Are only kids of wealthy parents in elite professions majoring in arts/going to elite colleges?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Why such disdain for those majoring in “vocational” degrees? I majored in accounting because as someone with few means, I needed something that would get me straight into a job. I didn’t have much room for error or creativity.

They are telling us we are supposed to know our place.

It's because posters on this site time and again show disdain for students who study the liberal arts, or more accurately the humanities. No one needs disdain the other. Everyone has a different path.

It's kind of ridiculous to condescendingly call a STEM degree a "vocational school." An engineering degree imparts actual knowledge, just like a liberal arts degree.
Yes, it may be different knowledge, but it's hardly inferior knowledge. I have a MA and a JD, but I doubt I would have made it through an engineering degree.

It's vocational in the sense that it is job training. There has been ongoing tension with respect to whether education should be primarily about training young people for jobs or have a broader mission to prepare them to be more fully integrated humans and citizens.

Is it, though? Do you have an engineering degree? I don't know that it provides training for any exact job. Would you call law law school vocational? You need it to be a lawyer (except for in CA), yet it doesn't really provide job training.

DP. I have an engineering degree from UVa and it didn't do jack for my career. I went back to train on my own on a free tutorial. I also got certs. My reputation and awards are what bolstered my career.

[Anonymous]

I have two DC in HYPSM and I have encouraged them to do STEM (because you can't go back and learn it later and it never CLOSES any doors to be a math/physics/engineering major) and do a minor in something they also love or find interesting which may be humanities or another stem major. It doesn't have to be all or none, people.

BTW husband and I are both physicians and the comments about medicine are extreme. Yes, rural doctors tend to make more money, yes, pediatricians tend to make less money, but yikes, you responders are ugly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At Harvard a high % of kids major in CS, which surprises as I thought it hardly matters what you major in if you get in there.

But if you’re at a state school, especially a “lower tier” one, the history or English majors are going to be teaching high school. You’d be wise to major in nursing, CS, engineering or accounting at such a school. Nothing wrong with that, but they’re not going to be recruited to IB.

Thank goodness. I don't want my kid in IB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why such disdain for those majoring in “vocational” degrees? I majored in accounting because as someone with few means, I needed something that would get me straight into a job. I didn’t have much room for error or creativity.

They are telling us we are supposed to know our place.

It's because posters on this site time and again show disdain for students who study the liberal arts, or more accurately the humanities. No one needs disdain the other. Everyone has a different path.

It's kind of ridiculous to condescendingly call a STEM degree a "vocational school." An engineering degree imparts actual knowledge, just like a liberal arts degree.
Yes, it may be different knowledge, but it's hardly inferior knowledge. I have a MA and a JD, but I doubt I would have made it through an engineering degree.

It's vocational in the sense that it is job training. There has been ongoing tension with respect to whether education should be primarily about training young people for jobs or have a broader mission to prepare them to be more fully integrated humans and citizens.

You are delusional and have no clue what is taught at many universities in "stem" disciplines.

A person like this was on another thread too and got all angry and name-cally when corrected that Engineering schools are not vocational schools. They don't seem to get the difference between electrician and electrical engineer or data entry and data science.

[Anonymous]

My parents think of themselves as old school Chinese scholars who abhor commercialism, business, and money-grubbing (They got stuck here after TianAnMen). We were maybe lower middle class income-wise, but rich in many kinds of social capital. As a kid when I threw a tantrum over something they couldn't afford, they'd dismiss me by saying, "When you grow up, work on Wall Street and you can buy whatever you want." They would often point out the cruelty of uneducated immigrant parents who telling their children they're failures for not getting into Harvard and becoming doctors. So naturally, my sister and I "wasted" our Ivy League degrees on the humanities and chose fields with ridiculously low/no starting salaries. Ten years out we're both living comfortable UMC lives and doing things we love to do. It would have been a far greater "waste" for us to have taken the easy path and sold our souls for a strategy consulting or analyst job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why such disdain for those majoring in “vocational” degrees? I majored in accounting because as someone with few means, I needed something that would get me straight into a job. I didn’t have much room for error or creativity.

They are telling us we are supposed to know our place.

It's because posters on this site time and again show disdain for students who study the liberal arts, or more accurately the humanities. No one needs disdain the other. Everyone has a different path.

It's kind of ridiculous to condescendingly call a STEM degree a "vocational school." An engineering degree imparts actual knowledge, just like a liberal arts degree.
Yes, it may be different knowledge, but it's hardly inferior knowledge. I have a MA and a JD, but I doubt I would have made it through an engineering degree.

It's vocational in the sense that it is job training. There has been ongoing tension with respect to whether education should be primarily about training young people for jobs or have a broader mission to prepare them to be more fully integrated humans and citizens.

You are delusional and have no clue what is taught at many universities in "stem" disciplines.

A person like this was on another thread too and got all angry and name-cally when corrected that Engineering schools are not vocational schools. They don't seem to get the difference between electrician and electrical engineer or data entry and data science.

Okay? The lines of demarcation can be blurred. It wouldn't hurt an electrical engineer to also learn to be able to do what an electrician does, for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems that the kids I know going to T-10 schools and are majoring in things like philosophy or sociology are from families that are in big law, IB, or medicine. They also have generational wealth from grandparents. We are first generation college grads with no parental help but worked our way up to UMC with no advice or mentoring. Our kids did well enough to get merit at some private universities but ultimately chose the state flagship to save money. They also pursued majors that led to high paying fields upon graduation. But are people like us short-changing our kids in not providing them with a liberal arts education at an elite school so they can join the rarefied alumni clubs and networking opportunities that lead to the truly big bucks?

Cringe. If you're not from that pedigreed background K-12, or at least 9th-12th (boarding or upper end day school), your kids were never entering that rarefied orbit in college. Rich kids see right through the interlopers and pretenders. They are magnets to each other and tend to box out the unwashed. That's not to say your kid wouldn't have hung out with rich kids, but s/he will very likely hang out with some rich kids at their state university. Let me know how many rich kids still hang out with your middle class kid after everyone graduates. Let me know when a rich kid puts a ring on your middle class daughter's finger. Can it happen? Sure. Is it likely? Not at all. And your mere interest in this is of course desperate, creepy and weird, so why wouldn't you expect rich kids to be sketched out by your status-climbing low born offspring? Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why such disdain for those majoring in “vocational” degrees? I majored in accounting because as someone with few means, I needed something that would get me straight into a job. I didn’t have much room for error or creativity.

They are telling us we are supposed to know our place.

It's because posters on this site time and again show disdain for students who study the liberal arts, or more accurately the humanities. No one needs disdain the other. Everyone has a different path.

It's kind of ridiculous to condescendingly call a STEM degree a "vocational school." An engineering degree imparts actual knowledge, just like a liberal arts degree.
Yes, it may be different knowledge, but it's hardly inferior knowledge. I have a MA and a JD, but I doubt I would have made it through an engineering degree.

It's vocational in the sense that it is job training. There has been ongoing tension with respect to whether education should be primarily about training young people for jobs or have a broader mission to prepare them to be more fully integrated humans and citizens.

Is it, though? Do you have an engineering degree? I don't know that it provides training for any exact job. Would you call law law school vocational? You need it to be a lawyer (except for in CA), yet it doesn't really provide job training.

Yes, I would call law school vocational. I'm a lawyer, fwiw.

Agreed, except that most vocational schools provide more practical education as to the vocation. I’m also a lawyer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:


A person like this was on another thread too and got all angry and name-cally when corrected that Engineering schools are not vocational schools. They don't seem to get the difference between electrician and electrical engineer or data entry and data science.

DP. One of my classmates at UVa dropped out of the e-school and went cognitive science. He got a glorified data entry job unlocking wrong password accounts at a help desk. No technical experience required, but a desire to help people and talk on the phone. He wrote on his linkedin "Software Architect".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems that the kids I know going to T-10 schools and are majoring in things like philosophy or sociology are from families that are in big law, IB, or medicine. They also have generational wealth from grandparents. We are first generation college grads with no parental help but worked our way up to UMC with no advice or mentoring. Our kids did well enough to get merit at some private universities but ultimately chose the state flagship to save money. They also pursued majors that led to high paying fields upon graduation. But are people like us short-changing our kids in not providing them with a liberal arts education at an elite school so they can join the rarefied alumni clubs and networking opportunities that lead to the truly big bucks?

Cringe. If you're not from that pedigreed background K-12, or at least 9th-12th (boarding or upper end day school), your kids were never entering that rarefied orbit in college. Rich kids see right through the interlopers and pretenders. They are magnets to each other and tend to box out the unwashed. That's not to say your kid wouldn't have hung out with rich kids, but s/he will very likely hang out with some rich kids at their state university. Let me know how many rich kids still hang out with your middle class kid after everyone graduates. Let me know when a rich kid puts a ring on your middle class daughter's finger. Can it happen? Sure. Is it likely? Not at all. And your mere interest in this is of course desperate, creepy and weird, so why wouldn't you expect rich kids to be sketched out by your status-climbing low born offspring? Exactly.

Liberals Arts education is for rich people's kids or pretenders.. CS is the way to go right now. Get those 500K salaries (by the time you are 30) and marry someone of similar "pedigree". F'ck the rich. Become rich on your own terms. Such a couple can easily end up with 20 mil+ by the time they want to retire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems that the kids I know going to T-10 schools and are majoring in things like philosophy or sociology are from families that are in big law, IB, or medicine. They also have generational wealth from grandparents. We are first generation college grads with no parental help but worked our way up to UMC with no advice or mentoring. Our kids did well enough to get merit at some private universities but ultimately chose the state flagship to save money. They also pursued majors that led to high paying fields upon graduation. But are people like us short-changing our kids in not providing them with a liberal arts education at an elite school so they can join the rarefied alumni clubs and networking opportunities that lead to the truly big bucks?

Cringe. If you're not from that pedigreed background K-12, or at least 9th-12th (boarding or upper end day school), your kids were never entering that rarefied orbit in college. Rich kids see right through the interlopers and pretenders. They are magnets to each other and tend to box out the unwashed. That's not to say your kid wouldn't have hung out with rich kids, but s/he will very likely hang out with some rich kids at their state university. Let me know how many rich kids still hang out with your middle class kid after everyone graduates. Let me know when a rich kid puts a ring on your middle class daughter's finger. Can it happen? Sure. Is it likely? Not at all. And your mere interest in this is of course desperate, creepy and weird, so why wouldn't you expect rich kids to be sketched out by your status-climbing low born offspring? Exactly.

Liberals Arts education is for rich people's kids or pretenders.. CS is the way to go right now. Get those 500K salaries (by the time you are 30) and marry someone of similar "pedigree". F'ck the rich. Become rich on your own terms. Such a couple can easily end up with 20 mil+ by the time they want to retire.

This is how generations pivot and family trees change, people!

I personally studied liberal arts. CS was for the awkward way back then...

[Anonymous]

I would rather take consulting job as an undergrad over spending 10 years of spending on medical education and earning tiny stipends during residency and fellowship. If you add cost and lost wages, a consultant is better off than your pediatricians and family practice docs. As far as doing good, consultants do lots of projects during their professional lives and many many of those are amazingly beneficial for humans, nations, environment and animals.

[Anonymous]

One strategy consultant can do more with one project for healthcare or pharmaceutical industry than a physician can do in his lifetime.

[Anonymous]

CS guys can do wonders by improving healthcare imaging, programing robotic surgery or just with apps for everyone to compare healthcare costs.

[Anonymous]

Lol Accenture isn't a consolation prize, they often offer more money and much more flexibility to pick suitable projects to desirable new hires.