Folks I was just responding to an earlier comment that UMass was cheaper than Harvard. Sometimes it isn’t. Sorry I didn’t make context clear. I am aware of admissions stats. I just wanted to correct that absolute statement in case a low income student was reading this thread. In our high school our GC sent everyone to publics and wasn’t even aware of financial aid at top schools.
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That does not mean that the middle class or lower will necessarily ignore other aspects of college, even if their decision on whether to attend college or what college and major to choose is heavily influenced or constrained by cost and career preparation considerations.
It is also not the case that all STEM majors have good career prospects. Biological sciences are the largest grouping of the STEM majors, but are in oversupply relative to major-related jobs at the bachelor’s degree level. So students choosing college major with consideration of career prospects need to avoid the “STEM automatically means good career prospects” belief and look carefully at specific majors.
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This is what we call an extreme exception. Rarely does this actually occur in real life unless said history major is VERY talented or has family/friend connections.
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Bloomington, I was not independently wealthy and have never regretted my Classics degree. One of my kids- also not independently wealthy- studied a humanities major and has been employed since the age of 16- and profitably employed since a week after college graduation. Out-earns both parents now (and we are thrilled).
You should get out more.
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That’s not true and I’m not sure what you base your opinion on. I was a History (and French) major and had a successful corporate career before taking time off for kiddos and, then, starting my own business. I came from a very modest background, attended a SLAC almost entirely on financial aid and certainly had no connections to help me get a job. I have a lot of college friends with a similar story. I also don’t know where you get the idea that STEM majors write analytically and creatively - that certainly hasn’t been my experience. I’m sure there are some, of course, but part of the reason technical writers are in demand is that many folks who are technically strong are not particularly good writers.
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But also, some who can write well have difficulty understanding or writing about technical subjects. It may require an uncommon combination of skills and knowledge to be a good technical writer (and, of course, someone with that combination may also have other opportunities and interests).
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Of course! There are no hard and fast rules. I just object to the idea that STEM majors are better able to “research, read closely and write creatively” as was suggested above. In my professional life I’ve found that very few people actually write competently, let alone creatively, so that probably colors my viewpoint.
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My favorite Bill Gates interview of all time is the one where he confessed that the secret to the success of Word was that he hired a bunch of humanities majors (anthropologists, English majors, etc.) to do course correction with the technical teams during development.
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Again, this is what we call an extreme exception. I’m willing to bet there are tons of other classics/humanities grads from her school who are NOT doing as well.
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And who do we think was paid significantly more for their work – the technical team or the English majors?
They all got options and most retired at an uncommonly early age, so their actual salary was a rounding error compared with the wealth creation that Microsoft provided!
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How do you know this? And why would you assume that the high earning humanities major (not Classics, that was me) is female? Because men study STEM AND get high salaries, and women study English and can only “luck into” a high paying career?
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Sorry for the assumption. Women are also very capable of STEM as well – I know lots of women who are raking in
$20k-30k this next summer as software engineering interns at FAANG or unicorns or elsewhere.
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Some of us are more analytical. Some of us are better at telling stories. Some of us are more athletic. Some of us are more artistic. Some of us have more vivid imagination. Some of us are better at seeing relationships and connecting dots. Some of us may be better at a few of these things, but never all of them. We are what we are because the nature ensures there is a diversity of talents. Otherwise, our species would have probably vanished long ago. Uniformity isn’t a virtue. Enforcing conformity is unnatural and a recipe for disaster.
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Oh, the broadbrush of CC has made its way to this thread. LOL
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You mean the hyper focus on STEM? Or the preoccupation with “elite” schools - either one is ubiquitous.
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I know many, many humanities classmates who did not come from wealth who have been very successful (earn a good salary and are respected in their careers–which by the way are BOTH “payoffs”, not just the salary). The obsession with STEM is over the top on this thread, as is the hyper-focus on salary.
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I couldn’t agree more. I like and appreciate STEM, but you’d think that a CS or Engineering degree was the only legitimate choice of major if you relied on CC alone. Certainly those can be lucrative fields, but they can also be ho-hum - just like any other career.
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My radiologist is in Mumbai.
Think about that when you advise your kids to go to med school because “your job can never get outsourced overseas”.
And the number of CS jobs that have seeped out of the US over the last two decades- well, there’s that.
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I’d like to know where all the STEM graduates, that are the result of this hyper focus on STEM, are. I’m on the interviewing committee for an early to mid career research position at my lab (albeit in a pretty niche experimental field) and all our candidates this cycle are foreign citizens, born and educated. We pay well, I would like to think, and have pretty good funding. We do not need computer scientists, we need PhD engineers. Maybe it’s just a coincidence this year, but the fervor on CC for STEM education does not translate into a fervor for STEM research. We have some great candidates so I expect our team to continue to flourish, but I thought I’d mention the disconnect between CC and my reality.
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