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<p>I’m going to cling to that distinction as I am currently paying OOS tuition for a Sociology degree. LOL :D</p>
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<p>Well, god forbid their wives be the breadwinners ;)</p>
<p>I think everyone has a different idea of a “decent salary,” which contributes to the wild range of mid-career salaries.</p>
<p>“Well, god forbid their wives be the breadwinners”</p>
<p>I sure am hoping that my sons find themselves some nice rich wives, or ones with high salaries, anyone here have a spare rich daughter available? 
If not, I am discouraging the pursuit of the drama degree. We just don’t have the extra 200K+ laying around to put towards a degree that may never enable them to earn a decent income. My idea of “decent income” is pretty high, as we live in a high cost area. It must be nice to have no worries that ones child will be taken care of (particularly a son, who will generally have the breadwinner duties fall upon his shoulders)…but some of us live in the real world, unfortunately!</p>
<p>Well, I expected to be in the minority here for supporting my son’s choice to be a music major. He will be attending a liberal arts college, so should emerge with a well-rounded education. Like many music majors, he felt that it was something he HAD to pursue. He has a talent for it, and a love for it. For all those that have a talent and love for engineering, go for it! My problem is with all the kids that are choosing it primarily for the salary.</p>
<p>If someone has a sincere talent and desire for it, and they or their family will not go into great debt for it…I say go for it. But I’d definitely recommend a good backup plan! And many kids have families with plenty of cash, or a family business they can go into, or great connections. But many of us don’t. I think anyone who is choosing engineering just for the money will not stay in that major long, as it is quite challenging and only for the very motivated.</p>
<p>Nah mamakin, I support you. I come from a low-income household and my idea of a great salary isn’t skewed. Let me put it this way - I’m not one of those people who thinks $150,000 is middle class. This is extremely liberating because I know I will be able to study what I want to study, make a splash in the field I love, and love life without having a lot of digits in my bank account or a house that costs half a million bucks.</p>
<p>Go for it applicannot! Luckily, my musician son likes to shop at thrift stores and has a taste for macaroni and cheese. No trust fund in sight, but I did let him know that we would keep the door open for him if/when he needs help. He worked hard enough in high school to get academic merit and music talent scholarships that will make his college of choice affordable.</p>
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<p>True, but the problem they have now is that it’s hard to attract and retain people they want. Salaries that are so low that people can’t even afford to live near the communities where they work are terrible; I don’t have an anecdote for social work, but I used to work at a school where the teachers made so little that they qualified for the Free and Reduced Lunch program. Isn’t that absurd? How are you supposed to get people to agree to do a job that requires so much time and investment? This is especially distressing once you realize that, especially for elementary school teachers, many of the costs of doing their job (purchasing supplies, etc.) comes out of their own pocket. </p>
<p>Your point about not overpaying is valid, but I think we can find a median between “paying below-subsistence wages” and “golden Ferraris for everyone”. :D</p>
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<p>I was shocked too the first time I saw someone say that on CC. I guess you just have to take into account cost of living; in some areas it’s expensive to live so $150,000 a year doesn’t go very far. I can see your point too though; for someone whose family lived on less than a quarter of that per year, hearing people with incomes from $150,000, $200,000, even $500,000/year arguing that poorer people are so incredibly, fantastically lucky all the time on this thread can be a little hard to swallow. I’m not downplaying their struggles or their hard work in getting where they are, but sometimes we all need a little perspective, you know?</p>
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From what I read it’s not hard at all - there are more teachers than there are positions for them. It goes back to what another poster stated - supply and demand. </p>
<p>It’s easy to become a teacher and it seems to be the ‘default’ career choice for many - i.e. they choose it when they can’t think of anything else to do and any major, even the easiest majors, can be used towards it - i.e. virtually any college grad with any degree can pursue a teaching credential. I know there are also plenty who choose it because they have a lifelong passion to teach but the ‘supply’ is probably diluted by all those who choose it because they don’t know what else to do after deciding against becoming a lawyer or doctor.</p>
<p>You’re right in the broad strokes, but the problem that I was talking about was the issue of teacher recruitment and successful retention. As I said, you’re right that there, overall, a healthy supply (and perhaps an oversaturation) of teachers. However, school divisions are having a hard time recruiting for certain high-demand fields (such as math, science, and special education) and retaining talent (which you mentioned in your post). People with a passion for teaching also need to eat, and if your school district pays so poorly that your teachers qualify for means-tested welfare programs, how are you supposed to recruit people for these fields? Teachers like this will either give up and leave the profession or move to more affluent areas with higher pay, which screws over kids in poorer areas.</p>
<p>Again, I’m not talking about lavish salaries and ridiculous benefits. Of course most jurisdictions are unable to afford that. But I think it should at least be possible for teachers to survive on their incomes in the neighborhood where they teach in most cases. If you want to attract the best people, especially in high-demand specialized fields like special education, you’ve got to treat them like any other skilled professional.</p>
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mamakin:
I don’t think you’re in the minority in that respect here on CC. I think probably most parents here would support their kid’s choice of major if they have a real passion for it. I think it’s fine to support the kid in their chosen area as long as everyone’s eyes are wide open to the practicalities and ‘odds’ - with the ‘odds’ being particularly applicable in the area of the arts - music, drama, production, etc. Some of the grads will go on and do well in their desired profession, some wil do really well from a practical standpoint, and others will be happy enough with the choice as long as they can survive with the salary. A lot of the grads, however, will end up re-prioritizing and end up focusing more on the practical side and enter other career choices even though they retain their arts as their real passion. </p>
<p>I think it’s a good idea to have a realistic perspective of what to expect as a result of the major and most HS students don’t really have this in a lot of areas. If my kids had chosen a major where I was concerned about their ability to reasonably support themselves, buy a house, raise a family, take vacations, save money, and do all the things that become more important once enters real life after college, I’d at a minimum make sure their eyes are wide open to the realistic opportunities available in the major and possible backup plans. </p>
<p>However, I’d never ‘force’ them into a particular major because of the prospective jobs/income and I’d also support them within reason in whatever major they wanted to pursue.</p>
<p>This article made me wince. Most of the well respected/loved teachers at my school teach these subjects. :|</p>
<p>We need more social workers in our society, imo. We have too many wannabe doctors and engineers that want to “help” the world.</p>
<p>We don’t really have too many engineers or doctors either. That’s the problem! People assume that because, on College Confidential (!!!) a lot of people are talking about these majors, so we have a lot of them. We NEED all of these people. Every single one of them. We can’t give up on engineering to focus on social work, no more than we can stop training social workers to focus on making more accountants or nurses for a while. Trying to do that is like deciding to only eat enough to support your kidney, left lung, and spleen but not your heart, right lung, and gallbladder. It won’t work and all it does is create a new, even more irritating problem in the future.</p>
<p>^ Good point.</p>
<p>But I would also like to add that these doctor/engineer hopefuls (as a whole) hardly value the importance of social work. I think with that attitude, a lot of people disregard social work as something that is unrewarding, especially in terms of $$.</p>
<p>I’m enjoying this discussion! In reading through the posts, I guess for me it comes down to – “Is my son going to college to get a job, or is he going to get an education?” We’re going with the education, but hopefully the two will not prove to be mutually exclusive. Son #2 is planning to support us all a rock star. Definitely working on a plan B for THAT one.</p>
<p>Read the news, look at the world. We are a nation that for years has relied on temporary financial bubbles while exporting actual production. Very few of our citizens produce any world recognized value . And this decline has been recently and dramatically accelerated. Read the news, look at the world.</p>
<p>The consequence of this is ominous for all our citizens, especially for our younger citizens. The younger ones that make their education/career decisions wisely will prosper. But only relative to their fellow citizens.</p>
<p>Sorry to be so morose, but I think this true.</p>
<p>Hopefully my son will produce music that has meaning and value (though not likely of the monetary kind). That will add to the richness of life for those that hold such things to be of value.</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with pursuing a degree that is one of the lowest paying degrees. (Be advised that our trash haulers make a lot more than the salaries listed on the first page, no college education required.)</p>
<p>What is wrong is when students pursuing those majors sit around and whine about how little they will make. Education majors were notorious for this at my college. It’s almost as if they were coached to whine to everyone about how they make no money. </p>
<p>Please, if you are choosing a field that is known for low salary, please don’t complain about it! And the same goes for those in fields that will make a lot. Please don’t go bragging about it.</p>
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<p>“Corporations and employers have frequently and publicly complained about the lack of
professional awareness and low levels of communication and teamwork skills in engineering
graduates…” (The future of engineering education. I. A vision for a new century, accessible at <a href=“http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.34.9908&rep=rep1&type=pdf[/url]”>http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.34.9908&rep=rep1&type=pdf</a>)</p>
<p>I’ve seen this sentiment expressed in a number of places, and I also remember a study that showed in contrast to other majors, the writing skills of engineering students actually deteriorate from their pre-college level. </p>
<p>I think the real problem is the rigidity of engineering programs: they require far more credits than others, and as a result, the ability to have a “liberal” education is more limited. I would also wonder whether engineering classes place much of a focus on the quality of writing (spelling, grammar, etc.). My own experience with quantitative courses suggests that professors are far less likely to assign point values to such things (unless it’s unreadable) than to judge only the ideas. In contrast, my humanities professors care quite a bit about writing quality. If one combines this with the decreased ability of an engineering student to take many humanities classes compared to other quantitative majors with less stringent requirements (e.g., biology, mathematics, chemistry), then a lack of training in communication and writing skills would not surprise me.</p>
<p>Following this reasoning, engineering is more “trade-schoolish” than most other majors due to the focused and rigid nature of the coursework. Business, another vocational major, generally requires coursework in “communication” classes to solve some of the problem, but the lack of upper-division humanities requirements might contribute to the overall lack of writing ability among business majors.</p>
<p>To be clear, I think taking upper division humanities courses contributes to one’s writing ability partly because such courses require significant amounts of formal writing, but more importantly, because the professors pay attention to the writing itself apart from the content.</p>
<p>“I’ve seen this sentiment expressed in a number of places, and I also remember a study that showed in contrast to other majors, the writing skills of engineering students actually deteriorate from their pre-college level.”</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be surprised to find out this is the norm for engineering students. My writing skills are probably already worse than they were my junior year of high school (that was my last English class). I agree that an Engineering curriculum should include an English class or two. I dislike the fact that at my engineering school, if I want to take an English class the only thing it can be used for are free electives (for which many majors only get 9 credits, 1 English class would be 4 of them). </p>
<p>However, if an English class is what causes a “trade-schoolish” degree to not be “trade-schoolish,” then either college is way too “trade-schoolish” or trade school is way too academic (I want to say, “collegeish”). Or we’re throwing “trade-schoolish” around way too freely.</p>