What's the fate of liberal arts grads?

Parents Forum
101

<p>According to Andrew Abbott (occupational sociologist) there is little correlation between undergraduate major at top universities and eventual occupation, with the exception of some of the "hard sciences." Also contrary to popular belief, there is little correlation between how well one does in school and eventual income. For example, a 2.8 GPA and a 3.8 GPA show almost no difference in eventual earnings. Further, Abbott reports, there is little evidence that college provides the "critical thinking skills" needed for doing ones job well that can't be picked up, perhaps better, on the job.</p>

<p>See: <a href="http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0310/features/zen.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0310/features/zen.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Or for more detail: <a href="http://www.uchicago.edu/docs/education/record/pdfs/37-2.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.uchicago.edu/docs/education/record/pdfs/37-2.pdf&lt;/a> page 4.</p>

<p>See also "The Management Myth": <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200606/stewart-business%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200606/stewart-business&lt;/a> (don't know if an account is required)</p>

102

<p>I just finished listening to a dear friend of my son's give his pitch. He's selling knives over the summer, after his freshman year. </p>

<p>Bear with me, this relates to the last post and many others.</p>

<p>I asked him, "why are you doing this, instead of ....(fill-in-the-blank)."</p>

<p>And his response was, "I'm majoring in business and I want to improve my communication skills."</p>

<p>I was so impressed with that- it's TOUGH AS HECK to go out and sell door to door (or phone to phone, contact to contact). </p>

<p>He did a wonderful job and I was so proud of him (I've known him for 10 years). The stick-to-it-ness and resilience of these young people is so impressive to me. Yes, taking anthro and literature, and analyzing poetry, is one way of getting into people's heads. But there are other ways as well.</p>

103

<p>RE: Momofthreeboys post #100. I said in an earlier post that anyone who is not familiar with entry level investment banking jobs would thing I was lying if I told you how many hours these kids work. At this point, an 80 hour work week would seem almost like a vacation to my son and his colleagues. Really. Try 110, for weeks on end.</p>

104

<p>Career path of a history major from Claremont McKenna class of '79:</p>

<p>Years 1-2: clueless; law school?..yes, no, no...deliver pizzas, *** am I doing? (20 hrs/wk work)</p>

<p>Years 3-10: commercial real estate brokerage, minor portofolio R.E. investment. (40 hrs/wk work)</p>

<p>Years 10-18: Hardcore R.E. investment and development. (countless hrs/wk work)</p>

<p>Semi-retired from age 40, but actively managing personal assets. (5 hrs/wk work). Freedom to do what I choose.</p>

<p>Though I had no idea at the time, in retrospect I believe that my liberal arts education was the best possible preparation for my entrepreneurial business career.</p>

<p>Edit: I had no idea that "what the #%$&" would become ***</p>

105

<p>
[quote]
so I would advise a student with a passion for philosophy or languages or history or whatever to get their BA, get into a company and use the tuition reimbursement program to pay for their MBA.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>What companies are out there that have programs like this?</p>

<p>Are they mostly in the financial services sector?</p>

106

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<p>Interesting career path, and congratulations on your success. I'm curious as to which aspects of your education you feel you benefited from in your entrepeneurial business career that might be unique to liberal arts. Would a degree in math, chemistry, business, or engineering have provided similar benefits? </p>

<p>I once knew a young sales engineer who was taking business classes and wanted to buy a Mailboxes, Etc. franchise. Sounds like a good combination to me: engineering undergraduate degree (heavy-duty problem solving skills); sales experience (work ethic, personal interaction); part-time MBA (practical business training); a passion for entrepeneurship and willingness to take on risk.</p>

<p>Personally, I am risk averse (as most engineers tend to be, fortunately for those of us who cross a bridge on their daily commute).... The thought of not having a somewhat well-defined set of secure options after graduation scares me, which is why I am so interested in this conversation (having a D with broad interests).</p>

107

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<p>One place is defense companies, for their engineers. This is the corner of the world I have seen, which is why I'm looking for help in understanding the rest of the world.</p>

108

<p>Every company I have worked for has had tuition reimbursement programs. I pinged my siblings last night to see what they had to say and they both said that all the companies they had worked or worked for had tuition reimbursement programs. So...that covers national real estate development companpy, local government, national advertising agency, mutli-national manufacturing company, education, regional utility company....I don't think tuition reimbursement is unusual. Others chime in if you disagree. At the very least when you are out interviewing it is an excellent question, "do you provide tuition reimbursement if I want to pursue by MBA". Oh, that reminded me, I know a couple people who took para-legal jobs after their liberal arts BAs and their law firms reimbursed law school. The executive MBA or EMBA programs are great and many of those require that you be working full time in your chosen field to even apply. Lastly, I think while being risk adverse is fine, in this day and age every company is running lean, the old paradigms are changing and I would counsel all employees to always have a plan A and a plan B and to try to be as flexible as possible and not adverse to change. It's tough because it's not some people's nature. So, in my mind, a kid whose path is abit "wider" and less defined through liberal arts perhaps may actually have an edge in a changing landscape.</p>

109

<p>One reason I think my engineering education at Ohio State was second to none(a bold statement indeed!) was because it was a 5 year program in those days and allowed me to take a course of study which approached being a liberal arts degree sans the foreign language requirement. Electives which I took and can remember included:</p>

<p>-urban and regional planning
-social cybernetics
-ethics
-history of the reconstruction era
-macro econ
-metallurgy of iron
-Scerbo-Croatian literature
-intro microbiology
-intro to classical music
-medieval and rennaisance music
-music of the 20th century
-intro to modernist painters
-rhetoric 1
-rhetoric 2
-technical writing
-statistics for business and engineering majors
-race relations in the post-WW2 era(taught by Gunnar Myrdal)</p>

<p>I was able to take a broad range of non-engineering electives because it was a 5 yr-3 quarter/yr program which was a wonderful luxury for students like me. The result was a lifelong love of classical/modern music, modern art and a nuanced appreciation for racial issues in society.</p>

<p>Like the credit card advertisement says: The additional cost of books: $300. The additional cost of tuition: $1800.
The intangible benefits of a liberal engineering education: priceless.</p>

<p>Alas. OSU went to a typical 4 yr curriculum years back and thus dramatically cut back on the non-tech elective reqts.</p>

110

<p>I worked for a number of small software start ups, and not a one had tuition reimbursement.</p>

<p>One of the most successful people I ran into had a degree from Westfield State College. He initially worked in software development for a financial services company. He had an idea for his own software product, started a company to develop it (with help from his brothers, as I recall - at least one didn't have any kind of college degree), and was a millionaire before he turned 30.</p>

<p>Part of his success was being in the right place at the right time, and the rest involved working his tail off for a couple of years.</p>

111

<p>One note on tuition reimbursement programs: the engineers at the company I worked for were limited to studying engineering, or lobbying hard to be reimbursed for an MBA.</p>

112

<p>Every one of the liberal arts grads I can think of in my circle of acquaintances got advanced degrees, and their careers developed from their terminal degrees.</p>

<p>Some of them worked for a few years first in areas such as: municipal governments, hospitals, investment banks.</p>

<p>Today these people are: doctors, lawyers, business execs, investment bankers, professors, an industrial chemist, an editor.</p>

<p>Some of the engineers I know did not get advance degrees, and the preponderance of the ones who did got MBAs.</p>

<p>It would be hard for me to say who wound up doing "better". However, I would guess it is the liberal arts grads, as a group.</p>

<p>Most of the companies I've worked at have been run by liberal arts majors. My experience is that mostly people whose primary strong suit is skills in a technical area wind up working for people who lack these technical skills. relatively, but have excellent communications, interpersonal and leadership skills. And most tasks useful to a particular area of a company are taught on the job.</p>

<p>To the extent that a liberal arts education cultivates some of these attributes more than a technical path does, particularly through the old "reading & Writing" part, I personally think it is the superior path for many. Aside from more focus on communications, the diversity of courses can help make you a more interesting and educated person, which can have both personal and professional benefits. Try schmoozing clients at a business conference by talking about Thermodynamics, or changes in FASB accounting standards.</p>

<p>As someone who once lost a plumb asssignment because I was not fluent in Spanish- I think everyone should gain proficiency in a foreign language.</p>

113

<p>I have not read the posts in this thread, but thought to contribute a tidbit from a conversation I had yesterday.
A young woman was in town to recruit for a hedge fund that is expanding. She was an English and poli sci major at a top university and had plans to go to graduate school when taking on the job at the hedge fund; she never left. The company, she said, had already filled the positions for which quantitative skills would be needed, but was more interested in strategic thinking at this point. She was looking to atract students who had acquired good critical, analytical skills, whatever discipline they were in, and that meant the humanities and social sciences as much as those involving quantitative reasoning.</p>

114

<p>
[quote]
"The intangible benefits of a liberal engineering education: priceless."

[/quote]

"Liberal engineering education" I like that!</p>

<p>The ABET requirements on engineering bachelors programs attempt to develop both breadth and depth in the technical areas, with some attention to writing-intensive courses and a smattering of humanities and social sciences. The technical breadth comes through exposure to chemistry and physics, significant math requirements, and exposure to different engineering disciplines. The technical depth requires pursuing one or two areas of concentration with multiple courses. This leaves a handful of courses for non-technical exploration. My S will start with a number of credits from APs, and I'm encouraging him to use the flexibility this will give him to explore whatever courses might interest him. With his interests, though, it is more likely to be astrophysics than French literature.</p>

<p>An "engineering science" education is less rigorous technically, but would leave more time for exploring non-technical interests. This would probably be more like a liberal arts degree in that it is good preparation for grad/prof school or self-motivated career development, but it isn't going to land the same engineering job as an accredited engineering degree. Math or science degrees may be similar to engineering science, I don't know. </p>

<p>But I strongly agree that the young adult college years are a wonderful opportunity to develop one's appreciation of culture, a benefit that is arguably more important than career preparation. I'm not sure that has to be done in the college classroom, however. The $50K spent for a fifth year at college to permit the development of cultural appreciation would buy some darned nice off-campus experiences.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Try schmoozing clients at a business conference by talking about Thermodynamics, or changes in FASB accounting standards.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>LOL! We travel in different circles! The people I meet at conferences are more interested in nuclear energy policy and MP3 players than in social cybernetics and rennaisance music! I personally believe that the critical skills for schmoozing are flattery, drinking, and golf.... ;)</p>

<p>
[quote]
One note on tuition reimbursement programs: the engineers at the company I worked for were limited to studying engineering, or lobbying hard to be reimbursed for an MBA.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I knew of several young engineers who got an MBA paid for by their company, even some who were clearly not management material. Where I work now, we have a number of people who have gone through a "technical management" masters program with full tutition benefits. However, an engineering masters degree is more common and strongly encouraged for recent college grads. I doubt that very many companies will pay for courses that are extremely far away from one's possible career path within that company, though I've seen benefits paid even when it was pretty likely that the person would leave upon completion. I think that the larger companies will have the most generous tuition benefits. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Every one of the liberal arts grads I can think of in my circle of acquaintances got advanced degrees, and their careers developed from their terminal degrees.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I guess this is what I am interested in for planning purposes. Does the **typical<a href="non-entrepeneur,%20non-top-LAC%20grad">/b</a> liberal arts grad need to continue on for an advanced degree to live a comfortable lifestyle?</p>

<p>
[quote]
Further, Abbott reports, there is little evidence that college provides the "critical thinking skills" needed for doing ones job well that can't be picked up, perhaps better, on the job.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>So why go to college at all? I'll have to read the link.</p>

115

<p>Do2, as one who started out life as an engineering student, it took me quite a while to learn to live comfortably with risk and insecurity but I wouldn't go back for anything. Fwiw. Indeed, one of the few meta-lessons that I'm trying to convey to my D is to not be afraid of failure, to dare more, to take more risks. (Professionally and perhaps with relationships, not talking about drugs, alcohol, or skydiving here.)</p>

116

<p>TheDad--</p>

<p>Risk-taking is a lesson my kids will have to learn from someone else!</p>

<p>Part of what makes each of us is the sum of our experiences. That's one reason we send these little urchins off to school, isn't it?</p>

117

<p>Dado2, in my experience, almost everyone who reaches a Director level up either has completed a master's or is strongly encouraged to complete a masters to continue to rise in a company. In looking at bios for a number of years, in my estimation this was less prevelent ten or twenty years ago. Our company prefers that it's execs have the masters, although we have just a few VPs who do not have an advanced degree, but they are the exception not the norm. Some don't complete their masters until their mid thirties probably because they are encouraged to.</p>

118

<p>Sorry, I keep thinking about things from the engineering perspective. </p>

<p>mom3-are you talking MBAs or other types of masters degrees? I don't see that a masters degree in anthropology is going to tip the scale in the business world....</p>

119

<p>One of the most successful businesspeople I know has a joint PhD in Psychology and Statistics, not an MBA.</p>

120

<p>If the liberal arts degree is free and you're allowed a "nurturing environment" is it really such a loss? Four years of room, board, food, and fun classes doesn't sound like a bad deal. Besides, I'd like to study what I'm interested in--and maybe major in economics just in case.</p>

<p>I'm learning how to program, speak a foreign language, write well, and think critically among other things. By the time I graduate, I should be rather comfortable with numbers too. Are those skills that unmarketable? What about internships?</p>

<p>Or am I doomed to graduate school?</p>

<p>I guess it couldn't be that bad, right?</p>