College Home Economics and Kinesiology Majors

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kinesiology PT Track at Penn State requires 2 semesters each of Bio, Chem, and Physics, as well as Anatomy.

I see only applied exercise health, movement science, and exercise science. Their chemistry and physics requirements can be fulfilled in 3 credits each.

https://bulletins.psu.edu/undergraduate/colleges/health-human-development/kinesiology-bs/#programrequirementstext

Penn State is a good program, 3rd in the U.S. Other schools should step up.

https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2022/sports-related-subjects?region=North%20America

[Anonymous]

My daughter took a few Family & Consumer Economic courses in middle school and high school. She said her teachers were always promoting teaching Home Ec as a great career for anyone interested in education. Lots of demand because of teacher retirements and every school—rich/poor, urban/rural—offers it. Less stressful and less bureaucratic than most teaching careers.

[Anonymous]

HYP/Ivy don’t offer because they never offered them. They were all male, except for Cornell, when those were majors were the options for women.

This is exactly correct regarding Home Economics/Human Ecology. My grandmother graduated from Cornell in the early 1930s prepared to become a dietitician (first-gen American-born, first-gen college student). She loved chemistry and wanted to be a doctor. She assessed that career path to be unattainable so pursued dietetics as an alternate until marriage. The coursework was quite scientific and rigorous. Her younger brother later became a doctor, partially due to her assistance.

My mother, her daughter-in-law, got a Human Ecology undergrad and then a Masters in Child Development to become an elementary school teacher. From mother's comments, I understood that students who studied textiles were frequently the children of New Yorkers in the garment business. No different than sending sons to business school to learn about real estate or Wall-Street style investing.

My mother chose Cornell Human Ecology because the other Ivies discriminated against women by not admitting them at all or limiting them to the related women's colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:students who studied textiles were ... No different than sending sons to business school to learn about real estate or Wall-Street style investing.

Business school students don't particularly learn about real estate. At most schools, you would be lucky to find one real estate elective.

The Ivy League schools did not think Home Economics was an appropriate major for men. Now that women have comprise a majority of college students, it is no longer appropriate for them either. Relegate those vestigial majors to community college.

[Anonymous]

Ok, DP above, so I was generalizing about real estate. I have an MBA from a top business school but I thought it would be off topic in this thread to get into a discussion of project economics, portfolio risk, interest rates, etc. That's really what I meant. Whatever it was that Ivanka was supposedly learning at Wharton, LOL. The richest alums from my b-school who aren't old money made the beginnings of their $B fortunes in real estate so...I assume their education and MBA connections helped with that. Yes, I only remember one real estate specific class, but lots about entrepreneurship because it was trendy.

Onto the topic of what should and should not exist as majors at various universities. Student demand usually determines what majors can continue to exist long run. I personally have seen that there is a big tie between college sports and kinesiology as a degree - lots of athletes seem to major in that. And college near-pro sports aren't going to get decoupled from the big universities any time soon. They are too popular with alumni and locals, and also drive applications.

I personally think that Cornell should rename Human Ecology and ILR to get with the times, but I didn't go there so who am I to tell Cornell what to do? My DC is going to apply RD to ILR even though I think the name is obsolete. The content of the program and the classmates are worthy of respect. Also, due to my family history, I give Cornell credit for being more egalitarian earlier. Institutional values matter and cast a long shadow.

Looking back at college, especially for liberal arts majors, the exact content of the coursework doesn't matter that much. Let's all get real about what we can still remember and use from what we studied in college. And let's stop picking on majors we weren't enrolled in ourselves. Let student demand determine what happens next. I actually learned things about kinesiology from this thread that are teaching me that I should stop making wisecracks about the majors I see in the athletes' profiles when I pass through the living room during whatever "Big Game". With the aging of our society, we're going to need more physical therapists and health professionals of all types. Why limit those students to "lower rated" schools?

[Anonymous]

My DD is at W&M, and their kinesiology program has multiple tracks: pre-med, nutrition, public health, and general kinesiology (I may be missing one). The human anatomy classes (with cadaver lab) the pre-med students take are through kinesiology, not the bio department.

I think it's a very popular major with students interested in going into health sciences or getting a master's in public health. The girl who gave us our tour was graduating with a Kin. degree and going on to a Nurse Practitioner program; she told us all about her senior thesis, which was about biomechanics and preventing falls in nursing home patients. Very impressive student.