Colleges removing useless majors

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College is becoming a modern-day vocational school.

Thanks goodness.

Go to vocational school if that is what you want to buy. Why educate yourself if you are don't value an educated mind?

Get over yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ChatGpt replaces the need for english majors, except for them to work on the chatgpt engine

Have you read some of this material? It has a long way to go.

Have you seen the recent upgrade? It's come very far in an extremely short period time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the main issue that this post highlights is that higher education should be more affordable, not that we need to eliminate liberal arts and humanities from college studies. There is societal value in having an educated populace but individuals should not have to go into personal debt for it.

Maybe they should charge more for majors more in demand and less for humanities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in the humanities. I have 4 degrees, and they were all completely free (1 degree is from overseas and 2 are Ivy League). I make a comfortable living in my field at a job I love that really gives me the chance to help students. I never took a STEM course after high school and don't care if my kids do either if that's not their bliss; conversely, if they want that pathway, I will do everything possible to support them.

There's nothing useless about what I do or about the students who want to study it. It's just not CS or STEM. But I have a hard time believing my field shouldn't have the right to exist. If people don't want to study it, they don't have to. But humanities are actually pretty cheap to maintain at the University level in terms of costs. The main reason to discontinue programs is so that salaried positions can be eliminated, not because the programs themselves are considered to be intellectually useless.

Getting rid of the humanities is kind of like saying anyone who doesn't have the height shouldn't play basketball after age 16 because it's just a waste of energy since they can't turn pro. But there are lots of good things that can come from pursuing a sport on the nonprofessional level. The humanities are the same way: they train your mind in certain habits and skills that STEM presentations just don't do. Maybe you don't feel you or your student want or need those things. That's OK with me, but there are still plenty of folks who do want and need them. And as long as that's the case, I'm lucky to be part of it.

How many faculty slots should a department struggling to attract majors be allotted when other departments have to turn away prospective majors due to overwhelming demand?

Sure. Harvard should ditch their divinity school faculty. Because who needs any of that useless religion stuff anyways, right?

SMH

After 9/11, colleges and universities were scrambling to get faculty who could teach students and advise politicians about Islam.
With this supreme court and the rise of Christian nationalism (January 6!), people would be foolish to avoid the academic study of Christianity.
But, sure, understanding religion is really unimportant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ChatGpt replaces the need for english majors, except for them to work on the chatgpt engine

Have you read some of this material? It has a long way to go.

OP/PP is a troll here to stir the pot, intensify the culture wars, and discourage education to destroy America. Ignore him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in the humanities. I have 4 degrees, and they were all completely free (1 degree is from overseas and 2 are Ivy League). I make a comfortable living in my field at a job I love that really gives me the chance to help students. I never took a STEM course after high school and don't care if my kids do either if that's not their bliss; conversely, if they want that pathway, I will do everything possible to support them.

There's nothing useless about what I do or about the students who want to study it. It's just not CS or STEM. But I have a hard time believing my field shouldn't have the right to exist. If people don't want to study it, they don't have to. But humanities are actually pretty cheap to maintain at the University level in terms of costs. The main reason to discontinue programs is so that salaried positions can be eliminated, not because the programs themselves are considered to be intellectually useless.

Getting rid of the humanities is kind of like saying anyone who doesn't have the height shouldn't play basketball after age 16 because it's just a waste of energy since they can't turn pro. But there are lots of good things that can come from pursuing a sport on the nonprofessional level. The humanities are the same way: they train your mind in certain habits and skills that STEM presentations just don't do. Maybe you don't feel you or your student want or need those things. That's OK with me, but there are still plenty of folks who do want and need them. And as long as that's the case, I'm lucky to be part of it.

How many faculty slots should a department struggling to attract majors be allotted when other departments have to turn away prospective majors due to overwhelming demand?

Sure. Harvard should ditch their divinity school faculty. Because who needs any of that useless religion stuff anyways, right?

SMH

Harvard can afford to meet the needs of every student. Most schools aren't Harvard. Should a school that has to turn away kids who want to major in business or engineering have an English department with staffing levels that were appropriate when they had twice as many majors?

"According to Robert Townsend, the co-director of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators project, which collects data uniformly but not always identically to internal enrollment figures, from 2012 to 2020 the number of graduated humanities majors at Ohio State’s main campus fell by forty-six per cent. Tufts lost nearly fifty per cent of its humanities majors, and Boston University lost forty-two. Notre Dame ended up with half as many as it started with, while suny Albany lost almost three-quarters. Vassar and Bates—standard-bearing liberal-arts colleges—saw their numbers of humanities majors fall by nearly half."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/the-end-of-the-english-major

[Anonymous]

If OPhad bothered to read the first entry they would know that Low enrollment was the cause of Marymount’s decision

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ChatGpt replaces the need for english majors, except for them to work on the chatgpt engine

Have you read some of this material? It has a long way to go.

Have you seen the recent upgrade? It's come very far in an extremely short period time.

It is useful but it it not great writing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College is becoming a modern-day vocational school.

Thanks goodness.

Go to vocational school if that is what you want to buy. Why educate yourself if you are don't value an educated mind?

Get over yourself.

Go through life an iignoramous. Great choice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was an English major. Admittedly, I chose it because I didn't really have a passion at the time. It taught me to read, write, communicate, and analyze, and I am a better practitioner of what I do now because of it. 90% of my professional accolades and praise come from my ability to communicate, which is much better than my colleagues who are only trained in our field.

The fact that the majority of institutions making these cuts are doing so in a climate of financial hardship on the edge of an enrollment cliff (which is a totally different financial crisis) doesn't convince me they are making the cuts for the right reasons.

The New Yorker article had interviews with Columbia and Harvard Faculty about their declining numbers. Schools are cutting in response to student interest. It's hard to justify massive departments when fewer kids are choosing the major year after year

This. I was surprised by some of the majors planned for being cut, but if you read the article they are responding to student interest.

If you have zero or just a few people in that major - does it make sense for the school to maintain a whole department for that major? I would love to see more information about how the schools plan to still (if they do) maintain foundational courses or alternative courses for those areas. Although they may eliminate the "English" major, I can't believe they wouldn't have some other course or majors that develops strong writing skills.

Also, all schools cannot be all things to all people. Not every college will have every major, and that's okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the main issue that this post highlights is that higher education should be more affordable, not that we need to eliminate liberal arts and humanities from college studies. There is societal value in having an educated populace but individuals should not have to go into personal debt for it.

This. The colleges are sort of committing long term suicide by jacking up the price 2-3 points above inflation every year. It's so expensive now students really need to get something of direct commercial value out of it (business, computer science, engineering). Very sad. Why should it cost 83k a year to read and talk about Montesquieu? Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Counting majors is a poor way to determine the worth of a department. A lot of students take a math class, or a foreign language class, but few actually major in math or a foreign language. A better count would be how many students a department educates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you should be arguing for the creation of vocational colleges, which I heartily support, rather than the shutting down of the humanities. It's quite short-sighted to devalue the humanities.
Did you read stories and picture books to your children?
Do you read anything besides technical manuals?
Appreciate art?
Listen to music?
Dance?
Learn about history?
Travel for pleasure?
Speak a foreign language?
Watch shows or movies?
Use well-designed product or live in a beautiful building?
Wear clothes that you find pleasing?
Enjoy strolling through gardens and parks?
Talk with your friends, families, and neighbors about anything besides STEM topics?
Listen to news on the radio?
Read about news in the papers?
Have any interest in political movements?
Care about legal rights, the constitution, justice?
Partake in any cultural or religious events or rituals (baptisms, graduations, weddings, funerals, etc.)?
Maybe you just needed more of a humanities education to be grateful for how much of the humanities are a part of a beautiful life?
-A prof in the humanities

You don't need to pay shit ton of money to college for all these

Yep, imagine the New York Times written by a bunch of high school grads! A Supreme Court full of justices that never studied history, even better!

Looking at recent decisions, I would prefer justices who took a few more science classes even if it came at the expense of history classes

Yes please. How about an ob GYN so we can stop with all the dumbed down reproductive decisions made by a govt. nonsense. Alito deserves to have a miscarriage and be impregnated by a rapist before he imposes his bullcrap on our women

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Counting majors is a poor way to determine the worth of a department. A lot of students take a math class, or a foreign language class, but few actually major in math or a foreign language. A better count would be how many students a department educates.

The number and quality of faculty that you need for non-majors taking a class or two is not the same that you need for a popular major

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Counting majors is a poor way to determine the worth of a department. A lot of students take a math class, or a foreign language class, but few actually major in math or a foreign language. A better count would be how many students a department educates.

Absolutely. The Major is only part of the education.