Trapped by a $50,000 Degree in a Low-Paying Job

[ucbalumnus]

<p>If the test in question was heavy on writing, then it should make sense that the humanities and social studies students made a good improvement. But not beating the math and science students may not look so good. But why are the communications students further back on a supposedly writing oriented test?</p>

[parentoftwo]

<p>

But why are the communications students further back on a supposedly writing oriented test?

</p>

<p>Rigor of college course work? That was the point of the study, after all.</p>

[MomfromKC]

<p>I would have to agree with questioning the test method. How can you in fact test critical thinking if writing is the method of evaluation. Even those of us whose first lanuage is English may not be all that skilled in writing if we have spent 100 out of 135 credits in math based classes. I know for a fact that the 3 English teachers I had in college (major Engineering flagship) couldn’t hold a candle to my Junior and Senior year High School English teachers. Facts are facts, unless you are going to MIT where they take their Humainities very seriously you aren’t going to attrach the world’s best faculty to the English department at a school that is 80% science with only about 1 biology major a year. And we Americans tend to focus on our strengths and ignore our weaknesses, rather than focus on improving what really needs improving unless it hurts us, then we might do something about it.</p>

[annasdad]

<p>

@ParentOfTwo

I read Academically Adrift. I am suspicious about the engineering results being low on critical thinking. It appears that the critical thinking test was heavy on writing. I wonder, since engineering often attracts a large number of foreign-born students or first generation students who are known to have very high Math SAT scores and lower Verbal scores. If one has less proficiency with the English language, might he not score as well in expressing his critical thinking ideas than someone stronger in the language? I wonder if such a scenario could have skewed the results.

</p>

<p>Yes and no.</p>

<p>The figures on end-of-sophomore-year CLA performance by major that have been widely reported in the press are the scores that are controlled only for start-of-freshman-year CLA performance. Those figures do indeed show the clear superiority of liberal arts programs (science/math/humanities/social studies) over the more vocationally oriented programs (engineering, health professions, education, and business).</p>

<p>But as controls are added, the differences get smaller and, in some cases, disappear. (The following is summarized from Table A4.3 in “Academically Adrift”):</p>

<p>With no controls other than entering freshman score, science and math majors score about 42 points higher than engineering majors, and humanities and social science majors outperform engineers by about 33 points.</p>

<p>With controls added for rigor of coursework and time spent studying, science and math scores exceed engineering scores by about 32 points, and humanities and social science students score about 17 points higher than engineers.</p>

<p>With the above controls, plus controls for “social background and academic preparation,” humanities and social science majors and engineers are within 2 points, and both trail science and math majors by about 10 points.</p>

<p>With the above controls, plus controls for institutions attended, science/math majors and humanties/social science are within 2 points of each other and lead engineers by about 10. According to the authors, there is no difference that is statistically significant at this point.</p>

<p>To address your specific question, language other than English spoken in the home is among the “social and background” variables.</p>

[MomHappy]

<p>This problem is becoming more and more common. In speaking with kids going away to school, I always recommend that they research the costs involved in getting the education required for the job they would like to do and comparing that to the expected salary that the position they want will pay. Lately the salary provided is not enough to cover the costs of the education required.</p>

<p>I think the college industry (yes college is a business) is becoming just like the housing market, people need to realize that just like everyone should not get to own a home, everyone should not go to college. College is not a replacement for hard work, a smart hardworking person will often out perform (financially) a lazy college graduate, and not live the first 10 years of their life in debt. </p>

<p>Just like mortgages being to easy for people to get has left the entire world in turmoil, the college bubble will break too, they need to only lend money to people whom have a realistic opportunity to repaying it within the first 3-5 years after graduation. Anything longer than that typically just hampers peoples lives with debt.</p>

[mini]

<p>“What does one do with a Masters in Interdisciplinary Master’s Program in Humanities and Social Thought?”</p>

<ul>
<li>Become the media relations director of the nation’s largest private metropolitan human relations agency.</li>
<li>Train municipal police departments in human relations.</li>
<li>Publish the first Hmong/English reader in the U.S.</li>
<li>Found a publishing house that does three million dollars in business a year for 30 years.</li>
<li>Edit more than a 100 books.</li>
<li>Write 12 books.</li>
<li>Found three non-profit foundations</li>
<li>Work on three continents</li>
<li>Write two monthly magazine columns</li>
<li>Teach college</li>
<li>Work for a Governor, and a governor’s agency on public health policy. </li>
<li>Ghost-write speeches. </li>
<li>Homeschool two kids and send them off to college.</li>
</ul>

<p>I HAVE a masters degree from the Committee on Social Thought of the University of Chicago. And, no, I never chose to get rich. (But I have ZERO debt.)</p>

<p>I am thankful I didn’t become an engineer.</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>Of course, the job market, business/economic environment, and cost of attending university and graduate school were much different decades ago when you graduated, compared to now.</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>

@annasdad

With the above controls, plus controls for institutions attended, science/math majors and humanties/social science are within 2 points of each other and lead engineers by about 10. According to the authors, there is no difference that is statistically significant at this point.

</p>

<p>Were differences between other majors significant, after adding in all of these controls?</p>

[annasdad]

<p>

@ucbalumnus

Were differences between other majors significant, after adding in all of these controls?

</p>

<p>Short answer: no.</p>

<p>Much longer answer follows.</p>

<p>From the book, page 107:</p>

<p>

For more technically oriented fields (science/mathematics and engineering/computer science), where students go to school matters. Adjusting for institutions attended substantially decreases the gaps in CLA performance between science/mathematics and business majors, as well as between engineering/computer science and business majors. Considering institutions is enough not only to decrease the gaps between those fields of study, but also to render them not statistically significant. Thus, once we consider where students go to school (in addition to their social background, academic performance, reading/writing requirements, and study patterns), there are no differences in CLA growth between science/mathematics and business majors or between engineering/computer science and business majors.

</p>

<p>Later, the authors discuss the impact of institutions (pp. 115-116):</p>

<p>

If we select top-performing institutions - institutions that show much larger gains on the CLA than others, net of individual characteristics - we find, not surprisingly, that their students report higher incidence of behaviors that are beneficial for learning. Students at these institutions report greater course requirements: almost two-thirds (62 percent) of their students reported taking courses that required both reading more than forty pagers a week and writing more than twenty pages over the course of a semester. The average for other institutions is just over one-third (39 percent). In a finding perhaps related to higher coursework demands, students at high-performing institutions also spent more time studying, particularly alone - almost three more hours [per week] of solitary study than students at other insitutions. Three hours is a remarkable difference, considering that students overall on average spent less than nine hours studying alone. … Institutions differ in the extent to which they create contexts which facilitate positive behaviors and actions associated with learning.

</p>

<p>But lest [others] chime in now with, “See, it does make sense to pay an exorbitant amount of money to send my kid to a ‘top 20,’” the authors specifically say that while there research supports saying that the institution matters, “since we have only 24 institutions in the sample, some of which have small sample sizes, we are not able to delve deeply into institutional differences,” (p. 116) and “Given our sample size limitations, we cannot provide a detailed account of what students at each institution look like and what institutions are doing to facilitate their learning” (p. 117). IOW, they are not correlating institutional differences with, say, institutional prestige, graduation rates,faculty salaries, or any of other unscientific measures that make up the USNWR.</p>

<p>It’s also critical, I think to note this quote, also from page 116 (emphasis added):</p>

<p>

While there is variation in student performance across colleges and universities, it is important to note that there is even more variation within institutions. This is the case for most educational outcomes, and it has been extensively documented with respect to students engagement in higher education. [Here they cite two journal articles analyzing data from the NSSE.] High- as well as low-performing students are found at all institutions. If, for example, we consider students in the top 10 percent of the CLA growth distribution, we would find them at each of the institutions.

</p>

<p>My summary: liberal arts (math/science/humanities/social science) and, to a lesser extent, engineers, outperform business, education, and health science majors in degree of development of critical thinking skills mainly because of the rigor of the course work (which is partially dependent on the institutions they attend) and the effort they apply to their studies.</p>

[thumper1]

<p>Oh please…I have a kid who is a graduate of school ranked 60 or so. He is a great thinker…and he was a fine arts major for both undergrad and grad work. And yes, his school was costly. </p>

<p>I’m not sure I understand the point of the more recent posts on this thread. What IS the point? Different strokes for different folks…different choices, decisions, etc. That’s life. Let it go.</p>

<p>P.S. Can I be the cashews in the mix?</p>

[jym626]

<p>Any school will have tops students and bottom students. There will be the first in the graduating class and the last- across all schools. That doesnt meant there is no difference between a top school and a local community college.</p>

<p>OK- I want to be a hazelnut. I love hazelnut/chocolate. Go nutella!!</p>

[jym626]

<p>Will leave the macadamia for HImom to select, should she choose. Seems a propos.</p>

[oldfort]

<p>It takes one nut to know the other.

My summary: liberal arts (math/science/humanities/social science) and, to a lesser extent, engineers, outperform business, education, and health science majors in degree of development of critical thinking skills mainly because of the rigor of the course work

</p>

<p>Am I reading this correctly (had to read it a few times) - Liberal arts, which includes humanities and social science, is more difficult (rigorous)than education and health science majors, therefore it is better for developing critical thinking skills? Gender studies (social science) is more rigorous than health science or education major?</p>

<p>I know few years back, JHS wrote a great piece about why liberal arts education is better than pre-professional (like business degree), but it is not because liberal arts is more rigorous.</p>

[annasdad]

<p>

@oldfort

Liberal arts, which includes humanities and social science, is more difficult (rigorous)than education and health science majors, therefore it is better for developing critical thinking skills?

</p>

<p>That’s close, but to pick a nit, I think it may be getting a bit beyond what the research shows to say that “liberal arts” as a discipline (or, more properly, a collection of disciplines) is more rigorous than the vocational disciplines. I think what the authors are saying is that liberal arts (and engineering) courses as taught in the institutions they studied are more rigorous in terms of the requirements they place on students, and that the rigor of the requirements correlates positively with student achievement on the critical learning assessment.</p>

<p>EDIT: That doesn’t preclude, of course, saying that “liberal arts are more rigorous than business,” but I don’t think that specific question is addressed by the data as reported in the book.</p>

[thumper1]

<p>

My summary: liberal arts (math/science/humanities/social science) and, to a lesser extent, engineers, outperform business, education, and health science majors in degree of development of critical thinking skills mainly because of the rigor of the course work

</p>

<p>Well…this summary is written SO clearly that I interpreted it differently. I took it to mean that ALL of these developed critical thinking skills due to the rigor of the coursework. And I agree…but add in the fine arts…please.</p>

[annasdad]

<p>

@thumper1

add in the fine arts…please

</p>

<p>FWIW,</p>

<p>

The humanities, such as classical and modern languages, literature, history, and philosophy, have the overall goal of the exploration and explanation of human experience. Some would include the fine arts (music, art, dance, and drama) in the humanities, but others view the arts as a separate category.

</p>

<p>[Humanities</a> Defined - Myers](<a href=“http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/teaching/co301aman/pop6b.cfm]Humanities”>Humanities Defined - Myers)</p>

[thumper1]

<p>Well I would agree that adding in the fine arts is appropriate.</p>

[thumper1]

<p>Annasdad, I’m not meaning to be contrary, but I’m not sure I understand your purpose in the above posts about critical thinking. Could you please explain your perspective and why you feel this is important on this thread.</p>

[annasdad]

<p>^The connection is in post 115, where I refer to a comment about the importance of critical thinking in an article linked two posts earlier by another poster.</p>

<p>In regard to your post 138, I agree. If you accept the broad definition in the quote from post 137, that humanities examine the “exploration and examination of the human experience,” then I don’t see how you can exclude the fine arts from a place under the umbrella.</p>

[thumper1]

<p>So…from the above, are there any majors that do NOT foster critical thinking?</p>