WashPost: College is remade as tech majors surge and humanities dwindle

[Anonymous]

The problem isn’t the humanities, it’s that middle class people have been told that college is the path to a good career, which they translated as trade school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem isn’t the humanities, it’s that middle class people have been told that college is the path to a good career, which they translated as trade school.

In the old days, only children of nobles went to college, and the purpose of a college education was anything but a “job.” Actually getting a “job” was beneath them. But the purpose of college education has changed greatly over the years. Yes, most students and their parents look at colleges as no different in essence from trade schools.

That said, why force kids into STEM if they don’t have a passion for it? CS and engineering undergraduate education is no joke. There’s a reason why engineering schools (at least the decent ones) have high washout rates. Kids are not going to thrive in anything they don’t have a passion for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most people I know who have “made it” professionally with a humanities degree have something else going for them - elite law school, college athlete or in top frat/sorority, wealthy/connected parents, attractive, etc. STEM is much more democratic. I think English majors can be successful, but it seems to the exception, not the norm.

English majors have to "market themselves more" than say a CS or Mech Eng major. Nobody posts jobs at businesses that say "needed One English major"---ok, not many do. They likely are looking for someone who can communicate, write well, manage a project, etc....so many majors are capable of doing this. So you have to work a bit harder to find the job for you---stem it's easier to just apply to someone who needs a Mech Eng degree.

A law prof at. UMD told me that some of the best students in law school had STEM undergrad degrees. Law is different from the way of thinking in literature and some of the humanities majors. As to the comments there are too many lawyers, yes and no. Yes, it’s really hard to get a job at Big Law unless you are from T10 law school or T20 at most, and even then you better be on the law review or have some honors and awards. On the other hand, fewer Gen Z are interested in law. I saw a stat somewhere that over 80% of Gen Z don’t want to consider a legal career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Must we have this discussion for the 40 thousandth time on this page? Let your kid major in that they want, are interested in, have a passion for and a talent for. End of story.

In college, I discovered that my true passion was to not work, and I had a talent for doing what I wanted to do, instead of doing anything that was required. Unfortunately this wouldn’t pay the bills, so I majored in something that I disliked but helped me live without financial worry. But my dream is still to quit and follow my dream of not working at all.

Don't be an idiot. Majoring in Lazy is not something. However, if you have a passion for art history, major in that, learn to write, communicate, critical thinking skills and use it to launch yourself. You may not work directly in something relating to Art history or you might, but the skills you learn are all good for getting a job.

Well said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/05/19/college-majors-computer-science-humanities/

That’s expected. But in the future, if there are too many CS graduates and too few English and history graduates, the supply and demand relationship might change.

How many opening a year do you think there are for newly minted history BAs? I’d be shocked if there were any

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/05/19/college-majors-computer-science-humanities/

That’s expected. But in the future, if there are too many CS graduates and too few English and history graduates, the supply and demand relationship might change.

How many opening a year do you think there are for newly minted history BAs? I’d be shocked if there were any

There are plenty of places that hire and then train and just want "anyone with a BS/BA". They are looking for people with the ability to communicate, with critical thinking skills who are willing to work hard. Some even put you thru a full day of personality/critical thinking testing and if you don't make the cut, you don't even start interviewing. Hint: only ~15% make the cut where my kid is. Tons of humanities and social sciences majors working with/along side busines/finance/stem majors.
I know a NMFinalist who has graduated college, I consider really really smart and was a psychology major and eventually plans to go onto PHD in psych and couldn't even get to the interview round yet my "average, no APs in HS, struggled initially in college, 1200 Sat kid, cannot test their way out of a box kid" landed a job and is doing great--in fact my kid had multiple rounds of interviews, and has since been told it was their critical thinking skills that were a large part of why they wanted them as an employee. My kid is NOT a humanities major--was a business major. But still, has a great job because of their crucial thinking skills, not their major specifically.

[Anonymous]

Is it really that difficult finding one’s way out of a box? Try stepping out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem isn’t the humanities, it’s that middle class people have been told that college is the path to a good career, which they translated as trade school.

In the old days, only children of nobles went to college, and the purpose of a college education was anything but a “job.” Actually getting a “job” was beneath them. But the purpose of college education has changed greatly over the years. Yes, most students and their parents look at colleges as no different in essence from trade schools.

That said, why force kids into STEM if they don’t have a passion for it? CS and engineering undergraduate education is no joke. There’s a reason why engineering schools (at least the decent ones) have high washout rates. Kids are not going to thrive in anything they don’t have a passion for.

Maybe brilliant students who get 750 or higher on math without prepping can do well in STEM at T50 school even if they’re not that thrilled with STEM, but these lost children who have their parents manage their college application process, need to prep to get good SAT scores, and think using Khan Academy to get a good grade on an AP test is hard don’t seem like a great fit for physics for physics majors at a good school.

A lot of the parents here are just trying to push their kids into a wood chipper without understanding what they’re doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/05/19/college-majors-computer-science-humanities/

That’s expected. But in the future, if there are too many CS graduates and too few English and history graduates, the supply and demand relationship might change.

How many opening a year do you think there are for newly minted history BAs? I’d be shocked if there were any

There are plenty of places that hire and then train and just want "anyone with a BS/BA". They are looking for people with the ability to communicate, with critical thinking skills who are willing to work hard. Some even put you thru a full day of personality/critical thinking testing and if you don't make the cut, you don't even start interviewing. Hint: only ~15% make the cut where my kid is. Tons of humanities and social sciences majors working with/along side busines/finance/stem majors.
I know a NMFinalist who has graduated college, I consider really really smart and was a psychology major and eventually plans to go onto PHD in psych and couldn't even get to the interview round yet my "average, no APs in HS, struggled initially in college, 1200 Sat kid, cannot test their way out of a box kid" landed a job and is doing great--in fact my kid had multiple rounds of interviews, and has since been told it was their critical thinking skills that were a large part of why they wanted them as an employee. My kid is NOT a humanities major--was a business major. But still, has a great job because of their crucial thinking skills, not their major specifically.

So none. All of those jobs would also take a cs or chem major.

[Anonymous]

The collapse in humanities majors is not just because of the popularity of tech majors in the modern economy. Humanities are becoming a joke on many campuses. People talking about their humanities degrees from 30 years go keep forgetting it's not 1993 any more. There's been a revolution in how the humanities are taught and the academic experience is, let's put it as politely as possible, not as rigorous or insightful as it once was. Because of the courses taught by the current generation of college professors, fewer students are drawn to the humanities.

I do think higher education is going to go through a massive restructuring in the next few decades as people reevaluate their relationship with colleges and studying, especially in the age of AI in conjunction with the new ideological attitudes that have come to dominate higher education, and, of course costs.

[Anonymous]

I’m an engineer and let me say that those who say that humanities majors are useless don’t know what they are talking about. I went to a (let’s just say it’s a pretty well ranked) big state school decades ago. At that time, engineering students comprised a very small percentage of the student population. Most undergraduate students belonged to the College of Letters and Science, and among those, most majored in “letters” rather than “science.” What I saw was that too many humanities students just didn’t take studying seriously. Too much time partying? doing frats/sororities, and other things (no need to say what they are here). There’s nothing wrong with humanities at all. But too many students didn’t take it seriously and just crammed before the exams and papers due dates. Engineering students studied much harder on average because it’s so hard to get a good enough GPA and dropout rate was so much higher. Sure, there were hard working history students too, but they were few and far between—the ones who excel could do a lot of things—law school, grad school/academia, etc.

[Anonymous]

All CS degrees are not equal. Application programmers and web programmers are in oversupply. People with experience in OS internals and network internals are in shortage. People with strong embedded systems skills are in shortage. Arm assembly programmers are in shortage, but x86 assembly programmers aren't. Etc.

Wide variation in starting salaries and career growth potential depending on skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Must we have this discussion for the 40 thousandth time on this page? Let your kid major in that they want, are interested in, have a passion for and a talent for. End of story.

Is there any proof you encouraged your kid to be a sociology, art, or music major? Easy to tell other parents to let THEIR kids do sociology, anthropology... all the while berating your kids to go into lucrative major$.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I majored in CS in the late 90s when no one wanted to do it, particularly women (like me).

Now it’s saturated so I probably would steer my kids to other fields (not discourage but not encourage either, I guess), although one wants to major in engineering and I’ll let her do that because I think it’s a good choice for her skillset.

What other majors would you recommend for a kid who is interested in CS & engineering? Thx.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m an engineer and let me say that those who say that humanities majors are useless don’t know what they are talking about. I went to a (let’s just say it’s a pretty well ranked) big state school decades ago. At that time, engineering students comprised a very small percentage of the student population. Most undergraduate students belonged to the College of Letters and Science, and among those, most majored in “letters” rather than “science.” What I saw was that too many humanities students just didn’t take studying seriously. Too much time partying? doing frats/sororities, and other things (no need to say what they are here). There’s nothing wrong with humanities at all. But too many students didn’t take it seriously and just crammed before the exams and papers due dates. Engineering students studied much harder on average because it’s so hard to get a good enough GPA and dropout rate was so much higher. Sure, there were hard working history students too, but they were few and far between—the ones who excel could do a lot of things—law school, grad school/academia, etc.

That's a sentence jumble that made no sense!