<p>There’s “can’t imagine kid doing anything else”, and “kid can’t imagine not doing it.” I was one of those good-at-everything kids and people probably variously expected me to go into STEM or law or something like that - people could clearly imagine me doing those things, because I was capable of it. I might go as far as to say I’m interested in it, or that I enjoy it. But then what many outsiders didn’t see was that while I could imagine not being an engineer or a lawyer or whatever, I couldn’t imagine not being a filmmaker. It’s an all-consuming passion, an itch that has to be continually scratched, an impulse that has to be given in to. Why shouldn’t I bring the same desire for self-improvement to filmmaking as I would be expected to bring to engineering? Why is it that engineering is the skill that should be developed, while art is supposed to be something you can do in your spare time?</p>
<p>I was told that I was “wasting” my other talents by going to film school. Funny, no one ever said I would be wasting my film talents to go into another field. </p>
<p>I know part of the discussion here is ROI and art school is always going to have a worse ROI than engineering for the average student who can go either route, but I bring up this point because it seems like if the child is good at several things, one of which is a “useless” major, then suddenly it looks like there’s an opportunity cost to pursue that useless major. There might not be, depending on the student. Engineering school never looked like an opportunity to me. </p>
<p>To be clear, I am under no illusions that film school prepares me to work in the film industry, not in the same way that a CS major is prepared to work in a tech firm. That’s not why I went that route.</p>
<p>The world is a much richer place due to the creative types – artists, musicians, filmmakers and the like. There are those who would be willing to live a pauper’s lifestyle to purse their craft; these kids should be encouraged to pursue their passion no matter what. </p>
<p>But lots of kids go to college without a clue about what to do or why they are even there, other than that it beats working for a living; they will often pick a major because it’s less work or less uninteresting than other majors. These kids should probably take some time off with a gap year to explore possibilities rather than run up a $30-50,000 a year tab simply because it’s the path of least resistance.</p>
<p>I assume my parents will end up helping pay for whatever major I choose. I want to major in math at the moment, which everyone assumes is a practical major (I don’t know if it is or not), so it hasn’t really come up, but they’ll have to spend the same amount of money no matter what major I pick. If they can’t afford a particular college for philosophy, they wouldn’t be able to afford it for engineering either. </p>
<p>(However, my dad has threatened to not help pay for college unless I agree to go to law school after getting my undergrad degree. It’s not about finances, but rather because I’m an only child and he always wanted to be a lawyer but was never able to. I guess the logical thing to do here would just be to promise to go to law school, but he also thinks that you have to have a certain major to be a lawyer, and that you have to go to an undergrad university with a law school in order to end up with a law degree. So this sucks for me but it’s not especially relevant.)</p>
<p>There are all types of law: if you are math and science oriented, you could pursue a degree in those areas with the explanation you intend to pursue patent law or environment law later (whether you do so or not). And it is generally recommended that you attend different schools for undergrad and graduate/professional school to gain a broader perspective.</p>
<p>You don’t need to become a lawyer, just temporarily think like a lawyer to make compelling arguments to your father about how your undergraduate choice fits his longer-term wish.</p>
<p>My daughter, four years ago, wanted to major in Japanese. I supported her completely, AND I told her to add a second major so that she could get a job upon graduation. After three years of fairly intense language study, she was not nearly as enamored with it as she had been as an 18-year-old anime fan. </p>
<p>I have to say that I would have a hard time funding something with few opportunities for employment. I would always encourage a child to study something they love or have an interest in, but to also add something that broadens their background.</p>
<p>Just for the record, I am a high school student, but I felt an urge to comment on this post</p>
<p>My mother and I worked out a deal saying that I could major in some fields, but I would have to have a STEM major under my belt as well. However, she said I am not allowed to major in languages, philosophy, psychology, women/ethnic studies, or “soft” humanities. She’s not strangling me, either. I’m looking at economics or political economy, which is something she supports as long as I fulfill the STEM requirement.
College should be looked at as an investment, in my opinion, not just free-load school for four years. However, if they want to do an art or language double major, I say that’s good because they can study what they want but also get a good investment.</p>
<p>50+ years ago my mother told her father that she wanted to be a teacher. He said that he would pay for college only if she became an engineer. She got married straight out of hs instead.</p>
<p>20 years later my sister told our father that she wanted to be a teacher. He tried to push her into engineering, but he covered the teaching degree. She taught for one year before moving to a state with entirely different certification requirements.</p>
<p>My mother only told the story about her conversation with her father after my sister told her what our father had said. My father had no clue that he was repeating history.</p>
<p>Would we cover any major? Looks like we will be, as D1 is passionate about theater and music. D2 is a STEM kid, perhaps she’ll be an engineer as her grandfather and great grandfather suggested.</p>
<p>Anecdotally speaking, my brother majored in psychology and got a B.A. in it. He was going to go to grad school but he indefinitely postponed that when he got offered a post office job. He told me and my parents that he’s making more money than if he had gone to grad school for his masters or Ph.D and become a psychologist as he originally intended. Well, at least in terms of starting pay.</p>
<p>So no degree is useless in getting job. There’s just always the chance that the job you do get may not be enough to live on.</p>
<p>My husband was an art major, and his parents probably thought he would never make a living. Not knowing a soul in the business, he moved to Hollywood and got into animation just when “The Simpsons” started. He’s done pretty well with a B.A. in art. </p>
<p>I majored in Linguistics and Indonesian, just because I loved them, without a thought to the practicality. I’ve had a very satisfying and well-paid career as a community college professor. I still get job offers even at my advanced age. </p>
<p>Our daughter majored in one of those “useless” majors, psychology, and she will be starting a job in Silicon Valley next month at a major tech company. They didn’t care what her major was- but they did like all the internships and jobs she did in human resources and public relations. </p>
<p>So we are a family of three humanities majors with decent, interesting careers. </p>
<p>So cover any major. it’s not the major- it’s what you do with it.</p>
<p>“My mother and I worked out a deal saying that I could major in some fields, but I would have to have a STEM major under my belt as well”</p>
<p>But do you LIKE STEM fields? Are you GOOD at them? Do you have the drive to DO them? </p>
<p>I feel so bad for kids pushed into a small window of “allowed” studies. The vast majority of people do not stay at a single job, in a single career or even the same general field in their lifetimes. It boggles my mind that some people think languages are useless, because as the world becomes smaller, we need MORE people who can communicate in more than one language. The “language option” public schools (immersion in a foreign language) in my city are among the most popular. Yet we have parents out there who FORBID their kids from choosing this as a major. How small-minded and short-sighted.</p>
<p>Having seen the resentment a parent can foster by forbidding a student with an interest in the arts or humanities from studying them, I wish they could see how fluid education can be, And I want to tell their kids to buck the odds and find a way to study whatever they want, because no education is wasted or useless.</p>
<p>“So we are a family of three humanities majors”</p>
<p>Luckily you had parents who understood the true value of education and did not try to direct your lives even as young adults. You sound like a very interesting family.</p>
<p>But my point, MD Mom, is that a lot of the majors we’re talking about only have “few opportunities for employment” if we define employment as “starting the career that one will have for the rest of one’s life immediately after getting a BA,” which, as a lot of people have mentioned, often doesn’t happen even for people who start off in ostensibly career-driven fields. It may take someone with a liberal arts degree -especially a more eccentric one - a bit longer after graduation to get there, but there’s absolutely no reason a Japanese major can’t wind up in any number of practical fields within a few years of graduation without going into massive debt. </p>
<p>I think the most important thing to make sure is that the student a) has some idea of a career path relevant to the major b)has a reasonable plan B. It is one thing if a kid says, essentially, </p>
<p>“I know I’m not good enough to be a professional musician, but I just love music and want to major in it. I’m sure I’ll find a job somewhere after graduation,” or </p>
<p>“I don’t know what to study. I guess history would be kind of interesting.” It is quite another if he says </p>
<p>“Being a musician has always been my dream, and I think I’m good enough to make it a possibility. I want to pursue this and see where it leads. If things don’t work out, and I can’t make a living supplementing performance with private lessons, I’d be happy teaching - either music, or elementary education, if there aren’t enough jobs for music teachers” or </p>
<p>“I think I might want to be a historian. If not, I think law would be great.”</p>
<p>And as I said before, even if one of those plan Bs didn’t pan out either, it isn’t as if there aren’t other ways that a reasonably ambitious college graduate can support himself while taking the courses necessary to enter a different line of work.</p>
<p>No specific major is required to go to law school. You can show him that math majors do well on the LSAT, which is a key factor in law school admissions: [LSAT</a> Scores of Economics Majors: The 2008-2009 Class Update by Michael Nieswiadomy :: SSRN<a href=“see%20Table%202%20at%20the%20back%20of%20the%20PDF”>/url</a></p>
<p>@sseamom
Yes, I do like certain aspects of STEM majors- I am leaning towards mathematics, in fact.
I would be interested to hear more of your perspective- but here is mine:
College is an investment, and it’s an investment that needs return. I did not make it clear that I am planning on studying languages (and plan to take courses in Russian), so that is mea culpa.
But, in a perfect world there would be room and opportunities for everyone’s gifts to shine, but it is not the case. I wish it were, though. But students have to play the game. Do I agree with her limiting certain majors despite the STEM? No, I don’t. But I feel that having a more “profitable” major with a “fun” major is optimal.
But all in all- university education is an investment, and needs to be treated as such. If someone loves art, they could also study computer science and gain careers in video game design and whatnot.</p>
<p>If I told my child she had to get a degree in the STEM fields, well, I am not sure how that would have worked out. She is decent in all those areas but not particularly gifted in any one of those. Others fields, yes, but not STEM. Younger child is STEM minded.</p>
<p>Little story from our family files: good friend from HS went off to get a double degree in math from a very well respected school. This young man is a genius, as is his father. Today- still brilliant and also a pretty well know musician. (As in you could sing the lyrics to his songs) </p>
<p>The practical side of me thinks, “Well I wouldn’t pay $250K for underwater basket weaving”</p>
<p>Oddly enough when I told my father that I was considering a geology major, he urged me to stick with my original plan, history. He thinks that although there’s no demand for historians (not that there’s much of a demand for geology majors with just a BS), the critical thinking skills gained from majoring in the humanities or math far surpass those of science majors. He argued that the full value of the degree would manifest itself not in the first or second job, but in the fifth or sixth one where I’d hopefully have some leadership position. We compromised and I promised that I would look into either a philosophy/history of science minor while seeing if geology was right for me.</p>
<p>However, even if I majored in underwater basket weaving my parents would have paid for my degree. From what I’ve gleaned from them, they believe that the chief economic benefit of a college degree comes from simply possessing the degree. They’re willing to pay so much for a college education because they believe that the intrinsic benefits of college, the independence, the ability to explore and connect disparate fields, the meeting of like minded peers make the cost somewhat more palatable (though they still think it’s outrageously expensive).</p>
<p>Math or statistics is probably the best complement to an economics or political economy major, and is probably a “lighter” major than most other STEM majors.</p>
<p>It appears that your parents do not realize that STEM majors vary significantly in job prospects, if they are pushing any STEM major on you for the job prospects. In particular, biology (the most popular STEM major) has job prospects worse than (or at best roughly similar to) most social studies and humanities majors.</p>
<p>Biology is a good undergrad degree if you are planning on grad school though. My daughter has a good job in a major direction towards her “dream” job.( after grad school)
This job could actually be a dream job but for that she would need a better commute/ or a car.
;)</p>
<p>We have a friend that has 3 kids. I don’t know the kids well, but BELIEVE the parents wanted each of them to major in a “practical/marketable” field. The two girls became architects and/or engineers and both got jobs. </p>
<p>The S got some STEM degree and then went back and got his MFA, because his LOVE and passion was ART. He tried for quite a while to get a job where he got his MFA, but was unsuccessful. Sadly, he moved home to be a basement dweller when a HS alum met up with him and referred him to his dream job, making good money as a graphic designer at well-known interactive computer game company, where he’s been ever since, in his hometown, where he really had wanted to live.</p>
<p>I guess the “moral” of the story is it can be tough to know what field or major will turn out to be “practical” for the individual earning it. ;)</p>