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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Four of my humanities and liberal arts major nephews got six figure offers before they even started senior years. Now making big bucks at consulting and private equity firms. It’s hard to say if it was college or their IQ but their majors didn’t stop them from lucrative careers.

At which schools did the four nephews earn their college degrees ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The better the college, the less important the major. Easy to find employment as a humanities major if you went to HYP or AWS, much harder if you went to a relatively lower ranked school. Then again, a high percentage of graduates from these top schools go on to graduate school, so having a philosophy or theology degree is less important in terms of income than getting accepted into a top law school.

I agree.

[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.

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

I am a lawyer as well, and law school is definitely vocational training.

Most (all?) law schools don't meet Merriam Webster's definition of a vocational school:

": a school in which people learn how to do a job that requires special skills.
He went to a vocational school to learn auto repair."

Whether they should attempt to do so has been debated for some time.

PP here and I stand by my assertion. Law school teaches the skills that help people learn how to practice law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The better the college, the less important the major. Easy to find employment as a humanities major if you went to HYP or AWS, much harder if you went to a relatively lower ranked school. Then again, a high percentage of graduates from these top schools go on to graduate school, so having a philosophy or theology degree is less important in terms of income than getting accepted into a top law school.

I agree.

Not really. Even the humanities majors at HYPS have a hard time finding a job if they don't go to grad school.

[Anonymous]

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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.

Very true.

LOL no. You all obviously have no idea at all what you're talking about and should really stop embarrassing yourselves like this. I've never known a history or English major with any brains at all to have any trouble getting a well-paying job if that's what they wanted. Yes, including those from "lower tier" state schools. Nobody cares where you got your degree from except this subset of desperate social climbers here on DCUM.[/quote]

NP here. You are making a generalization based on your experience, but your experience may not apply to the entire professional world. For example, I know from personal experience that, in some professions, it does matter where you got your degree from. In a truly fair world, maybe this would not be the case, but it just is the case.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The better the college, the less important the major. Easy to find employment as a humanities major if you went to HYP or AWS, much harder if you went to a relatively lower ranked school. Then again, a high percentage of graduates from these top schools go on to graduate school, so having a philosophy or theology degree is less important in terms of income than getting accepted into a top law school.

I agree.

Not really. Even the humanities majors at HYPS have a hard time finding a job if they don't go to grad school.

You all do realize that most universities and colleges don't want to be 75% engineering and tech-related too, right?

Having spent most of the last 10 years in Palo Alto, that is clearly true at Stanford. Majoring in CS or even a STEM field isn't a prerequisite for a tech job at Google or Apple either. You make it sound like an English major who took multiple CS classes and had a good internship wouldn't be a great SWE hire. Your major doesn't define you, especially at places that don't have restrictive core curriculums that limit a lot of classes you can take. Similarly, beyond the minimum pre-med classes, med school applicants can actually separate themselves with other strengths and majors.

[Anonymous]

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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...

Smart kids are doing combo of STEM and liberal arts/humanities to become more desirable for employers.

This^^^

I always encourage kids who choose the LA/Humanities (non stem) majors to consider a minor/focus on something STEM or business. Basically, major in what you love, but pick a minor that will help make you more marketable/make it a bit easier to get a job. Not a ton of jobs that say "looking for an English or art history major", but those majors with the right minor will make your very marketable

Taking classes outside of STEM is also helpful to career growth, at least in tech. Lower level coders are dime a dozen in big tech and at startups.

[Anonymous]

Most people work hard so they can give their kids educational opportunities to pick majors, colleges and professions of their choice.

Other people rather give kids fancy lifestyles but make them study what they don't like at schools they would rather not attend.

Different folks, different strokes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The better the college, the less important the major. Easy to find employment as a humanities major if you went to HYP or AWS, much harder if you went to a relatively lower ranked school. Then again, a high percentage of graduates from these top schools go on to graduate school, so having a philosophy or theology degree is less important in terms of income than getting accepted into a top law school.

I agree.

Not really. Even the humanities majors at HYPS have a hard time finding a job if they don't go to grad school.

Lots of humanities majors at investment banking, consulting and private equity

[Anonymous]

no- but the two girls i know from hardscrabble backgrounds that went to top schools and majored in art / art history were stunningly gorgeous....properly model esque....classically beautiful like capucine or some old givenchy models from the 60s. not insta-harlot look.

i think they or their parents knew they had 'academic flexibility' because they would always be able to land jobs due to their looks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The better the college, the less important the major. Easy to find employment as a humanities major if you went to HYP or AWS, much harder if you went to a relatively lower ranked school. Then again, a high percentage of graduates from these top schools go on to graduate school, so having a philosophy or theology degree is less important in terms of income than getting accepted into a top law school.

I agree.

Not really. Even the humanities majors at HYPS have a hard time finding a job if they don't go to grad school.

What does "grad school" mean in this context? Obviously they'll have a hard time finding a job as a lawyer (without law school ) or a doctor (without medical school).