<p>No ¨sneaking¨ here :) I actually read this board a lot -- it´s certainly more coherent than the student boards, and older people´s opinions have merit.</p>
<p>Now there's an attitude all majors should teach! (Haha!)</p>
<p>I think schools and GC's do encourage kids to go into the sciences. Between the RPI medal, the UofRochester Medal, Science Olympiad, Mathletes, WISE (Women in Science and Engineering), the National Science Honor Society it certainly seems to me that the Humanities get the short shrift.</p>
<p>I was an excellent science student. Actually only one in NYS to get 100 on Chem Regents year I took it. Science fascinates me, too. I didn't go into science because 1) It was 1968, and I was a girl and 2) There was so much going on in me I needed to focus inward; I couldn't pursue something so divorced from myself.</p>
<p>Science requires a certain personality as well as a certain skill set. This is one of the negative results of specialization (for the ancient Greeks science and philosophy were the same thing. Think Thales and Heraclitus.)</p>
<p>That's funny how the "practical vs. liberal arts education" debate turns into the "math/sciences vs. humanities" debate every time... Actually, Physics is not any more "employable" at the undergrad level than Philosophy or Anthropology are. And Economics was a social science last time I checked.</p>
<p>I am a big supporter of the idea that a solid math/science education is pretty useful and allows one to pursue a wider spectrum of opportunities... but I don't think that it is necessarily "practical".</p>
<p>
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Actually, Physics is not any more "employable" at the undergrad level than Philosophy or Anthropology are.
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</p>
<p>This is an excellent point. A lot of my fellow neuroscience majors (look! a science!) were worried that if they didn't get into med or grad school they wouldn't be able to get any job other than that of lab tech. For this reason, I want to go back and serve on the MIT neuroscience student society's "life after graduation" panels, to reassure the people who are like I was.</p>
<p>marmat103: Good point. Agreed. And I do think it's pretty darned practical to be able to write well.</p>
<p>I still have two pages of threads to go but I thought I'd post in response to number 66 and say I was one of those kids who could "stomach" medicine. I was always a great student, and as a second generation American (at least on moms side), and second generation colege attender ( on dads side; a black man born in Alabama in 1918 and completed requirements for a phd at Columbia if you can imagine what that means...didn't get the phD; told it "wasn't time"), a pre-professional major was supported. It was not pushed. I was like "whatever...". It never seemed to interfere with what I was good at, namely going to school. My brother, who went a very different path, reminds me I wanted to be a writer. Anyway I did end up a doctor, and the best part is I can earn enough to work part time and get joy from other things in life. Being a doctor wasn't outsourced, but it sure has changed a lot.</p>
<p>As a parent of 2 seniors---one in college and the other in high school---I understand the concerns expressed. Both my H and I are children of immigrant parents and were never counseled about "choices" other than the expectation of graduating from college...and specifically from UCLA. My father kept hinting at pharmacy...but, I was science "challenged." ;) I started out as a history major and eventually received a degree in East Asian Studies. To make a long story short, I have been working with numbers ever since and will eventually retire as a Budget Director...and with a pension. Who would have thought?! Both H & I pretty much lucked out with our careers. With 3 children, my job served as a means to an end...but, it is not my passion. That is what we have offered our children...work hard, find "your" college, then find your passion. Sounds idealistic, huh? Well, D1's college experience and the mentoring she has received has been exceptional...including 2 summer research internships. And, she is currently applying to grad school...a decision she made on her own.</p>
<p>To sidetrack a bit, it seems that a lot of folks on this board that majored in the humanities and social sciences ended up in some form of teaching, whether that be at a college level or otherwise. I am wondering if someone could, perhaps, elaborate on how that came to be and whether it was challenging without a specific background in pedagogy.</p>
<p>I think this is where the college background of families comes to play.</p>
<p>I am comfortable with a student majoring in classics or psych or literature. I don't think that degrees like engineering or education or business should be undergrad degrees, because IMO more breadth of perspective is needed in those fields.</p>
<p>However- when students are not able to take advantage of research or internship opportunities, during breaks in college, including summer breaks, because they are working to put money toward their EFC or because they don't have confidence to pursue those opportunities &/or their family doesn't know enough about them to be encouraging, they may find themselves at a distinct disadvantage upon graduation, regardless of their major.</p>
<p>In my PhD program we did have one course on pedagogy -- "How to teach English composition." Was and is a worthless course because there is no way to teach English composition. I have been at it thirty years with brief respites and have never found a way that really works. Neither have my colleagues, and my department has 100 full-time tenured profs.</p>
<p>Things usually fall apart mid-semester or one has to teach something and make the essays the by-product. I've tried many approaches.</p>
<p>Upper level courses are supposedly teaching the material, so knowing the material is the only requirement. However, teaching the student and not just material is an art. Pretty much everyone I teach with has it or gets out; the community college is a brutal environment in one can't teach and draining and exhausting if one can. It is, however very rewarding. At least for me.</p>
<p>I think classrooms are just the place I have always felt most comfortable except for my own home when I finally set one up. I was not happy in my parents home; books and classrooms were my refuge. It was a no brainer that I should spend my life in them. And I don't regret it at all.</p>
<p>I'm with Emerald here. I think children of immigrant families, children of those who didn't go to college, children who don't go to top 25 schools, and children of those in the trades and like fields will not necessarily have the success that others have with liberal arts degrees. Maybe they're not at that presitigious school where all the companies recruit. Maybe they lack confidence, connections. </p>
<p>I also feel that everyone has gotten pretty defensive about their own choices on this thread. It is not necessarily true that kids who pursue pre-professional degrees are "scary" because they know what they want to do at 18, or that they have no intellectual breadth or interest in developing themselves. I know you are tired of defending yourselves to those who ask you how you could let your child major in anthropology, but don't make blanket judgments about those who follow another path.</p>
<p>Is there too much emphasis on making money in this culture? Sure. Are some kids (notice I said "some") extending adolescence well past their B.A.s, expecting mom and dad to support them while they do volunteer work or contemplate their next move? Sure. Are there engineers and corporate accountants who decide at midlife to pursue their real passions? Sure. All these things are true. No right or wrong path for anyone. Life throws everyone loops.</p>
<p>BUT -- I would have issues with my children majoring in pure liberal arts without a minor or back-up. I did that, and I did not enjoy feeling lost and floating in my twenties. My parents weren't professionals or particularly well-off. </p>
<p>I'm also not always sure I believe the myth that the "right" career is ultimately fulfilling and wonderful. Yes, identify your aptitudes, don't dread going to work every morning -- but realize that eventually every job is a job, has its drawbacks, becomes a grind on some days, and understand that you can pursue many passions as hobbies or avocations.</p>
<p>But if your mileage varies -- if your child is happy exploring and being uncertain -- that's awesome. I'm not being sarcastic here at all. I just also know lots of people, just like a poster above stated, who continue to support children into their late twenties.</p>
<p>Oh! Also meant to say -- great thread! Exactly what I love about CC.</p>
<p>Nice to see mythmom and mammall going at it in yet another thread! ;) My oldest D goes to a school that has no majors. That's why she chose it. Not that they don't have distribution requirements, but de-emphasizing the major-path allows for incredible cross-discipline courses with compelling titles that mix biology, psychology, philosophy, public policy, and art and require demonstrated expertise in writing, composition, film production, directing, and instructing others. My younger D is writing about Plato, digging at an archeology site, visiting a Buddhist temple, learning movement for actors, Alexander technique, and electrical engineering; as a theater major. </p>
<p>Life is what you put into it.</p>
<p>Has anyone read the novel, Free Food for Millionaires? It explores many of these issues, from the perspective of a young Korean-American, her family, and friends?</p>
<p>I have a kid who is a year and a half out of college so I know his college friends, his HS friends, and a boat load of kids he started nursery school with whose parents I see at the grocery store.</p>
<p>It is my observation that freeloading off one's folks post grad (I'm not talking a few months of living at home to find a job and not refilling the gas tank of the family car) is an equal opportunity employer. Rich, less affluent, immigrant, child of self-made plumbing contractor, child of cardiologist, child of social worker married to a minister.... doesn't matter. Kids who are told early on in their college career that they will be expected to be self supporting by the end of..... 6 months? a year? 12 weeks? post grad, all seem to find jobs which pay the bills. Kids who are told that mummy and daddy will always be here for you seem to end up eating the groceries and having their cellphone bills paid even a decade after college ends.</p>
<p>It's just not that hard folks. We know kids working in think tanks (highly prestigious but not that renumerative) who have 4 roommates to make ends meet; we know kids doing Teach for America who commute long distances so their rent will be more affordable; we know kids living very spartan lives while they're in grad school so they don't have to take out more loans than neccessary to pay tuition.... but they're fully launched regardless of their degree or major.</p>
<p>If you tell your kids that they can't find a decent job with a degree in anthropology then trust me... they won't. They'll hang out in Starbucks with their other unemployed friends from HS and they'll all lament how a liberal arts degree from Wesleyan or BC or NYU doesn't prepare you for the real world. Meanwhile their college classmates are teaching, working as researchers at magazines, editing a newsletter for the association of mortgage bankers, learning to be a speechwriter at a PR firm, or developing new client pitches at a Hedge fund-- all with BA's in some liberal arts field.</p>
<p>You reap what you sow.</p>
<p>Our son is "off the payroll" in June. He knows it and so do we. We are looking forward to seeing him make the next steps towards the life he wants for himself and are sure that at times he will be scraping by for money, living in dumpy places and decorating with cinderblocks- as did we. We have articulated this clearly and recently backed it up with a 'pre-launch' visit with him at school in which he shared the progress he has made with the resources at his school in taking the next steps. </p>
<p>Neither my husband nor I was a liberal arts major and we are mindful that his path will be different than ours. I have confidence in my son's ability to make right for himself.</p>
<p>Proud Dad: There you could again, making me crazy because I'm not at your kid's school.</p>
<p>BTW: I met a lit. and Spanish teacher from B. at S's Family Weekend. She was lovely. She also made me crazy because I'm not teaching at your kid's school. She finished her degree late and just fell into a job there. I've been doing grueling duty at community college for 23 years with same degree and major award for my diss. Life isn't fair. Boo!</p>
<p>"Life is what you put into it."</p>
<p>Ain't that the truth!!
Another reason why I'm glad that my engineer son is taking an ancient Greek studies class.</p>
<p>Frequently I'm mulling over the different roads taken between the two groups of young people that are part of my life. One group, my kids and their peers, tend to be liberal arts oriented and very interested in other cultures and social issues. The other, my work peers, though of a generation younger than me, tend to be very disciplined young women and men, who have gone through nursing school, graduated to a well paying job, marry and are buying houses. I'm rather taken aback at the lockstep uniformity of their lives, though I suppose that's what the majority do. My path was far more eclectic, as are the ways my 3 are progressing. </p>
<p>It is interesting to watch my S and his peers, just graduated this last spring, mostly LA grads. The one with the best job is the psychology major, in a totally unrelated field. My S also is working in something unrelated. The ones who do find jobs seem to have flexibility, a passion in a certain direction, if not a multitude of directions, and are good researchers, ferret out options and pursue them. </p>
<p>My sympathies to those dealing with those return to the nest kids. I had one living in my basement till just a year ago, the S of friends. Nice enough, talented LAC grad from a great school. But not posessed of the sort of initiative to get off the parental dole easily. When it comes down to it, are you willing to take your S to a homeless shelter due to lack of initiative? It almost came to that, as I came up with a deadline, not wanting to be an enabler, as these parents didn't either. </p>
<p>I'm glad my 3 have the opportunity to get a good education, pursue passions that are unrelated to a career path, though I talk up various careers in what I hear is an irritating fashion. Whatever they end up doing for jobs, I want them to have that LA perspective on time and place. </p>
<p>I was one of those that loved the arts, didn't find a way to make it renumerative, and went to nursing school in my mid twenties. Many times I'm glad for the eclectic background that brings greater perspective to my rather technically demanding job. </p>
<p>These days, in the USA, the greatest fear for kids is not about the paycheck and asthetics or the lack thereof in their lives, as much as imaging them without health insurance.</p>
<p>Well, I would say that with a paycheck that every college graduate should be able to make this is not a problem.</p>