<p>I keep imagining interviews with future artists, actors and musicians who explain that their parents are the reason they’re so successful. “Oh,” the interviewer says, “They supported your dreams?” The actor/singer/artist shakes their head and says, “No, in fact they refused to support my studies. That just made me work harder to get that big hit/published book/gallery hanging. This award is for you, Mom!”</p>
<p>My friend’s D is a big IB person. She double-majored in Spanish and some other humanities field. She is making much more money than her dad (a Wharton MBA) ever made and has NEVER taken ANY business courses. She has learned it all on the job and has no intention of ever taking any business courses. Her H is similar. They both decided they can’t afford to spend the time getting a degree that won’t apply to the work they’re already doing.</p>
<p>I have also never taken any business courses nor any formal courses (other than workshops when they arise, are of interest, fit my schedule & are free). I am running a pretty successful non-profit since 2007 and am happy doing so. I even applied for and received non-profit status with the IRS and my state, incorporated our organization and basically do whatever it takes to keep us up and running. At one point, did flirt with the idea of taking more formalized courses but was told by many not to bother. </p>
<p>My S has a degree in EE but has not gotten to practice it as he is doing project management, which he is ambivalent about.</p>
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<p>Actually, the concepts of computer science from decades ago are still relevant today, such as the theoretical bases of computational complexity, lexical analysis, language parsing, etc. and in the basic concepts behind operating systems and such. Someone with a strong foundation in the concepts of computer science who is highly productive in software development can relatively easily keep up to date.</p>
<p>This thread kind of made me laugh given how opposite my own experience is from some of the posts…</p>
<p>I’m not a parent, I’m a graduate student, so I’m reporting my opinions from the ground level.</p>
<p>I became a multi-instrumentalist at around age 10. I started composing seriously at around age 15. I’ve recorded professionally (for terrible pay). Music is my passion in life.</p>
<p>I would opt for the torture rack over majoring in music. I tried it (briefly).</p>
<p>I’ve had private instructors who completely changed my musical life. The music courses at university had me counting fruit flies on the windowsill. I looked forward to my accounting lecture every day.</p>
<p>I guess I just can’t understand the way some people approach college, especially in the US nowadays. </p>
<p>It’s treated like a mandatory stage of life where baby boomers send their kids off for sexual/drug exploration, political protests (during which none of the participants seem to grasp what they’re protesting about) and standing around looking cool in Wayfarers. The major is treated like a fashion accessory, something that labels you as an exciting creative type or lame boring type (despite the fact that I know business majors who blow music majors away on the same instrument… but hey).</p>
<p>I saw all of those movies too! I was very excited. Then I got there and realized it’s just a large financial investment you make believing you will eventually get a positive return. Voila; economics major with lots of programming electives thrown in.</p>
<p>Mixing your personal passions with an extremely politically correct/intellectually stifled/standardized environment is generally a mistake. I lost interest in music for about a year. Going into debt for it would have been life-ruining material.</p>
<p>That said, there are always the real outliers like some of the people mentioned in this thread who got fully paid scholarships and landed teaching/performance positions in music. Good for them! They just need to realize how rare that situation is. Most music/art majors are just hacking away at it because they like it, not because they’re already world class masters who are studying it as a feather in their cap.</p>
<p>To answer the question; I would be pragmatic. </p>
<p>I would encourage my children (including financially) to relentlessly pursue their passions in REAL LIFE.</p>
<p>When it came to COLLEGE LIFE, I would tell them to focus on their own long-term financial security and look at the big picture rather than a few semesters.</p>
<p>hmmmm… interesting</p>
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<p>As a computer science major and current software engineer, I have to disagree. There’s a shelf life on engineers. The vast majority of software engineers will be replacable by a younger breed that will be better coders.</p>
<p>It’s up to you to diversify your skill set from strictly technical to more managerial before your shelf life expires.</p>
<p>HSjunior your comments are always so …interesting.</p>
<p>Sseamom: my parents would undoubtedly be much happier if I had majored in something practical, but they knew I wasn’t going to change my mind about my major, and I think the conclusion they eventually reached was that they could leave me to work it out without financial support and possibly not go to college, or they could support me the same way as they would with any other major and at least know that I would have a bachelor’s degree. </p>
<p>Discoinferno: good for you, you found what worked for you. Going to school in my major, one of the classic “useless majors”, has been an incredible experience, and I’ve learnt a tremendous amount that I couldn’t have learnt elsewhere.</p>
<p>My second major and prospective minor are nearly as useless. </p>
<p>I will say that at freshman orientation, our department head told us to graduate with a skill and keep an open mind, and we were sure to land a job in the industry. So naturally, I have managed to develop a skill, and pick a second major, that is useless for the geographical region that I hope to work in. </p>
<p>As I said upthread though, the pressure on myself to be self-sufficient is very strong, and I have no qualms working in a different field to make myself financially independent. I have no intention of leeching off my parents as a college graduate, and I accept that the first job is just that, a first job. It’s not what I have to do forever, and if it enables me to pursue side projects that are related to my major field of study and that might lead to a full-time career, then I’m a happy camper.</p>
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<p>I did exactly what you describe with both Bill Nye and the Magic School bus (books and videos) and it worked spectacularly well…through the eighth grade. My daughter started high school as one of only 2 freshmen who tested into Honors Biology and by the end of the year, she no longer cared to pursue any career in science or math.</p>
<p>Be careful with the pronouncements you make; you really don’t have as much control over your kids choices as you may think.</p>
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<p>Younger does not automatically make someone a better coder.</p>
<p>Software productivity can vary by an order of magnitude between different software developers. Pay levels do not vary by an order of magnitude, but they tend to follow societal expectations of rising pay with seniority (which correlates to age)*. This means that the high productivity developers are a bargain at any pay level (based on typical societal expectations relating to seniority), but the low productivity developers get priced out of the market as they become more senior (even if a senior person individually is willing to accept junior level pay, employers tend to assume that a senior person won’t).</p>
<p>*One can argue that this societal expectation creates inefficiency in labor markets for many types of jobs where there is not a continuous rise in productivity that is similar to how pay rises with seniority.</p>
<p>Simple rule. It is my money. If you want an education that will not allow yourself to be self supporting, then you need to pay for it yourself. </p>
<p>Tough love, yes. But I know too many Womens Studies, Poetry, and Greek History graduates in their 40s and still leaching off their parents. But, hey, they are ‘following their dreams’.</p>
<p>oldindie: upthread I outlined a scenario. Student gets full ride merit money, including room and board, to a very strong program in an ostensibly useless major. The other option is full pay at a strong business school. Which would you rather the kid pick? </p>
<p>You can change some variables - what if the kid gets merit money to fully cover tuition at the first school, but not room and board? Would you refuse to pay that? What if it’s a strong program in the useless major vs a so-so program in the pragmatic major? </p>
<p>If your child came to you with a clear, realistic plan for full-time, self-sufficient employment after graduation that did not depend on the major, would you still refuse financial support for the useless major?</p>
<p>Well said, discoinferno!</p>
<p>OldINdie- and I know many Greek History majors (counting myself) who are supporting THEIR parents through long, chronic illnesses with devastating medical and nursing expenses. You have a very limited view of the world if you don’t know successful people (just counting the dough here-- since that’s what we’re talking about) who majored in Renaissance Studies, Classics, Linguistics, etc. The senior management of most of the Fortune 50 type companies I’ve worked for in my career have all been serious students of the humanities.</p>
<p>Do you not know ANYONE who has made a successful career in media, advertising, publishing, lobbying, political consulting, academia, senior roles at a large museum or cultural institution, leading a think tank or foundation? Not one?</p>
<p>I know dozens.</p>
<p>I also know dozens who end up successful in tech companies with “soft” degrees (Bill Gates was the first to hire anthropologists and visual design experts to help think through the taxonomy of software-- now everybody does it). The world of VC is filled with people with degrees in the humanities who help the engineers and the techies who have invented “stuff” but don’t know how to communicate its value proposition to other funders. Gates, Rockefeller, Ford, Pew, all these foundations are staffed by people who help MD’s and PhD’s in infectious disease or clean water technologies build out the infrastructure of their tech solutions to help millions of people around the world. The doctors know that teaching midwives in India to wash their hands cuts down on infant mortality; the creative folk are the ones who come up slogans and branding and catchy posters to make sure the wisdom of the docs is actually being disseminated out there in the real world.</p>
<p>Get off your high horse and meet some actual people with real jobs who majored in the humanities.</p>
<p>There are so many counter examples to the fist against the humanities expressed here that I don’t understand how some folks can be so normative about college majors and career paths.</p>
<p>One friend’s son majored in environmental science at his parents’ insistence when he wanted to major in theater. Four miserable years and no job offers later and he began to get work doing lighting for concerts and Broadway and is about to log in enough hours to join the union. He earns a decent salary and should have been allowed to major in theater.</p>
<p>Another friends son is a math whiz and minor ed in math, but his parents paid for a creative writing major. He is getting offers from TV shows to. Be part of their writing staff. Average salary is $180k for TV writers.</p>
<p>A person needs to be practical of course. I don’t think anyone is advocating forty year olds living off parents to pursue nebulous dreams of personal fulfillment. But people succeed best at what they’re good at.</p>
<p>There is a middle ground that listens to the world and listens to the student.</p>
<p>Another kid had a STEM degree and now is in a dance troupe. Life is not linear.</p>
<p>And if the first approach doesn’t work out there is nothing to stop someone from going back and getting accounting or CS credits.</p>
<p>blossom: I love your posts.</p>
<p>I interned at a major cultural institution in my hometown. My manager, who ran film programming there, got his degree in chemical engineering. He says he puts it to good use on his bedside table to keep his mother happy. If I remember correctly, he lasted three months or so in a chem eng job, then worked in insurance for a while, and eventually made the jump to arts programming. He was president of his university’s film club so that’s clearly where his heart had been for a while.</p>
<p>At another major cultural event that I worked for, my manager had been a history major. At that time, the university she was at did not have a theatre department, but she was asked to do some tech theatre work for student productions. She was hired in professional theatre, with crappy pay, based on her work in student theatre. At one point, her parents pressured her to get a real job, so she got a job in military intelligence (which, it has to be pointed out, is a perfectly respectable field that likes history grads). A couple of years later a director she had worked with asked her to go on tour with them - boom, left her “real” job and has been in the arts ever since. Of the other three people responsible for programming at that event, one was a business major, one a communications major and the general manager of the event had a masters in cultural policy (in a previous life, he had been a professional dancer).</p>
<p>Another thing to think about: so your child gets the degree in the practical major, but hates the field and cannot fathom one more day in it. If he/she gets a minimum-wage job and is self-sufficient while he/she tries to figure out what to do next, are you going to be breathing down his/her neck demanding to see a return on your investment?</p>
<p>I hold a BA in English Lit and Master’s in Sociology, and over the past 3 decades had long term positions as advertising copywriter, public relations executive, support services adminstrator to the handicapped, and adjunct professor. If you can think and communicate, and have the sheepskin, you’ll find a job that you can grow with.</p>
<p>My adult daughter, with a BA in poli sci, works as a sucessful Manhattan talent agent, and her colleagues are French, economics and theater majors.</p>
<p>Can’t wait to see what daughter #2 does with her concentration in languages and linguistics.</p>
<p>Peculiar- thanks for the shout-out. I hire people for a living- it is just staggering to me how little many people know about the employment market in the US. I forgive the 17 year olds who post here- their world experience is limited. They know doctors and librarians and teachers and fire fighters so those are the options for “when I grow up”. But for adults not to realize that our kids need to prepare for jobs that don’t even exist today- in fields that are largely inter-disciplinary and don’t fit into the “accountant, nurse, engineer” box- well that astonishes me.</p>
<p>My neighbor recruits patients for clinical trials at a large pharmaceutical company. (more accurately- she manages a large team who do the actual recruitment). She does very well financially; has a degree in history, but was hired from a large hotel chain where she led branding/customer experience. She passed HS bio or so she tells me.</p>
<p>College roommate (degree in comp lit) works for a major TV network scouting new programming concepts overseas. (we can blame her for reality TV.) Probably earns in the low seven figures.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s easy to tell your kids that you won’t pay for them to learn about other cultures and ancient civilizations and the arts and how people think and why societies grow in different ways around the world. It’s easy to tell them “major in finance or bust”. And it’s even easier to take a kid who is malleable and agreeable and enjoys bio and make them pre-med.</p>
<p>But none of these things can create a talented and successful professional- in something which you may not even know exists. My elderly relatives don’t understand what I do for a living (HR and managing dozens of people around the world was not a career path in the old country) and I’m sure the idea of studying ancient civilizations and dead languages in college seemed weird. But MY boss was a medieval studies major, and HIS boss was an art history major, and most of the people that work for me are either psychology majors or lit majors or what-not. If I saw a resume from someone who majored in HR my boss would hoot with laughter. (Not that there’s anything wrong with it.)</p>
<p>So the idea that corporate America exists to give employment to all the kids majoring in “business” is funny to me, based on who my company hires, and based on the profiles of new grads we look for in our college recruiting program.</p>
<p>And don’t get my started on the Arts!!!</p>
<p>As someone who got her masters degree in art history and who now runs her own company, discoinferno’s post brought a smile. I know the difference between what he calls “REAL LIFE” and “COLLEGE LIFE”. There is nothing more removed from “real business life” than a grad student’s life as a business major. NOTHING. . “but hey”. </p>
<p>A few of the positions that I have held as an art history major: advertising media planner, motion picture production assistant, artist rep, art restorer and now (successful) business owner and CEO.</p>
<p>re: Blossom’s post #254: Well spoken Blossom, but to put it a bit pointedly, this isn’t Lake Wobegon and all our kids aren’t well above average.</p>
<p>You’d mentioned Renaissance Studies and Humanities related degreed grads leading Fortune 500 companies, and I’ve no doubt that’s true in some cases. But those are very special people and very remote possibilities for the typical student.</p>
<p>For the average college student, and most are close to average given a bell curve analogy, those fabulous results of “I picked a NOT traditionally marketable major and it led to a fabulous job + career” are very unlikely.</p>
<p>Ideally as a parent should I (1) bless whatever major my child chooses because they just love the idea (say Winemaking at Cornell for $50K/year…yes, it’s actually called “Enology and viticulture”), or (2) a major that with adequate grades and an internship gives my child a very good shot at a solid job and career coming out of college? And yes, I’d do my best to make certain that the major was something my child enjoyed (back to my earlier posts of double majoring in dream major AND a marketable major perhaps).</p>
<p>I choose option #2. I think it’s my job as a parent to help blend the dream with reality.</p>
<p>If you’re blessed with that one in a million child that can major in Greek Mythology and somehow end up with a $100K/year job at Microsoft (your example of soft major and job with Bill Gates) straight out of school then have at it, but I don’t think the odds of that happening are too good for any of us.</p>
<p>Theoretical example of above: My child…“Don’t worry Dad, if I can’t make it in Green Mythology I’ll just get a high paying job with Microsoft or Google”. Me…“What???”.</p>
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