Anonymous wrote:I was a female STEM major in the late 80s-early 90s. Not very common.

In our school district it’s been nothing but STEM since my firstborn (2005). Writing fell to the wayside. Reading is down due to iPhone/social media usage. Schools aren’t even requiring full novels to be read. Most exams are multiple choice only on a laptop.

We put our kids in Jesuit high schools - left public. They are equally as strong in STEM and English/humanities/languages. I am such a huge proponent of a true liberal arts education. Look at these big tech billionaires with zero ethics or empathy. A lot of that is STEM only focus.

Most kids were told STEM is the only employable field and everyone got the memo and that’s the field (and finance) everyone is headed for. It’s saturated.

Without knowledge of other cultures, religions, history, literature we get the dystopian world we are currently living in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a female STEM major in the late 80s-early 90s. Not very common.

In our school district it’s been nothing but STEM since my firstborn (2005). Writing fell to the wayside. Reading is down due to iPhone/social media usage. Schools aren’t even requiring full novels to be read. Most exams are multiple choice only on a laptop.

We put our kids in Jesuit high schools - left public. They are equally as strong in STEM and English/humanities/languages. I am such a huge proponent of a true liberal arts education. Look at these big tech billionaires with zero ethics or empathy. A lot of that is STEM only focus.

Most kids were told STEM is the only employable field and everyone got the memo and that’s the field (and finance) everyone is headed for. It’s saturated.

Without knowledge of other cultures, religions, history, literature we get the dystopian world we are currently living in.

SLACs are realizing that they can't offer that stem component that students are being told is necessary to be employed so the slacs are teaming up with other universities to build a stem pathway.

Anonymous wrote:There is a surplus of CS majors with skills like scripting, web programming, and general IT / sysadmin skills. Those jobs are easier to move offshore.

There is a chronic shortage of CS folks who took the more difficult electives like compilers, embedded systems, real-time systems, kernel programming / OS internals, assembly (especially for ARM; x86 is dying), and have good C programming skills and debugger skills on UNIX (including Linux, MacOS).

Rigor matters. People who take more rigorous CS upper level electives are the shortage category.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a female STEM major in the late 80s-early 90s. Not very common.

In our school district it’s been nothing but STEM since my firstborn (2005). Writing fell to the wayside. Reading is down due to iPhone/social media usage. Schools aren’t even requiring full novels to be read. Most exams are multiple choice only on a laptop.

We put our kids in Jesuit high schools - left public. They are equally as strong in STEM and English/humanities/languages. I am such a huge proponent of a true liberal arts education. Look at these big tech billionaires with zero ethics or empathy. A lot of that is STEM only focus.

Most kids were told STEM is the only employable field and everyone got the memo and that’s the field (and finance) everyone is headed for. It’s saturated.

Without knowledge of other cultures, religions, history, literature we get the dystopian world we are currently living in.

Me too! I yearn for a world where we used to have high child mortality, low life expectancy, low literacy, high poverty, and lots of everyday violence.

You know, the good old days!

Anonymous wrote:DC wants to go into chemistry, with the ultimate goal of something like pharma/drug development or cosmeceuticals. Bad plan, considering everyone here seem to be saying Bio/chem have high unemployment levels?

Anonymous wrote:I was a female STEM major in the late 80s-early 90s. Not very common.

In our school district it’s been nothing but STEM since my firstborn (2005). Writing fell to the wayside. Reading is down due to iPhone/social media usage. Schools aren’t even requiring full novels to be read. Most exams are multiple choice only on a laptop.

We put our kids in Jesuit high schools - left public. They are equally as strong in STEM and English/humanities/languages. I am such a huge proponent of a true liberal arts education. Look at these big tech billionaires with zero ethics or empathy. A lot of that is STEM only focus.

Most kids were told STEM is the only employable field and everyone got the memo and that’s the field (and finance) everyone is headed for. It’s saturated.

Without knowledge of other cultures, religions, history, literature we get the dystopian world we are currently living in.

Anonymous wrote:I was a female STEM major in the late 80s-early 90s. Not very common.

In our school district it’s been nothing but STEM since my firstborn (2005). Writing fell to the wayside. Reading is down due to iPhone/social media usage. Schools aren’t even requiring full novels to be read. Most exams are multiple choice only on a laptop.

We put our kids in Jesuit high schools - left public. They are equally as strong in STEM and English/humanities/languages. I am such a huge proponent of a true liberal arts education. Look at these big tech billionaires with zero ethics or empathy. A lot of that is STEM only focus.

Most kids were told STEM is the only employable field and everyone got the memo and that’s the field (and finance) everyone is headed for. It’s saturated.

Without knowledge of other cultures, religions, history, literature we get the dystopian world we are currently living in.

Anonymous wrote:All this is relevant to something my own brother (a US-born engineer) realized early on: there will be a lot of colleagues who are smart but not great at communicating//not great at communicating in English. If our US-born kids go into STEM, their ability to communicate science or engineering or business value could keep them relevant even as positions around them are filled by hardworking and smart immigrants.

SO: tell your STEM-interested children they better be good at communicating! It can't just be heads-down, do your math and submit on paper, because that can be done by a non-English speaking engineer/scientist/etc., with AI bridging basic gaps like translation.

Anonymous wrote:DC wants to go into chemistry, with the ultimate goal of something like pharma/drug development or cosmeceuticals. Bad plan, considering everyone here seem to be saying Bio/chem have high unemployment levels?