My husband and I got our master’s degrees in engineering in 1986. Top grades and I had experience working at a large engineering firm.
Oil prices had just collapsed and we couldn’t find work in Texas. We got only a handful of responses from the 271 letters we sent out ranging from Hawaii to Maine. Most of them said sorry, there’s no work. We were stunned. A firm in Portland finally hired both of us. Not long after we’d been there, my husband’s paycheck got mixed up with that of a draftsman, who opened it before he realized the error. The guy looked shocked when he saw the amount. He blurted out, “They are not paying you enough!" Sigh.
Four years later the company reorganized and we were laid off the same day. We spent a good bit of time standing in unemployment lines and going from job to job. That’s why we eventually started our own company, and that has gone well.
So yes, even engineers with degrees from top schools can struggle.
I think the problem of student debt is a direct result of students taking on too much debt (and the overall economics of colleges, but that is a separate conversation). If a student can only afford to go to a particular college if they earn $100K + when they are 22, then maybe they can’t afford that college.
Go in-state, go to a directional, etc, if that is what is affordable for you. Start at community college, if needed. The key issue is biting off more than you can chew, not majoring in philosophy.
Plenty of students choose a pre-professional track like sports marketing and struggle with debt after college.
I think it’s fair to say that “software engineer” has replaced the “file room clerk” or “mail room clerk” from days of yore as the most ubiquitous entry-level job title for many LAC graduates.
Wesleyan, a college with no engineering school, nevertheless manages to place 14% of its graduates into “tech and engineering sciences” jobs.
Some of the universities you cite as preprofessional have robust interdisciplinary curricula, research opportunities, and unique study abroad programs. Some of the latter are so established that students earn grades in addition to credits, which may encourage more to immerse themselves in another culture.
My children and I have studied at two of the universities you cite as preprofessional, and we all double majored plus minored across schools and disciplines to develop analytically, philosophically and creatively. It takes more credits and time management to satisfy multiple core curricula, graduation requirements, and perhaps work/study jobs within four years without sacrificing too much singular depth, but it is doable with strategic planning.
Exploration of the mind is not limited to LACs and creativity is not the sole domain of pursuits in the humanities or the arts. Additionally, poetry, language, literature, mathematics, and other fields certainly exist as well as excel at Penn and Georgetown. They also enhance the ethics, imagination, critical thinking, and ability of expression that are important to future scientists, inventors, engineers, doctors, lawyers, computer scientists, and businessmen alike while lending balance, perspective, and enjoyment to life.
Perhaps the vibe or style of schools people list as preprofessional, liberal arts, or open curriculum may differ, but the development of the mind and pursuit of potential careers are not mutually exclusive at any of them.
This is exactly what I am getting at in the OP. Is the characterization of a school as a “PPC” a sign that other subjects, which could broaden students to new ways of thinking and open new intellectual doors, are NOT taught?
From what you and others have written, that doesn’t at all sound like the case. I have absolutely no problems with a school that prepares kids for jobs and careers but not at the expense of these other important issues.
It clearly sounds like it is NOT an either/or proposition.
You may think that, but the numbers do not bear out your argument.
The biggest source of the student debt crisis is the large and robust group of for-profit colleges who prey on ignorant families who believe that getting a Bachelor’s in Travel and Tourism means a great job at Disney upon graduation. Or that getting a BA in Criminal Justice gives you a leg up in law school admissions, or that getting a BA in Court Reporting pushes you to the front of the line in judicial hiring.
None of these are true. You CAN get a job at Disney with a BA in Travel and Tourism- but it’s the same job as you’d get with an AA from a low cost Community College which could be covered by your Pell and living at home.
It is fashionable on CC to blame the debt crisis on kids who study Aristotle and Plato- in fact, it’s the kids THINKING they are getting the on-ramp to a lucrative career with a low value, high cost degree that have the largest at-risk profile. They’ve taken on large amounts of debt for minimum wage jobs which do not require a college degree.
Pre-Covid, the gym I went to was a large employer of kids from a local college who had degrees in Sports Management. Nice kids- but very sad. Four years in college to be handing out towels at the front desk? The kids thought they’d be working in strategy at ESPN or managing a major league football team. And now you’re 25, living at home, used up your Pell and in debt up to your eyeballs to be making $15/hour…
I see those kids at my gym. They last six months to a year and then switch careers. My current trainer is 26. He has an MBA. He hated the corporate world and decided to become a trainer. He’s discovered the pay stinks and just passed his exams to become a Realtor.
The young kid who teaches Zumba at my gym was disillusioned to discover that most sports agents have JD’s… he actually thought (encouraged by the “pre-professional, everyone gets jobs when they graduate, nobody here studies philosophy” ethos of the college he attended) that a degree in Sports Management was going to make him an agent doing deals over drinks at some swanky club…and now he’s teaching Zumba to the old ladies, no benefits, no career track.
But my point is that the source of student debt is NOT the kids reading Goethe with not thought as to what they are going to do with their lives to pay off their debt. There aren’t enough kids reading Goethe to cause the depth of the crisis we have right now!
And the Criminal Justice scam- that really makes me mad. Is there a major that sounds more “practical” than CJ? until you graduate and discover that your colleagues in the probation office where you work all have two year degrees, make the same salary as you, and you spent four years and borrowed up the max?
Colleges with a preprofessional vibe are still rooted in the concept of a broad Liberal Arts education. I am 100% certain that Penn has fantastic professors and offerings in history, anthropology and women’s studies. As an example, for the years 2018-2019, 200 (not sure how many of them were bachelor’s degrees) students were awarded degrees in philosophy and religion, according to this:
As I said earlier, when I think of preprofessional, I think primarily of the vibe of the student body. So even kids at Wharton are going to be taught a lot of classic liberal arts subjects, but I am pretty sure the vibe is preprofessional. Curriculum < University of Pennsylvania
Hmm, I realize I’ve had a different internal definition of pre-professional than most people on this thread. I’ve done pre-med advising, and I’ve always thought of pre-professional in the context of the student preparing to do a “professional” post-graduate course of study.
So “professional” school would be the basic terminal degree that is required to practice in a certain field. That may be an MD, a JD, a DVM, a PharmD, for example. So pre-med, pre-law, pre-vet, pre-pharm are all “pre-professional” courses of study, even if you’re majoring in biology, poly sci, or chemistry. When they’re in their graduate program, they’re in professional school.
For fields like nursing or engineering or education, the bachelor’s degree IS the basic terminal degree. Even though PhD’s are offered in those fields, most nurses and engineers and teachers don’t go beyond the bachelor. So in my mind, the nursing or engineering or education undergrad student is already IN professional school.
That’s a very rigid definition based on my advising experience, and obviously doesn’t encompass all the nuance and thoughtfulness of the other posts on this thread. I realize I’m applying it to careers that have some sort of education and certification requirements, which is a small subset of careers.
Interesting that from my son’s 15 person math cohort in his matriculation year that 80% went the “industry” route (almost exclusively quantitative traders or actuaries) and 20% stayed at Oxford for their PhDs.
I never attended, but I find it hard to believe that Princeton and Dartmouth are anti-intellectual:
Princeton requires the senior thesis, a masssssssssive paper requiring deep thoughts (not necessarily, hopefully, by Jack Handey…). To boot, Princeton does not offer a Business degree.
Dartmouth has small classes, relatively little STEM, and is bucolic and small-towny, like most other small New England bastions of intellectualism – it almost is a hybrid LAC/U. Surely with all the Hum/SS majors, there is intellectualism happening there. (they do have their fair share of business-minded students, but relatively few CS or Engineering kids…)