straight up question: is this major respected by grad schools and employers or not?
I know athletes do it, but they also do psych and econ so that does not answer the question for me.
Would love to hear from recent grads in this major or their families.
Thank you.
I think there is a widespread belief among undergraduates that STS is not a serious or hard discipline. Who knows what the outside world thinks. Maybe they see the words “Stanford” “Science” and “Technology” and are impressed. You can fool some of the people some of the time.
To begin with, how could you have anything to do with science and technology and not require any math. Yet this major does not require math. Also look at the courses. The titles alone will tell you something: Women and Gender in Science, Medicine and Engineering; Urban Culture in Global Perspective; The Religious Life of Things; etc. I’m not saying all of these courses are weak, but red flags are flying.
In 1996 the administration under Gerhard Casper (IMHO a very good president who was concerned with academic rigor) proposed eliminating STS. Of course, the students protested and the program moved back to Humanities and Science.
As you note, there are a lot of athletes in STS, particularly from the revenue sports. Computer science is the largest major at Stanford and there is not a single member of the football team, or the men’s basketball team, or the women’s basketball team who is majoring in computer science. On the other hand, a lot of them are majoring in STS. Probably tells you something.
You also note that there are some psych and econ majors among athletes. I think you have to be careful about lumping psych and econ together. Psych has historically been one of the easiest majors at Stanford (not sure about today). Econ has always been pretty tough, especially now since Math 51 is required (and must be taken for a grade). In addition, many of the econ courses have a large math component. Yes, there are three members of the current football team who are majoring in econ, but none of them have yet to appear in a game. That should tell you something.
I’m sure there are some STS courses are that rigorous and good. And I suspect there are a few smart kids who major in STS. But compared with most other majors at Stanford, you have to wonder.
STS is one of the most popular majors for non-athletes as well as athletes. The top 3 declared majors for athletes (Humbio, STS, and Engineering) are all also among the top 4 declared majors for the overall student body. STS probably has had a larger rate of increase than any other major over the past 20 years, likely due to the changes in how general society views STEM majors and humanities majors. I suspect it gets a lot of students who aren’t sure what to major in, but think something STEM-like sounds better to employers/friends/family/… than english/history/psych/…
While STS has a reputation as an “easy major”, STS majors who enter the workforce soon after college tend to do well from a salary and employment perspective. Payscale’s small sample lists an average salary of $80k for recent grads (very small sample). Many also go on to pursue various grad degrees. Stanford lists some job titles for STS alumni at https://sts.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/100%20Jobs%20Revised.pdf . The STS department and career center have much more detailed information that is not on the website.
Thank you.
Our D was an STS major. She completed several difficult Math and CS classes as part of her coursework. She was able to customize her curriculum, which was very important to her. She has had to explain her major and coursework in a couple of job interviews but it has not been an issue. Her first job out of school was with a start-up and now she works for Twitter.
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My cousin got a B.A. from Stanford in Science, Technology, and Society in 2014 and finished an M.A. in communication this year. She got recruited by google and is now working on the self driving cars. Her job is something to do with user interaction.
This major seems way easier than Symbolic Systems but could put one in the same place.
The merits of the coursework aside, I think there’s a mild inconvenience that goes along with majoring in something that most schools don’t have - STS, HumBio, etc. Not a big issue, but folks majoring in those things will have to explain what it means on occasion, in a way that people majoring in econ, math, history, computer science etc. won’t have to.