>
<p>I don’t see where a specific bent is harmful unless in a school that requires so little in the general base requirements that a student gets nothing of a spread in other disciplines as well.</p>
<p>Should be a given, if the major is in the desired science (science is part of the liberal arts).</p>
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<p>Not all liberal arts majors actually do take courses in a wide range of subjects. Students at schools with lots of breadth requirements like MIT have to, but those at schools with little or no breadth requirements like Brown or Amherst may not.</p>
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<p>Biology is part of the liberal arts, so it is not clear what you are saying here.</p>
<p>I have often heard liberal arts teach critical thinking. The implication is that professional programs do not. Being what I am, I need this theory to pass two simple filters- rationalism and empiricism- before I would even accept it at face value.</p>
<p>I never could get a straight answer why liberal arts teach critical thinking better than other programs. When I ask if it matters what liberal art degree I do, all I am told is that it does not. The answer is so non-specific it is basically useless; it cannot even convince a 15 year old.</p>
<p>I finally found a study that can shed some light on this issue:</p>
<p>Just as I thought, liberal arts are not the only programs that can improve critical thinking. In fact, some of the best (and worse) programs for critical thinking are not even considered to be liberal arts. Even more interesting is that not all liberal arts improve critical thinking to the same extent; some are much better (and some are much worse) than others. So there goes the theory. </p>
Liberal Arts- at most universities this includes math, physics, chem, bio along with sociology and literature.
The distinction is between a vocational program- a BA in Real Estate Management or Leisure Studies for example, and a degree in the Liberal Arts.
CanuckGuy, it may be different in Canada but the vocational programs/majors in the US are not especially geared towards anyone looking to enhance their critical thinking skills. The courses are applied, not theoretical; the standards for admission are typically lower than those for more academic programs and so often you aren’t measuring outputs so much as inputs (more students with poor prep for college).
A liberal arts degree is not the only way to develop critical thinking skills, but a kid graduating with a BA who has never used primary sources for research, who does not know the difference between a summary and a synthesis, and who can’t read a simple bar chart and describe what is being measured, is not likely to develop critical thinking skills post-grad.
THAT’s why employers would prefer liberal arts training. When my company hires a kid who has written a senior thesis comparing economic development in India vs. Brazil we really don’t give a hoot about GDP or how much the World Bank claims is the ROI on capital investments in bridges and electrical plants. We care that a kid has actually sat down and mapped out how to research and then prove a point (any point) using facts and analysis.
I’ve interviewed kids with the “lite” degrees. Their senior papers are akin to 7th grade book reports. (But longer). Get a bunch of secondary sources. Read them and underline the interesting or pertinent passages. Then write a summary with a topic paragraph.
Degrees like the BLA (Bachelor of Liberal Arts) are usually offered in adult learner/continuing education programs, as opposed to traditional 4 year residential programs. Often the BLA just covers up a difficulty in providing enough courses for a major with depth. Personally, I avoid programs that offer the BLA. I think students of all ages and from all circumstance deserve depth as well as breadth. Distribution requirements can offer breadth and then a major of at least 10 courses in one area offers depth.
(Note: Brown has strong advising that recommends diverse courses to students who seem to lack breadth in their studies. I am sure Amherst does too.)
there is no better or worse. It is all depend on a goal.
If you want to be an engineer, you can have any degree, but you must complete the requirements of the engineering major. The same goes for everything.
Have any degree whatever you wish, but complete the requirements of your goal.
That is why the Medical School does not care about your degree at all. I knew somebody who was accepted to Med. School after graduating from the Conservatory of Music. Just complete pre-med requirements, take MCAT, get high stats, required ECs and you are all set.
@blossom There are clearly subtle differences between the two countries. Your students with “lite” degrees would probably be enrolling in our community colleges instead if they were Canadians. They are unlikely to be in our university system.
Your “pre-professional” programs are much more competitive here than arts and science programs. If mine were majoring in what they had as minors they would have been on the Dean’s List.
Even Education, for example, is competitive. Students need to earn a first degree with honours and strong EC to stand a chance of being admitted to a Faculty of Education where they will study for two additional years in order to qualify as a teacher.
The study I posted was done by Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) in the US. It purportedly showed how much students “improve” after 4 years of university. To make sure they are comparing similars, they hold SAT scores constant. Using such a criterion, business seems to be one of the best majors for intellectual growth, but if the students enter the program with lower cognitive ability than the other majors, they will still graduate with lower cognitive ability than the rest. I personally don’t fault the major, but I would fault admission.
Perhaps you folks are simply admitting and graduating students that have no business being there?