Why Are Most Employable Majors Seemingly the Least Popular?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of STEM graduates find jobs quicker right out of college and at higher pay than your typical English, History or Government major. STEM majors become well paid individual contributors fairly early on.

But. Look at earnings over time and look at the educational background of upper level management. They aren't the STEM folks. They are the people who know how to lead, how to think, how to write, how to influence others, how to think out of the box and how to bring knowledge from many disciplines together. They appreciate knowledge from many disciplines not just the narrow corner that is STEM. And that is not to say that STEM grads can't be all of these things too. This wide range just doesn't appear to be the strong suit of the STEM inclined though.

It takes all kinds of expertise. Some pays off in the short-term and some pays off in the long-term.

No, look at the biography of those executives. They by and large came from wealthy and well-educated families, and could depend on family support and connections for future job prospects. They had the luxury to study the easier subjects and network at the frat house. Many folks who study STEM are working class immigrants or lower middle class whites who see it as a way to secure a good stable job, b/c if they can't they end up working at the walmart back in Podunk USA living with their folks. They can't take the flyer that they can become 'executives' b/c they write pretty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Late to this thread. Majors relying on heavy math skills tend to be least popular (and thus most employable later on). My personal theory is that it's because our system for teaching math in this country is really lacking, especially in the younger grades when building that first layer really matters most.

Think about your average elementary school teacher. Did she strike you as being very strong in math skills? Typically they're young women who go into it because they "love" kids, "hate" math, and actually admit to things like not being able to do fractions to save their lives

even students who are good at the first couple levels of calculus struggle with the math required for the most technical of majors.

it has nothing to do with teaching as much as math is an abstract subject and innate talent places greater constraints on it than other subjects.

I have never seen a student whose ability to master math dropped precipitously as the material got harder. What does happen however is that early classes are inadequate and positive feedback is wildly inaccurate. The students you talk about were probably never that good at lower levels to begin with. Children that are terrible in math (as well as other things) are constantly told they are doing great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because they are usually harder.

Really? I was an English major and I distinctly recall helping the engineering/math/science/econ majors I met in my classes who couldn't write an essay about literature to save their lives. "Hard" is really defined by your own natural skills, and I think we can all agree that it takes all kinds to make the world go around. I have an advanced degree and am employed as a professional, by the way.

How many people need to "write an essay about literature" ever in real life? Maybe a NYT book reviewer?

The ability to write a good essay speaks to critical thinking and organizational skills that are necessary for success in any profession - even the sciences. You sound like you were a business major, and by that I mean dumb.

Sure, but almost everyone can be taught to write coherently. It is not a very difficult skill to master. The hard sciences and math are much more difficult for the average person and many people will never be able to hack it in those majors. They can barely get through Calc I. I would be that the avg IQ of hard science and math majors is far above the avg IQ of English or poli sic majors.

You could not be more wrong. I used to work for a top-ranked university and the alumni would complain that the new graduates they hired could not write to save their lives. Many people cannot write coherently, much less with style and clarity.

This x 1,000. I don't care what grade you got in Calc -- if you can't make an argument or analyze a problem/challenge/opportunity clearly in writing, you are not going far in most professions. At least not in the white collar world.

[Anonymous]

I went to a SLAC and studied biochemistry. My best friend went to MIT and studied computer science. She actually had more distribution requirements in the humanities than I did; American schools are big on having a well rounded education and I think in many cases the math/science nerd who never needed to write an essay is a myth--at least at top schools. I think that people have this myth that going to an engineering school means you don't take any humanities classes--not true in the US. Since I went to such a small school, I had plenty of writing assignments for my science courses--mainly weeding through the primary literature and writing papers about it, and I had to write up my own original research for a senior thesis, so not all STEM educations are alike.

I will have to say, though, that ON AVERAGE, for most people math, science, and engineering are more difficult. Sure you can have a rigorous history or English program, and hard working people come in all majors. My dad is a brilliant, hard working guy with a great law career, and he majored in English. However, as a science major, I had lab courses for up to 4 hours a day, typically 2 or 3 of them in a semester. This means I had basically double the class time as my humanities majoring friends, even if I had the same amount of credits. I had just as much, if not more homework with less unscheduled time to do it. It is also harder to blow of a graded problem set than it is to blow off reading for a discussion course. It is also well documented that exam based majors (i.e. engineering, the hard sciences) tend to have less grade inflation than humanities courses where the grade is more based on discussion participation and graded papers. All of these things made studying the hard sciences less appealing to several of my peers in college.

[Anonymous]

Again, it's pretty basic: The fields with fewer graduates have less competition, so the pay is higher.

If suddenly the number of people graduating with nursing or STEM degrees increased rapidly, those fields would be flooded with applicants and the salary potential would drop.

That's how it works. Everyone seems to champion computer science degrees now. My prediction is that in a decade or so, that field won't have the same high starting salaries because there will be so many more applicants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because they are usually harder.

Really? I was an English major and I distinctly recall helping the engineering/math/science/econ majors I met in my classes who couldn't write an essay about literature to save their lives. "Hard" is really defined by your own natural skills, and I think we can all agree that it takes all kinds to make the world go around. I have an advanced degree and am employed as a professional, by the way.

How many people need to "write an essay about literature" ever in real life? Maybe a NYT book reviewer?

Want hard? Try bullshitting your way through a math proof. Not quite as easy as pumping out a subjective essay about Ovid. I can tell you, having double majored in engineering and The Classics.

Seriously, engineering requires a lot of discipline. It may not be that it's "hard" but you have to buckle down in ways that many humanities majors didn't have to because they had a lot more flexibility about when to write an essay, and what they could learn to do so. And I think you really underestimate the amount of writing an engineering major needs to do. Not English writing, but I'm sure you would have had at least as much trouble properly explaining what I discovered in my senior thesis than the majors you describe had trouble writin an essay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to a SLAC and studied biochemistry. My best friend went to MIT and studied computer science. She actually had more distribution requirements in the humanities than I did; American schools are big on having a well rounded education and I think in many cases the math/science nerd who never needed to write an essay is a myth--at least at top schools. I think that people have this myth that going to an engineering school means you don't take any humanities classes--not true in the US. Since I went to such a small school, I had plenty of writing assignments for my science courses--mainly weeding through the primary literature and writing papers about it, and I had to write up my own original research for a senior thesis, so not all STEM educations are alike.

I will have to say, though, that ON AVERAGE, for most people math, science, and engineering are more difficult. Sure you can have a rigorous history or English program, and hard working people come in all majors. My dad is a brilliant, hard working guy with a great law career, and he majored in English. However, as a science major, I had lab courses for up to 4 hours a day, typically 2 or 3 of them in a semester. This means I had basically double the class time as my humanities majoring friends, even if I had the same amount of credits. I had just as much, if not more homework with less unscheduled time to do it. It is also harder to blow of a graded problem set than it is to blow off reading for a discussion course. It is also well documented that exam based majors (i.e. engineering, the hard sciences) tend to have less grade inflation than humanities courses where the grade is more based on discussion participation and graded papers. All of these things made studying the hard sciences less appealing to several of my peers in college.

I get sort of tired of this debate about which major is more difficult. It depends on a person's skills. I started out as a math major, and I found my higher level math courses easier than some of my liberal arts classes because they were pretty direct. It was straightforward what information you had to learn and what you would be tested on. The same with biology. My roommate was a bio major, and most of her courses (even through junior and senior year) were kill and drill type courses. There was a lot of memorization and regurgitation. Whereas, in some of the liberal arts majors (it varies), there is an enormous amount of reading and writing, and there is very little direction, meaning that you have to generate ideas for papers on your own. It isn't about understanding a set of problems and then demonstrating that.

I'm not saying STEM majors are easy, but I'm tired of the suggestion that liberal arts majors are. I would also add that I know a few computer science majors, and they all say their coursework was very easy. They also all insist that most of the stuff they learn in the program (and I'm talking about a well respected program) is sort of outdated, that if you really want to excel in that field, you should be pretty far ahead of what is being taught at university computer science programs.

I'll also add that I know a lot of people who majored in liberal arts majors (even art) and work in IT and make a lot of money. They insist that you don't have to major in computer science in a university setting to gather those skills, especially if it is something you are interested in and are active in online computers (I'm talking specifically about programming).

[Anonymous]

Employment has a lot less to do with majors, then when one graduates. Very difficult for current grads. If posters graduated 5+ years ago, nothing matters as much - the economy was better, your prospects better. A generation ago much better.

[Anonymous]

I get sort of tired of this debate about which major is more difficult. It depends on a person's skills. I started out as a math major, and I found my higher level math courses easier than some of my liberal arts classes because they were pretty direct. It was straightforward what information you had to learn and what you would be tested on. The same with biology. My roommate was a bio major, and most of her courses (even through junior and senior year) were kill and drill type courses. There was a lot of memorization and regurgitation. Whereas, in some of the liberal arts majors (it varies), there is an enormous amount of reading and writing, and there is very little direction, meaning that you have to generate ideas for papers on your own. It isn't about understanding a set of problems and then demonstrating that.

I'm not saying STEM majors are easy, but I'm tired of the suggestion that liberal arts majors are. I would also add that I know a few computer science majors, and they all say their coursework was very easy. They also all insist that most of the stuff they learn in the program (and I'm talking about a well respected program) is sort of outdated, that if you really want to excel in that field, you should be pretty far ahead of what is being taught at university computer science programs.

I'll also add that I know a lot of people who majored in liberal arts majors (even art) and work in IT and make a lot of money. They insist that you don't have to major in computer science in a university setting to gather those skills, especially if it is something you are interested in and are active in online computers (I'm talking specifically about programming).

I agree with most of this, except it varies from school to school. My bio classes were not kill and drill, and we actually had a lot of critical thinking and projects that involved having original ideas. I certainly felt like when I was in college I was walking on eggshells because my liberal arts major friends were so defensive, actually. Their classes were certainly rigorous and if you did all the reading/really put yourself into the papers, it was a huge amount of work. The only thing I am suggesting is that it was easier for someone to slide by as an English major than it was as a chemistry major. The minimum you had to do to get by was lower, and statistically it was easier to get a higher GPA, even at our school which was known for little grade inflation. For starters, there was less in class time, so more time to do homework--even if there was a lot of reading, it wasn't equivalent to having an afternoon in lab plus studying, problem sets, lab writeups, and reading. Also you could get by skipping a bit of the reading if absolutely necessary. The slacker chemists I knew generally had to do a little more to skate than the slacker humanities majors. When you got to the really good students in either category, things were less cut and dry.

Also, most of the programmers I know were math majors who got interested in math side of theoretical computer science. None of them learned to code in school, and if they did it was typically through doing undergraduate research that required that skill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Late to this thread. Majors relying on heavy math skills tend to be least popular (and thus most employable later on). My personal theory is that it's because our system for teaching math in this country is really lacking, especially in the younger grades when building that first layer really matters most.

Think about your average elementary school teacher. Did she strike you as being very strong in math skills? Typically they're young women who go into it because they "love" kids, "hate" math, and actually admit to things like not being able to do fractions to save their lives

even students who are good at the first couple levels of calculus struggle with the math required for the most technical of majors.

it has nothing to do with teaching as much as math is an abstract subject and innate talent places greater constraints on it than other subjects.

I have never seen a student whose ability to master math dropped precipitously as the material got harder. What does happen however is that early classes are inadequate and positive feedback is wildly inaccurate. The students you talk about were probably never that good at lower levels to begin with. Children that are terrible in math (as well as other things) are constantly told they are doing great.

PP here. this is so wrong. I started off as a physics and math double major due to being very good at math at the hs level (5's on ap calc bc, math awards at some competitions)....however after PDE's when you start getting into modern algera, real and complex analysis my ass was kicked...at my larg big 10 school, many physics and engineering majors washed out (even though they were "good" at math) because they hit the wall mathematically.

I'm not a math dullard, but I have a tough time understanding monte carlo methods and complex analysis.

however i flew though basic and secondary levels of calculus with no issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because they are usually harder.

Really? I was an English major and I distinctly recall helping the engineering/math/science/econ majors I met in my classes who couldn't write an essay about literature to save their lives. "Hard" is really defined by your own natural skills, and I think we can all agree that it takes all kinds to make the world go around. I have an advanced degree and am employed as a professional, by the way.

How many people need to "write an essay about literature" ever in real life? Maybe a NYT book reviewer?

The ability to write a good essay speaks to critical thinking and organizational skills that are necessary for success in any profession - even the sciences. You sound like you were a business major, and by that I mean dumb.

Sure, but almost everyone can be taught to write coherently. It is not a very difficult skill to master. The hard sciences and math are much more difficult for the average person and many people will never be able to hack it in those majors. They can barely get through Calc I. I would be that the avg IQ of hard science and math majors is far above the avg IQ of English or poli sic majors.

You could not be more wrong. I used to work for a top-ranked university and the alumni would complain that the new graduates they hired could not write to save their lives. Many people cannot write coherently, much less with style and clarity.

This x 1,000. I don't care what grade you got in Calc -- if you can't make an argument or analyze a problem/challenge/opportunity clearly in writing, you are not going far in most professions. At least not in the white collar world.

+1. If we could just get those Calc people to stop using 'your' in place of 'you're'. Help 'em out, English majors!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because they are usually harder.

Really? I was an English major and I distinctly recall helping the engineering/math/science/econ majors I met in my classes who couldn't write an essay about literature to save their lives. "Hard" is really defined by your own natural skills, and I think we can all agree that it takes all kinds to make the world go around. I have an advanced degree and am employed as a professional, by the way.

How many people need to "write an essay about literature" ever in real life? Maybe a NYT book reviewer?

Want hard? Try bullshitting your way through a math proof. Not quite as easy as pumping out a subjective essay about Ovid. I can tell you, having double majored in engineering and The Classics.

Seriously, engineering requires a lot of discipline. It may not be that it's "hard" but you have to buckle down in ways that many humanities majors didn't have to because they had a lot more flexibility about when to write an essay, and what they could learn to do so. And I think you really underestimate the amount of writing an engineering major needs to do. Not English writing, but I'm sure you would have had at least as much trouble properly explaining what I discovered in my senior thesis than the majors you describe had trouble writin an essay.

True. Best major in the U.S. for getting a high-paying job? Petroleum Engineering. Not fun, but you are set for life. Reservoir engineering is another. Hard math, science, physics, calculus. Very tough majors.

[Anonymous]

9:36 back - I think most posters are missing the point that if you are attending a good college or university, you are still required to take a core of humanities, foreign language, history, etc., in addition to classes for your major. So, sure, petroleum engineering, but that doesn't excuse you from English, writing, humanities, government, history of the world, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because they are usually harder.

Really? I was an English major and I distinctly recall helping the engineering/math/science/econ majors I met in my classes who couldn't write an essay about literature to save their lives. "Hard" is really defined by your own natural skills, and I think we can all agree that it takes all kinds to make the world go around. I have an advanced degree and am employed as a professional, by the way.

Ha. And you try some of their organic chemistry or advanced math classes. You'll see what "hard" really is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because they are usually harder.

Really? I was an English major and I distinctly recall helping the engineering/math/science/econ majors I met in my classes who couldn't write an essay about literature to save their lives. "Hard" is really defined by your own natural skills, and I think we can all agree that it takes all kinds to make the world go around. I have an advanced degree and am employed as a professional, by the way.

Ha. And you try some of their organic chemistry or advanced math classes. You'll see what "hard" really is.

A lot of it depends on the person. My undergrad degree's in philosophy, and I also went to law school and I have a masters in comp. sci. Of the coursework I've done, my philosophy coursework was some of my most challenging. I loved it, so it was "easy" in the sense that it didn't bother me to spend untold hours knee deep in research. Whereas some of my upper level math courses for my CS masters took less time, but were "harder" because I didn't enjoy myself as much. When I'm more aware of the hours I'm putting in, I'm more likely to consider it hard. Cleaning the bathroom is harder than cleaning the kitchen. It's all about perspective.