<p>My D did a minor in Spanish, and I’m sure it is one of the reasons she got a good job right after graduation. I can’t see how it could possible harm a new grad to have proficiency in Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, heck, ANY language. I majored in Indonesian, and, believe it or not, that has been an advantage to me in my career several times. Indonesia is the world’s 4th most populous country.</p>
<p>I completely agree that the world needs musicians, artists, people who are fluent in other languages.</p>
<p>My concern is that it’s not prudent or necessary to spend upwards of $200,000 to get a college degree in those fields. There are other ways of gaining knowledge and experience outside of a university setting.</p>
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<p>And in days gone past, that was often the case. Unfortunately that seems to be less true these days.</p>
<p>There are many ways to get a degree for less than $200,000, even now. But that’s not the point.</p>
<p>Michael Eisner, former CEO of Disney (BA in English and Theater from Denison University). Eisner never took a business class while at university, and he has never regretted his decision to major in English. He told USA Today, “Literature is unbelievably helpful because no matter what business you are in, you are dealing with interpersonal relationships. It gives you an appreciation of what makes people tick.”</p>
<p>Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard (BA in philosophy and medieval history from Stanford). Fiorina credits her formal study of the dramatic transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance as providing a contextual frame for her understanding of the digital revolution.</p>
<p>Ted Turner, founder of CNN and TBS (BA in Classics from Brown University). Turner majored in Classics despite receiving a letter from his father that famously opened with this: “I am appalled, even horrified that you have adopted Classics as a major. As a matter of fact, I almost puked on the way home.”</p>
<p>Sam Palmisano, former president and CEO of IBM (BA in History from John Hopkins).</p>
<p>Kenneth Chenault, CEO at American Express (BA in History from Bowdoin College). Chenault is a strong proponent for the importance of a liberal education. He told Bowdoin Magazine “I am a strong believer in liberal arts education…what we really need today are people who have broad perspectives, people who are willing to take some chances intellectually and learn about subjects that they may not be the best in the world at. We need people who are going to be intellectually curious.”</p>
<p>Steve Wynn, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Wynn Resorts, Limited (BA in anthropology and English literature from University of Pennsylvania).</p>
<p>^^ Thank God someone recognizes the truth!! So horrified to see so many parents treating college like a vo-tech school.</p>
<p>All (incredibly impressive) anecdotes.</p>
<p>And Michael Jordan was an incredibly gifted basketball star. That doesn’t mean that the vast majority of high school basketball players are going to end up with his success.</p>
<p>When I’m investing big bucks, I’m going to play the odds. And the odds are, my child is not the next Ted Turner.</p>
<p>Our family doesn’t have an extra 250K per child for them to mess around and get a degree with no payoff. Our youngest even came to his own conclusion that he shouldn’t just major in drama, but that a degree in computer science with extra theatre classes would allow both courses he enjoyed and would make a great income also. It would have been fine for him to major in anything if he was a trust fund baby, or someone else was footing the bill. Though if he had an intense passion and ability for something, we probably wouldn’t complain. It is so easy to double major anyways, you can always add a major that is employable.</p>
<p>I would pay for a college degree to the best of my ability for my kid no matter what, but I think part of the education itself is allowing the student to choose the path, after careful consideration, and own the result. Young people who are pushed into ANY field can end up hating their jobs and their lives. I don’t want the blame for that to be on my shoulders.</p>
<p>Upthread, I said that I would “probably” pay for anything. I am a liberal arts person and I’m admittedly snobbish for my own child about what I regard as “real” education that lasts a lifetime, instead of narrow training for this decade’s hot jobs. I also prize an intellectually rich environment that makes a lifelong mark on someone’s habits of thought and chosen interests. But if my D decided to major in something very vocational, I would still pay for it despite my misgivings as long as the institution was accredited.</p>
<p>“It is so easy to double major anyways”</p>
<p>Not in the arts. It is rarely done and when it is, it usually adds a year or two to your undergrad.
Parents and student both tend to confuse study for undergrad in the arts as carrying the same workload at a high school EC.
Unless you have enough disposable income to pay more than $100000 for a degree in the arts…you should think long and hard. If, in point of fact, you are seriously talented enough to pursue this path and money is an issue…there are plenty of schools willing to foot the bill. Simply put---- use your passion to pay for your degree.</p>
<p>The idea that we should force our kids who are not gifted in STEM subjects into stem fields is preposterous. They will be in competition to all those kids who are proficient.</p>
<p>On the other hand, STEM skills are invaluable. I have encouraged my Art History kid to learn programming and web design. These skills will be invaluable in helping him to continue to land jobs at museums. Although academics are his ultimate goal, he has had small museum jobs summers, and now is being considered for a 20 hour a week job as he completes his Masters. (He plans to go for a PhD.)</p>
<p>Should this not work out, he can develop the web design more fully.</p>
<p>Had I insisted he major in economics or CS I doubt he would have gotten through college, and he is a bright kid with 2200 on SAT’s.</p>
<p>There is no argument with the assertion that medicine, economics and CS provide more job opportunities than other majors. If I had a kid who was interested in or excelled in those fields I’d have done the happy dance and would be less anxious now, certainly.</p>
<p>However, those weren’t the kids I got, and no amount of insisting or statistics was going to turn them into those kids.</p>
<p>My kids have made some choses that seem impractical to others. My DD dropped out of law school to pursue a PhD in History. On the surface, an impractical choice. However, the minute she left law school she stopped accruing debt. Her PhD provides a stipend she can live on and pays her tuition. Her law school friends are graduating with unmanageable debt. Some are employed; some aren’t. She hated law school. I think she made a good decision for herself.</p>
<p>If at the end of her PhD she does not get a job, I think she will be hirable in a corporate setting. Historians excel at research and presentation of research. I think someone will see the value of these skills. She can adjunct in her field and get paid actual money for her love and work at something else. I don’t see what will be lost.</p>
<p>The same applies or my son in art history. Certainly advertising, movie set design, appraisals, auction houses all benefit from someone with a thorough knowledge of one period of art. He has museums, colleges, galleries and other avenues for employment. If all else fails, that’s the time for web design and programming, but with specialized knowledge he will be hirable in unique situations that feed his love a bit.</p>
<p>He can’t force all kids into into hole. Some are square pegs. Nor can we know who will be laid off or who will be hired.</p>
<p>But the idea of forcing a major just doesn’t make sense to me. Teaching kids to be realistic and practical does.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what is considered"vocational". Is that a major that one can be easily employed into, using the skills one has learned? The vast number of schools have a large number of courses from many groups in their core, so it does seem that many students are getting a well rounded education, no matter their major.</p>
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<p>You live in a bubble. It’s nice that mommy and daddy can foot the bill and you don’t have to face the real life consequences of your own life decisions.</p>
<p>The bolded part is just non-sense. Any major where you use your analytical skills allows you to develop your critical thinking skills. Some just happen to be more employable/lucrative than others (for good reason).</p>
<p>If you want to be guaranteed a leadership position, try serving as a combat arms officer in a branch of the military (if you’re a male). It’s trial by fire. When you get to your unit, you will either sink or swim. If you’re smart, quick, and sharp enough, you’ll swim. If not, you’ll have a bunch of type A personalities run all over you at best or you will get others and yourself killed at worst. There is no better test of “common sense” skills other those where the cost of not having it is potentially death everyday. You’ll learn to deal with realities where mom and dad can’t help you. Some of the most valuable lessons I learned in my life were from “schools of hard knocks”.</p>
<p>My BS Computer Science that I earned from a state university (for free) and my security clearance gave me an opportunity (a career). My management/leadership skills and my reputation for being that guy that “can get ***** done” and “was not to be f’d with” allowed me to excel in that environment.</p>
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<p>I used the word “vocational” to indicate fields of study that are not really grounded in traditionally defined fields of study, but which have largely been invented in recent times as training for very specific practical jobs in tightly defined industries. I don’t want to name these majors because I don’t have time for the arguments that will result, but I think it’s paradoxically very dangerous to one’s long-term security to invest in such a limited and shallow education. </p>
<p>I realize that there are many majors, such as engineering, that are very challenging both practically and theoretically. While such majors are indeed vocational, they are not only or exclusively vocational.</p>
<p>I honestly don’t know how vocational, according to that definition, engineering is. Perhaps other engineers on here could expand…but my parents, engineering degrees and long time Boeing engineers, always said their degrees taught them very little about their actual jobs. As far as computer science, one could think it is purely the flavor of the year, but you’d also have to realize that technology will forever be a huge and growing part of our life. It is the future, not a passing fancy.</p>
<p>Sometimes I think a major has little to do with ones job. Really, the number of classes one has in a subject and the title of the degree being all important seems silly. There are so many variances in different schools and majors. Employability may be more due to internships and skill sets.</p>
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<p>Any more dangerous than choosing an ostensibly liberal arts major for limited pre-professional purposes? Examples include majoring in biology to do pre-med<em>, majoring in political science or English to do pre-law</em>, majoring in math or statistics for finance or actuarial jobs, majoring in economics as a substitute business major, etc…</p>
<p>*Yes, even though these major choices are not required for pre-med or pre-law, a lot of students and parents seem to think that they are anyway.</p>
<p>Man, I’d have loved for one or all of my kids to have become taken the computer engineering or any engineering route or wanting to go into one of those hot health care fields or become a CPA. Love, love, loved it. But, I got a bunch of nice goofy kids that I alternately love so much it hurts to wanting to kill them and that hurts to. Getting some of them through college with ANY degree was a challenge. I was on my knees just hoping they got out with the degree. Forget going to a school full ride, a name school, a great major for jobs, just get out with the frigging piece of paper.</p>
<p>And until any of you are parents of such kids, and love them dearly, you won’t get it.</p>
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<p>I have a very good friend whose nervous and well-meaning parents, many years ago, pressured her to major in a particular kind of accounting, and did not support her wider intellectual interests. They wanted to have a “college graduate” daughter, but they really did not value the college experience for its own sake. She once told me that she felt her narrow degree ended up hurting her professional advancement because she felt it pigeonholed her into instrumental instead of management roles at the companies she worked for. This is just one anecdote, but it demonstrates what I mean by “dangerous” (I am not slamming accounting majors).</p>
<p>I understand why people choose vocational majors. It’s just not something I see as a sure-fire “investment.” Most people who major in liberal arts disciplines do understand that they are not going to walk into a job with their degree alone. The people who sneer at liberal arts in favor of explicitly vocational majors, however, have an unwarranted smugness.</p>
<p>Just to confuse things further, my wife has a BFA and has been gainfully employed since graduation in 2005. Her eldest brother who was a CS major, is in and out of college and is living with parents. Her eldest sister who got a degree in mechanical engineering from a top 10 engineering school is going to be a librarian in middle of nowhere mid-west while she starts on making a family with her new non-college educated insurance adjuster husband. At least her other sister is considering going to med school (currently biochem major). Her parents are both scientists (one PhD). The youngest brother is 17 and hasn’t picked a college yet.</p>
<p>On my side of the family my eldest brother was a cinema major and has worked on several successful projects yet still couch surfs around Portland. My middle brother was a psych major who went into the Navy and is now doing quite well for himself (having a wife with a PhD in HCI doesn’t hurt either) and finishing up at a top 5 MBA program. As for myself, well you can stalk my CC profile, but suffice to say that I’m currently living off my sugar momma Drama major wife :-)</p>
<p>Really, if a student doesn’t have a passion for something , showing him/her the numbers for job prospects and pay is something that should come into the picture. In fact, all students should be so aware. But if your kid is just not wired for math and hates the idea of any of those courses, I don’t think harping on making him a STEM major or an accountant is a very good idea. Do look at the mass exodus each year from those majors to the social sciences and humanities. It’s not just that those kids got sudden passions for those subjects, but that the switch might be the only way they are going to even get through college. </p>
<p>One of the things I am trying to do is to pay, contribute to my kids’ time, flexibility, in finding a groove. In the end, it isn’t my choice. what that is. I can only give the info and the choices.</p>
<p>"When I’m investing big bucks, I’m going to play the odds. And the odds are, my child is not the next Ted Turner. "</p>
<p>For parents who see college as an investment-why do you feel a well-employed graduate is YOUR return? The path they choose-engineering, law, medicine, language, music, WHATEVER, is THEIR path, not YOURS. Once they have graduated college and are over 21-isn’t it up to THEM to live their lives? Maybe a young person interested in art is OK with not being a high-earning STEM professional. Why would their work in a (relatively) low-paying art therapist assistant job if it i swhat THEY want, matter to YOU. Why is that not a “return” for you?</p>
<p>The problem I have is that I don’t see the “investment” in your child’s education being YOUR “return”. Our children are not our own. Once they grow up, they leave and live their own lives. It’s not up to us to tell them how to live. Why is it a reflection on YOU if your kid becomes an artist, or a third-rate musician, or a waiter? </p>
<p>When my parents were living and my siblings, spouses and I brought our kids to their house for weekly brunches, BBQ’s etc. the talk didn’t center on who was making the most money or had the “best” jobs. It centered on family, on our kids growth, on our happiness, or perhaps better called, satisfaction with our lives. We ranged from people with grad degrees to those who barely made it out of high school. </p>
<p>I’ll take a basket-weaver who is happy and kind over a driven jacka$$ any day. My “investment” in my kids is to make them into people others want to be around, not money-making machines.</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t be so sure about that. There seems to be an underlying assumption among many that STEM majors (of which the science and math majors are considered liberal arts) automatically have good job prospects in their fields, even though the most popular STEM liberal arts major (biology) has poor job prospects in its field.</p>
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<p>There seems to be a lot of sneering at pre-professional majors around here as well.</p>