<p>I answer as a one-time STEM major who had STEM graduate parents (even my mother who went to school for more than her MRS degree in the 50’s). MY college did two things that changed my life in the first semester-required us to take a no-credit semester course on what pharmacy majors would be studying for the next 5 years and housed students in dorms according to major-my dorm was all science or math majors, with rare exceptions. </p>
<p>Although in high school I had done quite well overall, my real talents and interest was in writing. After each weekly “what you’ll study in pharmacy” class, a part of me died a little more. I knew t that my entire five years of study would leave writing on the back burner. Meanwhile, the science majors, both freshmen and upper class, had heard that I could write and came to me for help with their writing. I finally picked up the phone and called my dad, a pharmacist who had his own store where I’d planned to join him, that I was switching to major in English.</p>
<p>He could have cut me off; he could have forced me to come home and go to the local U; he could have insisted I add it as a minor. He did none of those things. He said that he would always stand by me and he just hoped that I knew the money would be far less and that job prospects might be a problem. He also said he always knew I was a good writer and my decision didn’t exactly surprise him. From that moment on his nickname for me was a famous writer’s name.</p>
<p>THAT is what drives my defense of letting kids choose their own path. Obviously my father could afford to pay his share of my education (I worked summers and got some loans as well). I very well MAY have had to change schools if that hadn’t been possible. But he never, never insisted that I only go to a school or major in a subject because of what <em>I</em> would make in relation to what <em>he</em> spent.</p>
<p>And not long after that, my mother left her STEM job to work in a craft jewelry shop and auction house. My father immediately became a fan of handmade jewelry. It’s not all about money, prestige and achievement. I’d rather struggle at something I’m good at for less money than wish my day was over doing something I felt I “had” to do to please my parents.</p>
<p>Technical writers can also make a good living, as many that are skilled technicians don’t have the tools to be good writers as well. One of the kids from the HS my kids attended went to CM to be a technical writer. She was the only one from our HS who wasn’t going into STEM at CM. Didn’t follow up to see if she finished in the field and whether she got a job.</p>
<p>Met a nice docent at Angel Island who said that her D decided she wanted to be a scientific illustrator and has made a nice living doing so for the past few decades. She had a scientific background but much preferred art over STEM. ;)</p>
<p>Nice stories ladies. My mom went college in the 40’s. her initial major was chem, but she switched to sociology. She wound up running a huge unit of her county Civil Service and retire with a huge pension 24 years ago. She’s very comfortable at 89, and after retiring she worked at her local PBS station part-time. She still regrets that she never found her passion. I kid you not.</p>
<p>MY MIL and her sister were also educated in the late 30’s and early 40’s and both were biology majors .Their father was a physician. They both had master’s and the sister had a PhD and co-wrote biology textbooks. MIL taught at the college and high school levels (and took a break in that to raise 3 children). She ended her career as a biology and chemistry teacher at her kids’ high school. She died last year at 91 but always seemed proud of her career and raising her family. We were in Bermuda last week and thought of her as she spent time there during her studies. I really admired her.</p>
<p>I feel like some of the posts here are falling into the “all things being equal” fallacy. You concede that some kids may not be able to cut it in STEM, and that some kids might be so extraordinarily talented that you’d suspend your reservations about the arts, but come back to the idea that “all things being equal,” STEM/business is the better choice.</p>
<p>The thing is, “all things” are almost never equal. When you are dealing with a child, you’re dealing with an individual, not a statistic, and there are any number of factors that may make the individual differ from the aggregate. </p>
<p>If your child has a practical goal that can be achieved through an impractical major, general stats about employment for that major aren’t relevant.</p>
<p>If your child is going to stand-out in a generally less lucrative field but be just average in a better paying one, “less lucrative” might turn out not to be.</p>
<p>If your child could quite cheerfully live on less, as long as “less” is still livable, than the salary differential doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>If your child is responsible, bright, energetic, and willing to work her way up from a less than ideal job if that’s the only job on hand, that low starting salary might go up pretty quickly. </p>
<p>If your child is reasonable and adaptable, he can enter a practical path a couple of years later than his peers without radically harming his future prospects.</p>
<p>There are still opportunities for success for well-trained students from a variety of disciplines. The person matters more than the major, in the long-term.</p>
<p>mythmom, Thanks.I do think that even back in our generation, MOST parents did not force their kids into a major they would be miserable in. Of course, there are exceptions, then and now, and I’m sure it is painful if you are one of the unlucky ones with a controlling parent who insists on a particular major. My in-laws were both into science (the dad was an engineer) but only one of their 3 kids went into a STEM field(my husband , an engineer). It was my husband that was given my father-in-law’s old wooden T-Square and I think of him when I look at that.</p>
<p>Many kids follow in their parents footsteps for three reasons: 1) they’re familiar with it; 2) parents train them to think in a particular way including a particular value system; 3) they’ve inherited the same hard wiring as their parent. All three of these are relevant in my family in which both my kids are following me into academics albeit both chose a field different from mine. I did not suggest this or encourage it.</p>
<p>And lots of kids strike off on their own paths.</p>
<p>Our town has three hospitals within four miles, two in our tiny town. Therefore there are many doctors here. My D was once at a party with her HS friends and every guy at the table was in med school ( they’re past college age.) none of the women in her cohere chose this, but many of S’s women friends from high school did.</p>
<p>I feel that someday I may have a lot to answer for for leading them on this path. :)</p>
<p>How many people are actually saying that? Yes, there are a few, but not many in this thread (though there are other threads of students with pushy parents limiting their choice of majors, schools, or career goals, like the student whose mother is pushing medical school). Most realize that all other things are almost never equal in an individual context, so it rarely comes down to that, since there are few students whose passion or lack thereof and ability or lack thereof is equal in everything.</p>
<p>Actually, it seems that there is a lot of anti-STEM sentiment in this thread, often based on fallacious beliefs that “all STEM majors are doing it just for the jobs and not for their passions”, which is based on the belief that “all STEM majors have better job prospects than H/SS or V/PA majors” (the latter fallacious belief is also common with the pushy parents who do not want their kids majoring in H/SS or V/PA).</p>
<p>You never know where life will lead ~ My two brothers graduated together from a top law school and are very accomplished (avoiding alot of specifics here) One had majored in music composition at an elite LAC. Other brother always knew he wanted law, went to directional state-u to be w/his girlfriend whom he married at 19.</p>
<p>“Many kids follow in their parents footsteps for three reasons: 1) they’re familiar with it; 2) parents train them to think in a particular way including a particular value system; 3) they’ve inherited the same hard wiring as their parent.”</p>
<p>That sounds very logical. My parents were both engineers, and my dad always harped about everyone needing to get an engineering degree. He thought that degree would be something you always had in hand, and a skill that would always make you employable. They did everything possible to discourage us from feminine pursuits, to try to knock the maternal instinct away, including confiscating dolls that we brought home and replacing them with legos, sautering irons and toy cars. I ended up getting an engineering degree not because they wanted me to, but because the USAF said I needed a technical degree to keep my scholarship. Never became an engineer, never wanted to.</p>
<p>They were from poor families, and didn’t have the luxury of paying for school for four years, and only working part time purely for the joy of education. To pursue your passion in college, exploring your interests and following your hearts desires was for wealthy people. But they enjoyed being engineers.</p>
<p>It does crack me up a bit seeing some of these posts where the parents think that college is not about enhancing your career and earnings potential for most students. To think that it is actually learning about what you love, and that the rest of it is irrelevant or even greedy. As noimagination said, “Ask a new high school grad what, in their opinion, is the best job they could realistically expect to get right now, with their current skillset. Then ask whether they would be content if that is the job they get after graduating from college. If the answer is no, then career prospects are an important part of their objective in pursuing higher education (whether they will admit that or not).”</p>
<p>You pursue education on your own for love of knowledge, you read, take non-credit classes, and sometimes get advanced degrees for that. The vast number of young people that are getting undergraduate degrees are doing so for career enhancement. Whatever their major.</p>
<p>Sure it’s about enhancing your career potential. But not as job training specifically. The more well-read one is, the better informed, the more worldly – well, off course that would make one more employable than a high school grad.</p>
<p>If your child could get a stimulating, high paying “dream” job without a day in college (for instance, in a family business, or thourgh some extraordinary talent like acting or sports), would you still pay for college…would the child still want to go? My answer would be yes – I hope my kids’ would be too. And it would have nothing to do with getting a job.</p>
<p>Is a major in philosphy considered “job training”? Not by anyone I know who thinks college is about job training. </p>
<p>I know someone who favored Lehigh over Bucknell for their child because the average entry level salary of new grads was higher. So short sighted: what about jobs that plateau after a few years of high pay? What about jobs that pay low but have high satisfaction and other kinds of prestige (some writers, academics, social workers, humanitarian jobs in the not for profit sector.)</p>
That’s great. I think you are a distinct minority but I certainly respect your views.</p>
<p>Just to play devil’s advocate:
The premise here is that education has a lot of value insofar as it helps us to gain a greater understand of ourselves and our world, right? So why is 4-year, full-time formal education uniquely suited to that goal? And, can we continue learning after we graduate?</p>
<p>EDIT: Crossposted -
Let’s try a thought experiment. Say that Bill Gates or Carlos Slim or some other ridiculously wealthy person decides to set aside $1 billion to fund an institute that will hire philosophers to conduct philosophical research. If there are no pedagogical adjustments made to existing philosophy curricula, does that program magically turn into “job training” now that there is a demand for the graduates?</p>
<p>Each side is exaggerating the position of the other. I don’t think any parents are promoting the idea of a hippie paradise where money is irrelevant and we all sit on clouds indulging our whims and passions and eating chocolate and staying slim.</p>
<p>College is part of the route to a career. For some the path is more direct than for others.</p>
<p>Children, like outcomes, are not controllable or predictable.</p>
<p>Of course, until I read some Buddhist Nirvana, I will try to control them, though my kids have kind of aged out.</p>
<p>I want some material success for my kids, of course, but they have internal selves to and will not thrive with a life that doesn’t somehow line-up with their inner selves. I think it takes ingenuity for all of us to align these different elements.</p>
<p>On many occasions I have wished that I and my kids were more externalized. But you work with what you have.</p>
<p>I have no disdain for STEM. My own field is the intersection of science and literature which comes, in part, from being a strong science student.</p>
<p>We don’t need to over characterize each other’s statements.</p>
<p>You do realize that most people would consider it a luxury to spend the cost of attendance of a college (unless one got a full ride somewhere) and forego most of four years’ of work earnings if going to college were not seen as upgrading one’s job and career prospects.</p>
<p>Perhaps many students would want to go under such situations, but few (especially those from not-extremely-wealthy families) would actually go.</p>
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<p>Completion of a bachelor’s degree, even in a major not directly related to the job, is considered a positive signal in the job market. So while a bachelor’s degree in philosophy may not bring specific skills to any job market (other than the few academic philosopher and teaching jobs), it is seen as an indication of the person’s capability to complete a significant amount of academic study at a level higher than high school generally, and in depth in one particular subject. In a sense, it is job training, or seen as such in the job market.</p>
<p>If I want to be perfectly honest, I went to college as a rite of passage between childhood and adulthood. I was raised to believe that going to college was a given for me (an option that my parents did not have) and that college would make me a better educated individual and allow me to learn more subjects in depth than someone having just attended high school.</p>
<p>When I graduated, I began to take the idea of what I would do for work more seriously. I found that there were many options available though, since many jobs available in the fields I was interested in initially (travel, fashion, advertising, pr and marketing) did not have specific majors that were necessary for success.</p>
<p>Husband had a similar experience in real estate. </p>
<p>Despite the economy being different today and the power of having a BA degree somewhat lessened (as it is more common), my ultimate thinking about undergraduate education has not changed. </p>
<p>I also see graduate school as a way to hone more job-specific skills and make career changes as needed. </p>
<p>But I stand by encouraging my children to expose themselves to as many varied classes as possible on an undergraduate level so as to become more educated and well-rounded people and to chose whatever major they perfer.</p>
<p>To anyone who would opt out of college if the dream job could be procurred without it, I would ask, why not just hand the child the money that would pay for college – potentially $250,000 or more – and have them invest in a business or something. I know someone who considered this and I had to ask, what kind of adult would that kid become? Are you going to read the great works if you don’t go to college? Isn’t college a growing expereince, yes for a career, but also for a whole lot more than that?</p>