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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Agree. I have no issue with humanities students who study hard and excel in their fields. But on average their study habits and work ethic are far worse than engineering students. Too many humanities students party too much and have too many distractions during 4 years of college. The bad news is that employers know it. Even those jobs that don’t require specialized technical knowledge, they know the difference between the work ethic of an engineering student v. a humanities student, unless the humanities student is from a top school with a top GPA.

[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.

+1 STEM is much more of an egalitarian field because if you mess up, the ramifications are much bigger. So, companies want to hire based on ability, not based on who your daddy is.

I think it used to be the case. DH got into CS before it was cool and it worked out well for him (he came from a working class family). But I see in this area, that many parents use their connections to get their kids into certain internships, etc. Nepotism happens in every industry. And people get positions based other things besides talent (knowing the right people, etc). Also-not everyone is STEM is working on life/death or high stake fields. And some people in humanities-social workers, teachers, mental health professionals, lawyers, policy makers-have to deal with some pretty high stake ramifications of not doing their job well.

[Anonymous]

Also there are some STEM majors that are watered down. Be wary of majors that didn’t exist before—like “data science.” Depends on the college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In some circles, humanities majors are thought to be future Starbucks baristas. For the middle of the road school, not as many jobs for soft science.

Former barista

It may not have worked out for you, but humanities majors are very much in demand in some circles.

No, the article profiles a former barista who’s graduating UMD with an English degree.

After she graduates, she'll be a very highly-credentialed barista, lmao.

"Sir, would you like me to diagram a sentence for you?"

"No, just the latte, thanks."

You think an English major has the grammatical toolset to diagram a sentence?

All of that was jettisoned long ago. The humanities committed suicide, and what's left of their corpse is propped up by distribution requirements. It's a shame -- there was real value there, once.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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!

It is. I have no idea why it was typed out. First sentence has me thrown.

[Anonymous]

My kid is doing double major in stem and liberal arts subjects. He is a NMF scholar.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, batistas are already getting replaced by robots.

https://youtu.be/CYELganbM_k

[Anonymous]

If I could find new grads who could code Verilog or Embedded C/POSIX, I would hire 5 today. I’d pay more if they had experience with ARM assembly and could do kernel debugging or Verilog verification.

As it is, I do not have any work for the numerous Java/PHP/Python/x86 assembly programmers whose resumes flood in. Most CS new grads do not have the knowledge or skills we need. We pay above average for people with the right skills… sigh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I could find new grads who could code Verilog or Embedded C/POSIX, I would hire 5 today. I’d pay more if they had experience with ARM assembly and could do kernel debugging or Verilog verification.

As it is, I do not have any work for the numerous Java/PHP/Python/x86 assembly programmers whose resumes flood in. Most CS new grads do not have the knowledge or skills we need. We pay above average for people with the right skills… sigh.

Then you don’t want college grads. You want people who have a certification in a specific code, since in a year you’ll be listing different ones and the following year also different ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Agree. I have no issue with humanities students who study hard and excel in their fields. But on average their study habits and work ethic are far worse than engineering students. Too many humanities students party too much and have too many distractions during 4 years of college. The bad news is that employers know it. Even those jobs that don’t require specialized technical knowledge, they know the difference between the work ethic of an engineering student v. a humanities student, unless the humanities student is from a top school with a top GPA.

I work with scientists, and by and large they are a bunch of entitled whiners. Their work ethic only extends to what strokes their ego.

[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.

+1

DCUMland is not happy unless they are picking their child's major, school, friends, and everything else for the kid. No wonder there are issues.

The best education you can give your kid is the ability for the kid to make their own choices.

[Anonymous]

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.

+1

DCUMland is not happy unless they are picking their child's major, school, friends, and everything else for the kid. No wonder there are issues.

The best education you can give your kid is the ability for the kid to make their own choices.

And the ability to think for themselves!

[Anonymous]

Honestly, consider doing an apprenticeship/joint apprenticeship in hvac, plumbing, operating engineers, etc. Not the pampered umc path, maybe, but tons of money to be made.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 STEM is much more of an egalitarian field because if you mess up, the ramifications are much bigger. So, companies want to hire based on ability, not based on who your daddy is.

I think it used to be the case. DH got into CS before it was cool and it worked out well for him (he came from a working class family). But I see in this area, that many parents use their connections to get their kids into certain internships, etc. Nepotism happens in every industry. And people get positions based other things besides talent (knowing the right people, etc). Also-not everyone is STEM is working on life/death or high stake fields. And some people in humanities-social workers, teachers, mental health professionals, lawyers, policy makers-have to deal with some pretty high stake ramifications of not doing their job well.

The point is that even if they get the great internships, they can BS their way into being a great programmer at work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 STEM is much more of an egalitarian field because if you mess up, the ramifications are much bigger. So, companies want to hire based on ability, not based on who your daddy is.

I think it used to be the case. DH got into CS before it was cool and it worked out well for him (he came from a working class family). But I see in this area, that many parents use their connections to get their kids into certain internships, etc. Nepotism happens in every industry. And people get positions based other things besides talent (knowing the right people, etc). Also-not everyone is STEM is working on life/death or high stake fields. And some people in humanities-social workers, teachers, mental health professionals, lawyers, policy makers-have to deal with some pretty high stake ramifications of not doing their job well.

The point is that even if they get the great internships, they can BS their way into being a great programmer at work.

*** The point is that even if they get the great internships, they CAN'T BS their way into being a great programmer at work.***