Should colleges discontinue "career-less" majors?

[CharonY]

Sooo. What are your assumptions based on? Aside the fact that in some colleges the lines between BA and BS are not that clear, are you implying that e.g. architects have better job opportunities than those studying foreign languages, for example?

[Elite Engineer]

"Also note that if everyone takes STEM, by definition STEM would be over saturated" -CharonY

 

 

All the pople who would take STEM, wouldn't finish it, thats my point. If you have 1000 students take a STEM major, MAYBE 50% would actually follow through and finish it, b/c its naturally difficult and weeds out people not fit for it. If you have a 1000 students take a BA, I'm willing to bet 80% or more will finish it, because it's much easier. This leads to overstauration..people taking the easy way out. You have students who want a BA, and then you have the students who couldn't hack it in STEM and use a BA as a back up. Both groups added together saturate this market.

 

[bA ---> STEM] < [sTEM ---> BA]

 

Yes I think STEM could maybe become overstaturated, but not to the extent as the BA population is. Also, with population growth STEM has a higher demand than BA. People need doctors and engineers more than they do teachers and journalists.

"Also note that if everyone takes STEM, by definition STEM would be over saturated" -CharonY

 

 

All the pople who would take STEM, wouldn't finish it, thats my point. If you have 1000 students take a STEM major, MAYBE 50% would actually follow through and finish it, b/c its naturally difficult and weeds out people not fit for it. If you have a 1000 students take a BA, I'm willing to bet 85-90% or more will finish it, because it's much easier. This leads to overstauration..people taking the easy way out. You have students who want a BA, and then you have the students who couldn't hack it in STEM and use a BA as a back up. Both groups added together saturate this market.

 

[bA ---> STEM] < [sTEM ---> BA]

 

Yes I think STEM could maybe become overstaturated, but not to the extent as the BA population is. Also, with population growth STEM has a higher demand than BA. People need doctors and engineers more than they do teachers and journalists.

Edited November 13, 2015 by Elite Engineer

[CharonY]

So what? A lot of people do not finish their degrees. The failure rate is often higher in certain degrees than in others. Also, more and more people get into universities and since long there has been a pressure to increase graduation rates. But why would that in any way pertain to justifying or denying he existence of other degrees? How would you know if a degree is over saturated? Looking at employment? And again, have you actually bothered to look at data? You do know that gut feeling and extrapolation thereof does not qualify as critical thinking?

 

You do remember your original claims? The one about that joke career that apparently has a lower or equal unemployment rate as engineering students?

Would that not make you stop and try to revisit your claims?

 

Let me summarize a few things for you, in case you forget what you wrote. as I already find it quite hard to follow the arguments.

 

A) College is for careers.

As others have noted that was not the mission of colleges (if you like it or not) nor is the structure set up for that. That it has become an important element for having a career and that many people choose to take it as part of career building does not change the fact why and how a college is set up. An institution of higher education, not a school for vocational training.

 

B) Non-BS degrees do not add to career building or much less than STEM bachelors

Even if you exclusively look at college from a career perspective, data does not line up with your claims. And luckily we do have data on that. Regardless on discipline (and even country), BA and BS holders (or their equivalent) have lower unemployment rate than the average population. Now you can be even more narrow-minded than that and claim that only those with the highest employment rate should exist. But then you will see a number of social sciences outperforming certain STEM areas. And in many cases where the STEM outperform other degrees it is by only a few percentages. If these differences should define what degrees should be available, Engineering and Sciences would lose out to Health and Education, for example.

Also the examples you provided indicate that you actually have not researched the market. As I mentioned, two of your examples, Architecture as a "good" career (together with STEM) and Recreation as a joke career do have high and low unemployment rates, respectively. Except, in 2013 the Architecture has some of the highest unemployment rates (12.8/9.3 using the same metrics as above) whereas Recreation some of the lowest.

Both are somewhat related to actual jobs, so it is clear that this alone does not define what makes a degree marketable.

 

C) A bachelors degree alone should be sufficient to get a gaduate [sic] a decent job in the market.

The market has decided otherwise. Unemployment rate in the USA was around 7.5% in 2013. The unemployment rate of young Engineering graduates was barely better. 7.4. The trend improves markedly when looking at college students with experience (i.e. age 30 and up). So either way a bachelor alone is not the job provider. Period.

 

D) How can you argue that a BA/BS in outdoor recreation, sports studies, creative writing, art history and eventually history, pyschology, and even english can lead to a sustainable, professional career for a college grad.

Easy. Look at data. If you have a graduate in, say social sciences, and you ask them that question, that is what they would do. Look at historic unemployment rates, conduct surveys etc. You know, apply critical thinking skills.

Take history, the difference between engineering and history graduates is 2-1.8%. Do you really want to argue that this difference is highly significant? If you do, then you have to throw out electrical engineering as well, as they have identical unemployment rates (with experience). So yeah, to me it is a very easy argument if we just look at the career side.

 

Actually, this whole argument is a great argument for a broad education. See, the argument from OP are basically derived from a narrow perspective gained from personal experience. Just because in an engineering degree the broader impact of higher education on society (and also employment prospects) is not discussed in a wider context, it appears that anything deviating from that presumed norm would be less desirable or effective. However, data shows that it is not the case. If one interacts more with people in a variety of businesses and senior graduates from other disciplines you would see easily the breadth of applicable job opportunities. Look at consultants, which is a job with a broad range of required skills but often little specialization (with exceptions) they do take everything from creative writing to psychology to sciences to cover as long as the candidate has a good fit. A broader education would (ideally) help in developing general/transferable hard and soft skills.

 

Just because the path is less obvious, it does not mean it exists. And even in STEM, now more than ever, you will have to take the same perspectives as job opportunities are in flux. What it means is that STEM graduates now have to learn what other disciplines (with exception) where forced to realize a long time ago. It is the transferable skills that count in today's job market.

Edited November 13, 2015 by CharonY

[MonDie]

A lot of seemingly useless knowledge could potentially be combined with a more ubiquitous skill. Linguistics... meh...

Linguistics and programming... Hey! We're developing a translator!

Voice-activated car gps system!

et cetera

[Arete]

[Reg Prescott]

Q : How do you get a philosopher off your porch?

 

Ans : Pay for the pizza.

[ajb]

My own observations is that university education is being run more and more like a business. Here in Poland things are slowly going that way, but for sure in the UK universities have taken on the business model. We no longer have students, we have customers and the customer must be catered for.

 

 

At the top levels of university administration the ideas of customer service, value for money and career investment are prevalent. The attitude of learning and bettering oneself has been weakened.

 

Elite Engineer has probabily picked up on this.

[iNow]

Rubio was wrong in more than one way when he made that claim in the GOP debate this week (wrong also is the underlying premise in SillyBillys joke above). We have LOTS of welders and most of them make about half the median annual salary of a philosopher.

 

[swansont]

"Also note that if everyone takes STEM, by definition STEM would be over saturated" -CharonY

 

 

All the pople who would take STEM, wouldn't finish it, thats my point. If you have 1000 students take a STEM major, MAYBE 50% would actually follow through and finish it, b/c its naturally difficult and weeds out people not fit for it. If you have a 1000 students take a BA, I'm willing to bet 80% or more will finish it, because it's much easier. This leads to overstauration..people taking the easy way out. You have students who want a BA, and then you have the students who couldn't hack it in STEM and use a BA as a back up. Both groups added together saturate this market.

 

[bA ---> STEM] < [sTEM ---> BA]

 

Yes I think STEM could maybe become overstaturated, but not to the extent as the BA population is. Also, with population growth STEM has a higher demand than BA. People need doctors and engineers more than they do teachers and journalists.

 

I think there's a fundamental misconception here: that you can't get a BA in STEM. You can. I have a BA in physics.

[iNow]

I think there's a fundamental misconception here

Just one, eh?

[John Cuthber]

Just a quick question.
Is political science one of these "careerless" degrees, and if not, why not?

Should political office be restricted to those who have shown that they can actually do something in the real world (whether that's philosophy, welding or delivering pizza)?

 

(Incidentally, if I bothered to collect my degree it would be a BA in Chemistry)

[swansont]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/college-inc/2010/04/survey_college_applicants_want.html

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/college-is-not-for-learni_n_558200.html

 

 

 

Both links cover surveys college students took explaining why they're going to college..$

 

It looks like they covered the same survey. But you need to read more than the headline, because the article debunks your claim that "We all go to college to get a higher paying career, period."

 

First of all, there are multiple responses. So even if some go to college for higher pay, not all do. "to earn more" was third on the list. It's not only not universal, it's not even the most popular reason. One should note, though that the top five answers listed had responses above 50%, so obviously more than one reason could be given. It's even possible that earning more was not the top priority for anyone (though unlikely).

 

The top response was "better job opportunities". That may be as simple as having the option to not having to take a job where you work outdoors in bad weather, or feel your only option is to join the army because the unemployment rate for HS grads in your town is 35%, or to make sure you can stay in town with your family, or so that you can leave to get a job to get away from the miserable town you lived in. It means options.

Just one, eh?

 

Only one that I was going to address.

[ThinkingMind]

If you want to learn, buy a book. If you want to earn, get a degree.

Buying a book does not mean you get to discuss the subject with like minded individuals. Which helps the learning process as well as nurtures the brain.

 

As to awnser the OP I do believe they should get rid of piontless degrees like that. However there are also some which are debatably useless too. So how do we determine which ones are useless and which ones would be considered useless to most.

 

I think degrees like this should be shortened to optional classes not able to take for 4-5 years.

[MigL]

That's it !

Shut down this site.

 

I've learned many things here on the Science Forums, but none of them have resulted in greater compensation at my job.

All I've done is increase my internet bill.

 

This site's just taking advantage of me.

Surely TSF should discontinue all theoretical science and push Chemical Eng. which would )help me at my job.

( all I remember from my Gr 13 Chemistry class, the last I took, is that Ti burns in a N2 atmosphere )

[ThinkingMind]

Rubio was wrong in more than one way when he made that claim in the GOP debate this week (wrong also is the underlying premise in SillyBillys joke above). We have LOTS of welders and most of them make about half the median annual salary of a philosopher.

 

Why do philosophers make so much money? Honestly what jobs do you get with that type of degree?

[andrewcellini]

Why do philosophers make so much money? Honestly what jobs do you get with that type of degree?

work in academia or teach (as in the infographic above). you could become a banker or accountant which might bring in the money more than both of these from the start.

 

or you could get into law. the skills you develop are definitely valuable to being a lawyer.

 

or you could be a journalist or author

 

i'm sure there are others.

Edited November 14, 2015 by andrewcellini

[ThinkingMind]

"What did you study at university?"

That could get you a job in teaching no?

[iNow]

Why do philosophers make so much money? Honestly what jobs do you get with that type of degree?

From the source of that image:

 

http://www.vox.com/2015/11/10/9709948/marco-rubio-philosophy-welder

Obviously there are not a huge number of people employed as full-time professional philosophers, but the basic skills you learn studying philosophy — reading, writing, and arguing clearly — are broadly useful in a wide range of fields.

Here's a more complete view: http://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/writer-matthew-yglesias-03

[Ophiolite]

As to awnser the OP I do believe they should get rid of piontless degrees like that.

In post #11 I detail the clear and undoubted value of each of the degree subjects that Elite Engineers considers to be "career-less". Please explain why you disagree with those assessments and why you still consider degrees in each of these subjects to be pointless.

[swansont]

In post #11 I detail the clear and undoubted value of each of the degree subjects that Elite Engineers considers to be "career-less". Please explain why you disagree with those assessments and why you still consider degrees in each of these subjects to be pointless.

 

Furthermore, the premise that the only reason people go to college is for higher-paying jobs was shown to be wrong (by EE, no less) so if you want to go to college and get a degree in philosophy and then become a bouncer, isn't that your call? It's not like you have to get a job in the field that your degree is in, anyway, even for the "non-useless" degrees. I have a friend with a physics degree (and a PhD) who works in TV as a writer/producer/showrunner.

[ThinkingMind]

In post #11 I detail the clear and undoubted value of each of the degree subjects that Elite Engineers considers to be "career-less". Please explain why you disagree with those assessments and why you still consider degrees in each of these subjects to be pointless.

I am saying the specific degree that the OP posted is pointless. What is outdoor recreation? You know how to go camping? Sure camp is fun but why do you need a degree for it? I looked it up though it just seems like a gimmick to attract outdoorsy people to waste their college funds on.

 

That has nothing at all to do with if you like engineering either. Its just common sense. In fact you dont need a degree to work for places like summer camp. A lot of times you need good character to get in and have to pass all these things like drug and background checks. As well as that if you gone to the camp before as a child the camp might just hire you on as a coach or camp leader. So you dont need a four year degree to actually get these jobs. Considering a lot of teenagers get summer-camp jobs, I dont see why you are under the idea that you need a degree.

Edited November 15, 2015 by ThinkingMind

[swansont]

I am saying the specific degree that the OP posted is pointless. What is outdoor recreation? You know how to go camping? Sure camp is fun but why do you need a degree for it? I looked it up though it just seems like a gimmick to attract outdoorsy people to waste their college funds on.

So, wait, you don't know what the degree entails, and yet you know it's pointless? How do you know that, exactly?

 

That has nothing at all to do with if you like engineering either. Its just common sense. In fact you dont need a degree to work for places like summer camp. A lot of times you need good character to get in and have to pass all these things like drug and background checks. As well as that if you gone to the camp before as a child the camp might just hire you on as a coach or camp leader. So you dont need a four year degree to actually get these jobs. Considering a lot of teenagers get summer-camp jobs, I dont see why you are under the idea that you need a degree.

So who hires these teenagers to work at summer camp? Some other teenager? IOW, who's in charge of running the camp?

[Arete]

I am saying the specific degree that the OP posted is pointless.

 

You've been shown, conclusively to be incorrect. CharonY has shown that the degree has lower unemployment than engineering, I and others have shown the degree has clear, easy to follow industry pathways. It's a very applied, career focused certification. It's very confusing has to how you and the OP could consider it a "useless" degree.

[Ophiolite]

I am saying the specific degree that the OP posted is pointless. What is outdoor recreation? You know how to go camping? Sure camp is fun but why do you need a degree for it? I looked it up though it just seems like a gimmick to attract outdoorsy people to waste their college funds on.

Therefore you are denying that such a degree would help obtain a job "with local councils (municipal authorities in trans-Atlantic speak?) administering their parks, sports facilities and the like". You doubt that there are companies who provide advice to local government, large commercial organisations and companies involved in providing "outdoor recreation". You haven't considered the many activities in addition to camping that the term covers.

 

I wonder, ThinkingMind, if you may have been precipitate in your choice of forum name.

[dr33mEr]

You may not agree with all of it but there are some quite true points, especially those concerning the "career-less majors".

"The Death of a Scientist: The (self-)annihilation of modern scientific community"

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42652323-the-death-of-a-scientist