Why do so many people claim that STEM majors are good?

<p>Take for example Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. They're all considered STEM majors, but they have pretty bad salaries and job prospects, so what's with this PICK A STEM MAJOR parrot saying?</p>

<p>because prospects are worse with humanities majors and there is a lot of need for people in the STEM fields. You are picking on the pure fields, which are hard to get jobs in because those fields are primarily research based. For the same reason, salaries are lower.</p>

<p>You’ll have people claiming on every end of the spectrum. Within STEM, it’s mostly engineering that “pays”. Regardless, engineering sort of incorporates the other 3 parts of the anagram - science, technology, and mathematics.</p>

<p>You’ll see people claim the same with business majors. On average business majors will not make a whole ton, but they have the highest salary potential - meaning if they get lucky and get some elusive job on Wall Street or something they will get tons of $$$. But that’s a shot in the dark. The pure sciences are sort of restricted to lab hands that make bad salaries. Even with a PhD the science PhD market is not good for academia. For sciences like physics, geology, the situation is better. Regardless, STEM majors in almost all of the disciplines usually have higher salaries on average than their liberal arts counterparts. (think History, Political science, English etc.)</p>

<p>Math and physics graduates do often make their way into jobs involving finance and computers, so their prospects are generally better than those of biology and chemistry majors.</p>

<p>It should be renamed:
STEMMB
STEM Minus Biology</p>

<p>@GMTplus7 but I love biology (well maybe not ecology). </p>

<p>I think STEM will be in higher demand just due to the direction our world is moving toward today. More technology driven, more problems that need a creative solution, and more diseases that need new research to try and stop them.</p>

<p>However, biology majors are in plentiful supply, so competition is fierce for the available jobs (particularly better ones than low paid lab technician jobs).</p>