Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 09:54     Subject: So many engineering students
I graduated from UVA in 2000 with a degree in Computer Engineering and worked for Apple, Nvidia, and Intel for the past 20 years. I got layoff by Intel last year and had not been able to find work since. People often forget that an engineering degree has about 20 years runway before you become obsolete. It is EXTREMELY difficult to find a job after the age of 45. Many of friends who graduated from UVA at the same time as I did are currently unemployed. It is the ugly side of the tech industry that people rarely talk about. As you get older, your salary becomes a liability for the employer. YMMV.
Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 09:54     Subject: So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:So many STEM majors bc high schools and culture generally hype up “skills” and job placement over knowledge and virtue. Ppl forgot a university degree is about becoming an educated person and not just a checkmark on a professional pathway.

The ED reform and educational entrepreneurs at the lower grades and high school levels I believe are starting to raise awareness/ act as a reminder to the population at large that college isn’t about some job but about search for truth and humanity’s place in the world. If universities can stop the arms race and get tuitions back to some sane level- we can get back to studying all types of subjects in areas of interest. If an educated graduate can read, research and write critically, and has a toolbox of knowledge they have acquired they will be successful in whatever field they end up in.

Bring back the liberal arts education! We have all sorts of high school and college graduates that know nothing about history or philosophy or ethics. Smart kids with degrees but uneducated.

Supply and demand. Businesses aren't looking for LA majors as much these days, and the money is in STEM. Yes, I know math is LA.

BTW, the engineering profession is not one that you can just learn on the job with a LA degree. It's not been like that for decades. Should a person be able to get a LA degree then practice medicine? No, it requires med school where they obviously learn about how to provide medical care.

Easy to sit on your high horse about "college is about education" when you don't have student loans to pay. Oh, you do have student loans to pay? How's that going for you?


I understand and agree we want / need kids in engineering schools. But it is over represented. The pressure to select a major based on future earnings wouldn’t be so great if tuition were more reasonable.

I don't disagree, but it is what it is. How do you expect a college student to change that? They are the ones who have to pick a major and find a job after graduating. They aren't the ones who made this world the way it is.

I have one kid who loves math, but they went to an IB school and got an IBDP. So, they know how to read complex text, analyze, write, etc. They were also on the debate team so they know how to communicate. But, they did not want to have to study more of the same in college. Luckily, they had enough credits to go in as almost a junior and mostly take all math and CS classes (they are a dual math/CS major). They love that. They live and breathe math/CS.

My other kid doesn't like math as much, and they are going to pursue a degree that doesn't make as much, but they are very interested in. We aren't pressuring them to go into eng or business, but we are making it very clear that the type of profession that they want pays little, and they will more than likely struggle financially. IMO, it's a disservice to not inform our kids about the realities of life, including how expensive it is to live like we do.

There was a survey of college students asking them how much do they expect to be making after graduating. A large % of them said over $100K. That's possible as an eng major, but not for LA majors. Someone did not inform those kids about how much they can expect to make based on their major.
Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 09:45     Subject: So many engineering students
I think the trend that you are seeing and that I see as well is not a global one- engineering majors are still a tiny proportion of undergrads overall, but specifically that a noticeably higher proportion of high achieving students are doing engineering. When I was in high school the high achieving kids wanted to be doctors and lawyers, or go to a high ranking school, just pick a major you like and figure it out, assuming the college brand will give you options. Now comp science is the new pre med and Eng is the go get a degree in a major that’s seen to be challenging and people think is useful and figure it out from there.
Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 09:44     Subject: Re:So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Liberal arts is in theory a fantastic intellectual foundation for life and a career, but in practice its been wrecked by wokeness. Everyone recognizes this and is staying away.

If we can reform the liberal arts, it will flourish again.

It did not die out due to wokeness. Liberal arts degrees have been declining for many years in part due to the growth in the tech sector, and more students majoring in business.


And why are people so interested in majoring in "business" which typically not a rigorous degree where you learn boring things that were just picked up on the job by intelligent, well-rounded people years ago without the need for any courses? Perhaps its all the stories they hear about people signing for literature courses and having to listen to political drivel rather than actually learn to appreciate literature.

People are interested in majoring in business because there's more money to be made as a business major than an English major.

Seriously, it's not that hard to understand.

FWIW, I am not a progressive, and I dislike that my kids had to read so much woke books in school. One year, the book choices were pretty much all about DEI.


Ok, but this was not historically true. Historically, business leaders actually went to elite, northeastern, private liberal arts colleges where they got a well rounded education learning about the intellectual history of Western Civilization. Over time, that got replaced more and more with critical theory to the point where many of these departments were almost entirely dominated by critical theorists and people started mistakenly assuming that critical theory WAS liberal arts, not just one sector of it. And of course what underpins critical theory is character assassination of anyone who pushes back on the theories, many of which are quite stupid. There is a time and place for critical theory but it's about 10x more prominent than it should be in a well rounded liberal arts curriculum. They also just started dumbing down the curriculum generally, which started to kids on the margins from failing out and getting sent to Vietnam, and really picked up steam when the colleges started jacking up tuition and treating the students (or really, their parents) as a revenue source and to be catered to rather than a pupil to be challenged.

Anyways, back in the day these well rounded students THEN went into business (some with MBAs, some without) and just picked up business on the job, which is fine because in most cases it ain't really that hard, esp. for someone that's in the top 1-5% of IQ and work ethic anyways, which is what the leadership was and is. These colleges didn't even HAVE business majors since it wasn't a real subject.

Some of their employees, who wouldn't have been able to complete those liberal arts programs back when they were actually rigorous, went to lower tier schools where they did study "business." Because they wouldn't have been capable of just picking it up on the fly, so they needed the extra training, and because they weren't being trained for leadership anyways, so having a broad education wasn't as important.

Anyways, you can think that system was great or terrible, but anyways it is 95% dead and gone and the critical theorists are the ones standing over the body with the murder weapon, desperately lecturing it about microaggressions as their disciplines fade further into irrelevance.

This analysis was so spot-on and so eloquently written! You must be a Liberal Arts (of old) major.

It's also very old fashioned thinking (back in the day) when people (mostly white men) got liberal arts degrees and then could find a white collar job after graduating because they didn't have to compete with uneducated men, minorities and women.

Times of changed. Supply and demand.


So tedious. "We can't read Milton anymore because [wokeness]." Meanwhile, there's a recent article in the Atlantic about how professors (even at really top schools, like Columbia) increasingly find their students cannot read college level books, have never read a book cover to cover at all, etc.

Btw, chat GPT told me that of the following schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore), only one of them has a business-related undergraduate major (MIT, which makes sense given it was historically more focused on trades). For all the rest, there is no major in any of business, accounting, finance or marketing. The closest approximation is studying economics, math or physics. So what I am saying still holds true at the top end of the pyramid. Interesting these schools are able to place so many into the upper echelons of business anyways and can do this even though white males are only a small fraction of their student body.

Even LACs are dropping English majors and adding business majors.

So, what I am saying is that even colleges realize that the demand for majors like English has gone down, while business and eng majors have gone up. Student not being able to read a book cover to cover is the fault of the HS education. One does not expect a college to have to provide a LA education just so that a student learns to read a book cover to cover.

Those colleges do have econ as a major, which is related to business, and they rely on alumni network for jobs. They also probably want people to spend more money by getting an MBA.

Historically, white males studied LA, graduated then got a white collar job because they didn't have to compete with minorities and women. Now that they do, they have to major in something that helps them get a job.

You can wish for the good ol' days all you want, but that's not what the market wants, and colleges are responding to that shift.

I also find it ironic that you used chatgpt to get information. LOL BTW, did chatgpt tell you that those universities do have engineering as a major. LOL
Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 09:37     Subject: Re:So many engineering students
Pick a school.
The chance is that you have more psychology majors.

Not everykid can handle CS/Engineering.
Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 09:32     Subject: So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:So many STEM majors bc high schools and culture generally hype up “skills” and job placement over knowledge and virtue. Ppl forgot a university degree is about becoming an educated person and not just a checkmark on a professional pathway.

The ED reform and educational entrepreneurs at the lower grades and high school levels I believe are starting to raise awareness/ act as a reminder to the population at large that college isn’t about some job but about search for truth and humanity’s place in the world. If universities can stop the arms race and get tuitions back to some sane level- we can get back to studying all types of subjects in areas of interest. If an educated graduate can read, research and write critically, and has a toolbox of knowledge they have acquired they will be successful in whatever field they end up in.

Bring back the liberal arts education! We have all sorts of high school and college graduates that know nothing about history or philosophy or ethics. Smart kids with degrees but uneducated.

Supply and demand. Businesses aren't looking for LA majors as much these days, and the money is in STEM. Yes, I know math is LA.

BTW, the engineering profession is not one that you can just learn on the job with a LA degree. It's not been like that for decades. Should a person be able to get a LA degree then practice medicine? No, it requires med school where they obviously learn about how to provide medical care.

Easy to sit on your high horse about "college is about education" when you don't have student loans to pay. Oh, you do have student loans to pay? How's that going for you?


I understand and agree we want / need kids in engineering schools. But it is over represented. The pressure to select a major based on future earnings wouldn’t be so great if tuition were more reasonable.
Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 09:32     Subject: So many engineering students
For the right student, it's 4 challenging and time consuming years, but it is anything but miserable!
Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 09:28     Subject: So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:So many STEM majors bc high schools and culture generally hype up “skills” and job placement over knowledge and virtue. Ppl forgot a university degree is about becoming an educated person and not just a checkmark on a professional pathway.

The ED reform and educational entrepreneurs at the lower grades and high school levels I believe are starting to raise awareness/ act as a reminder to the population at large that college isn’t about some job but about search for truth and humanity’s place in the world. If universities can stop the arms race and get tuitions back to some sane level- we can get back to studying all types of subjects in areas of interest. If an educated graduate can read, research and write critically, and has a toolbox of knowledge they have acquired they will be successful in whatever field they end up in.

Bring back the liberal arts education! We have all sorts of high school and college graduates that know nothing about history or philosophy or ethics. Smart kids with degrees but uneducated.

Supply and demand. Businesses aren't looking for LA majors as much these days, and the money is in STEM. Yes, I know math is LA.

BTW, the engineering profession is not one that you can just learn on the job with a LA degree. It's not been like that for decades. Should a person be able to get a LA degree then practice medicine? No, it requires med school where they obviously learn about how to provide medical care.

Easy to sit on your high horse about "college is about education" when you don't have student loans to pay. Oh, you do have student loans to pay? How's that going for you?
Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 09:11     Subject: So many engineering students
So many STEM majors bc high schools and culture generally hype up “skills” and job placement over knowledge and virtue. Ppl forgot a university degree is about becoming an educated person and not just a checkmark on a professional pathway.

The ED reform and educational entrepreneurs at the lower grades and high school levels I believe are starting to raise awareness/ act as a reminder to the population at large that college isn’t about some job but about search for truth and humanity’s place in the world. If universities can stop the arms race and get tuitions back to some sane level- we can get back to studying all types of subjects in areas of interest. If an educated graduate can read, research and write critically, and has a toolbox of knowledge they have acquired they will be successful in whatever field they end up in.

Bring back the liberal arts education! We have all sorts of high school and college graduates that know nothing about history or philosophy or ethics. Smart kids with degrees but uneducated.
Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 09:03     Subject: Re:So many engineering students
I thought it was super popular in the early 90s - but I went to VA Tech and work in STEM so know a ton of them. I’m in bio.
Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 09:02     Subject: So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:Engineering is also often a miserable way to spend four years of college. I studied econ and really didn't work hard. My roommate was an engineer and worked his tail off. I'm now making a lot more money.

That's so not true if you like STEM. I love college and my classes. Were they hard? Yes, but that was awesome. High school was boring and easy. It was so fun to learn to solve hard problems and to learn more about how things work.
Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 08:58     Subject: So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why not go to school for something useful like engineering? Liberal arts is basically worthless


Because engineers are chattel, and always will be.


Actually the best read and most thoughtful kids I know are all studying or going into engineering. Things have changed over the past ten years or so. Middle and high schools seem to be actively making subjects like English unpleasant to study. I find that it really is the smart kids that are gravitating toward engineering these days - less so CS right now. If you want brains, engineering and pre-med seem to be where it's at right now. And a lot of those kids read for pleasure and are pretty curious about the world.


I don’t think the kids are naturally gravitating to engineering. Pretty sure their high pressure have the influence. Just like parents pressured their kids to be lawyers/doctors years back.
Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 08:16     Subject: So many engineering students
Yes, have noticed it.
Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 07:19     Subject: So many engineering students
The podcast College Uncovered had an episode about the decline of humanities majors. It talks about some colleges pivoting their programs to be more applied/career ready. One program they highlighted is at Georgia Tech
https://www.gatech.edu/academics/degrees/bachelors/literature-media-and-communication-bs

https://hechingerreport.org/college-uncovered-the-revenge-of-the-humanities/
Anonymous
Post 05/03/2025 07:13     Subject: So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Anyone else notice this trend? It seems that almost every student at DC's school is going into engineering


A large percentage of them won’t be able to hack engineering and will drop out of it and pursue an easier major.


This is true. Same for “pre-med”. Chen/physics weed out classes.

Not true at ivies, Stanford, and other top schools that have 97% of engineering school freshmen continue to sophomore year rather than transfer to arts and sciences. The students who get in these places can handle it


Not bunch of DEI admits.