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That is my problem when LA graduates tout their "critical thinking" skills. IF you do not even have the basic skills that a MBA has......what "critical thinking" can you do for an employer??
I am fine with the Liberal Arts as long as a taxpayer I do not have to pay for it. As others have mentioned I would rather have that money redirected towards vocational classes.
Here in Washington state, the Democrats proposed raising tuition for STEM programs since they cost more and STEM graduates made a lot more money than Liberal Arts graduates (that inequity thing). In a rare fit of common sense, the Republicans instead cut tuition by around 20% for everybody.
Now I would have kept the Liberal Arts tuition, and cut or made tuition free all the STEM classes. Poor students would be able to afford college by simply choosing a STEM major. Society would get employable, well educated members of society.
Liberal Art programs really do need to relook at what their doing. I liked my sociology class in lower division, but the one taught by a sociologist in the natural resources school is the one that really made a difference and I used a LOT in my 40 year career.
I suspect that is part of the solution. Move some of those liberal arts classes into the professional schools and focus on their needs.
This is exactly what is wrong with higher education today. People like you view higher education as a professional job training program. You think that a college education is something other than what it really is.
One shouldn't go to college for the purpose of landing a job. They have professional training schools for that.
There's a good reason why STEM majors (the non liberal arts ones) have a significant amount of social science and humanities courses. They are required to succeed in college. Without the critical thinking skills from these classes an engineer would not succeed in the rest of college. They would have to spend extra time picking up these skills later on and extend their PhD program by several years.
College tuition rates are just fine. Poor people can afford to study whatever they want. College is not out of reach for those who want it. What we need to stop doing is stop telling everyone that they are college material. They are not. The best thing we can do is stop funding non-research activities at colleges with taxdollars. Tuition is already funded out of research funds and endowments (which is a result of research patents and donations). That way schools will be selective at picking the right students rather than letting anyone in just so they can pass the buck on to the taxpayer.
Just a couple of things to add. My career has taken me to multiple states and some major cities over the years and I've had the chance to work with people with a lot of institutions, including from SC. SC is blessed to have at least two major flagships in a relatively small state. The average graduate from either of those schools is easily competitive with graduates from other flagships and frankly ahead of a lot of schools. SC and the south in general gets overlooked for the quality of their higher education system because of pre conceptions held in much of the country. But I'd certainly have no problem hiring someone from USC, Clemson, UNC, NC State, Auburn, Florida just as quickly as Mich, Ohio, Wisconsin, MIT, UCLA, or that other USC on the left coast.
Only downside is, as people discover the south is neither the racist holdout, nor Hooterville, there're more people moving down here bringing all the problems with them. Don't want to let the secret out what a great place the south actually is.
Good to hear from you! I think the cat is pretty much out of the bag as far as how nice it is here but fortunately the growth is steady rather than explosive. We have some great schools here. Myself I started out at a junior college to get into Clemson. After a year at Clemson I dropped out for awhile and eventually returned to college at a branch campus of the U of South Carolina in Spartanburg (USC Upstate) which tuned out to be one of the best things I could have done.
Clemson is a great university (and I am forever a TIGER FAN! lol) and I always missed aspects of it after I left but I needed to be at a smaller school. At USC Upstate I received about as good of an education as I could have hoped for.My professors were great and for a smaller school (3200 at the time) they had a diverse background in my department(History/Political Science).One of my Political Science professors was a former army officer and a veteran of Vietnam and had worked at the Pentagon. Another had taught in Iraq in the 70's and she once briefly met Saddam Hussein!
After graduation I went to grad school for 2 semesters at Northern Arizona University (MA Political Science) but I left because I was burned out and the program was soooo theory based and not as enjoyable as undergraduate Political Science . I think things turned out well for me as I was able to get a job in marketing at Morgan Stanley when I returned to Greenville from Arizona.
Last edited by senecaman; 12-28-2015 at 03:06 PM..
The Liberal Arts aren't necessarily supposed to put you on a fast track for a job, they are there to advance human learning and understanding.
The Liberal Arts, in some fields aren't as marketable as others and some definitely aren't as marketable as some STEM degrees.
Though I think the disconnect came when the economy crashed.
Millennials and a few pre-millennials were told "just get your degree," and the rest will follow. And in some cases that was true. However, now there's a big STEM push because of STEM job shortages, competition from overseas and the economy is getting stronger. The economy forced out those with "lesser" degrees.
It didn't help that kids were getting Liberal Arts degrees (or any degree for that matter) and taking out 50, 60, 70k+ of student loans without a real plan to pay it back.
However this doesn't make getting a non-STEM degree or Liberal Arts degree bad, it just means you have to be smarter IF you decide to join the working force with, say a BA in English.
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Regardless of talents being "God-given" or not; not all people will be STEM. Everyone is different and will have different likes and affinities toward a certain subject.
Any major CAN get you a job, it just has to do with expectations, networking in college and maybe taking a job that you might not otherwise want to take.
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In these sorts of threads I always use my wife as an example of what to do when majoring in a liberal art.
Her goal was to work in publishing.
She graduated from a UC (after transferring from a community college) with a BA in English.
Her last 2 years she interned at a magazine. (She also worked full time in retail)
After she graduated she became a "lowly" secretary at the company she really wanted to work for. She did that for a year, then got promoted to assistant of the assistant.
Yadda, yadda, 10 years later and now she's at a different company as a Supervisor making more than me.
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In the end, I think people gravitate toward the things they are good at. I don't think you see people who are interested in STEM, say "Oh English is easier so I took that instead," No, I think that people just like what they like.
I knew a LOT of really smart kids in High School and college who's English and writing were horrendous. I don't buy that English would be easier for them.
Are there any LA graduates that qualify for any STEM field based on their secondary course work in the sciences??
Yeah. Computer programmer here. BA, MA, PhD in History. Along the way, I also took 12 credits in computer programming/system design, which got me my first programmer job. Literate and articulate programmers remain in demand, especially where they have to actually interact with customers.
Many businesses prefer to have people who are knowledgeable in their particular area, such as HR or insurance adjusting or college financial aid -- fields which hire many LA grads -- and then have them learn software or SQL or MS Access or whatever rather than hire an IT person and attempt to have them learn the ins and out of HR.
This is exactly what is wrong with higher education today. People like you view higher education as a professional job training program. You think that a college education is something other than what it really is.
One shouldn't go to college for the purpose of landing a job. They have professional training schools for that.
There's a good reason why STEM majors (the non liberal arts ones) have a significant amount of social science and humanities courses. They are required to succeed in college. Without the critical thinking skills from these classes an engineer would not succeed in the rest of college. They would have to spend extra time picking up these skills later on and extend their PhD program by several years.
Reading arguments like this, and with as someone with a BA, perfectly illustrates why I'm opposed to public funding for most LA fields.
If college isn't to prepare one for a job, then what is it for? Critical thinking skills? There have been a number of studies that strongly indicate most LA major aren't significantly better in this regard than non-LA majors, and are in fact only slightly better than the general public. With many LA majors little to no critical thinking is required. I didn't have to do all that much critical thinking with my degree. There were lots of multiple-guess tests, and most of the papers and essay tests I had were mostly regurgitation or eloquent B.S. I graduated with a 3.51 GPA, and, honestly, it wasn't that hard (it's just a psychology BA). I had lots of classmates in the same major who slacked off most of the time and still graduated with about a 3.0 GPA.
Look, if someone wants to attend college for 'personal enrichment' or some other nebulous personal reason, that's fine. But if it doesn't in some way prepare them for work in a tangible way, it doesn't make sense for others (public funding) to pay for it. Arguing that it helps develop 'critical thinking' seems like an ambigous, unsubstantial reason.
Retired more or less from a 40 year career in natural resource management. Worked for the private industry as well as public agencies. I do feel a need for people not to waste their lives getting a liberal arts degree. Unless your father or mother will hire you....then a LA degree is fine.
Critical thinking without a technical background?? How do you do that?? Just make thing up??
TNFF nails it. Most STEM majors take a LOT more LA classes than LA folks take STEM classes.
Early in my career I had to do a management plan for a million acre recreation area. There were various conflicts with different users and the local urban population. The sociology classes I took came in very handy in understanding the needs of humans and trying to protect the physical and ecological resources of that area.
My classes in sociology, design arts, economics and other liberal arts classes came in very handy during my career. Without that STEM degree, however, they would have been totally useless.
I got hired by a Federal agency as a Economist since I had enough undergraduate and graduate level classes in economics to qualify under the Office of Personnel Management requirements for the position.
Are there any LA graduates that qualify for any STEM field based on their secondary course work in the sciences??
BS programs in psychology often require several biology courses. You weren't required to take that many economics courses; you chose to take that many economics courses. Just about any student can make that choice regardless of major. With the federal government, many of their positions will accept you with an unrelated degree if you have a certain number of related credits. With my social science degree, I could meet the minimum requirements for a job that requires a minimum of 24 CS/IT credits because I have those credits. Yes, I do have that many CS/IT credits.
Reading arguments like this, and with as someone with a BA, perfectly illustrates why I'm opposed to public funding for most LA fields.
If college isn't to prepare one for a job, then what is it for? Critical thinking skills? There have been a number of studies that strongly indicate most LA major aren't significantly better in this regard than non-LA majors, and are in fact only slightly better than the general public. With many LA majors little to no critical thinking is required. I didn't have to do all that much critical thinking with my degree. There were lots of multiple-guess tests, and most of the papers and essay tests I had were mostly regurgitation or eloquent B.S. I graduated with a 3.51 GPA, and, honestly, it wasn't that hard (it's just a psychology BA). I had lots of classmates in the same major who slacked off most of the time and still graduated with about a 3.0 GPA.
Look, if someone wants to attend college for 'personal enrichment' or some other nebulous personal reason, that's fine. But if it doesn't in some way prepare them for work in a tangible way, it doesn't make sense for others (public funding) to pay for it. Arguing that it helps develop 'critical thinking' seems like an ambigous, unsubstantial reason.
College is to provide us with a facility for continued research and learning which in return provide major contributions to society. You should check out a college campus sometime. Not just any college campus but a productive college campus such as CMU, Columbia, or Stanford. Take a look at how much focus is on research, innovation, and entrepreneurship and how little focus is on preparing someone for entry level work.
Undergraduate education prepares students to be successful in continuing their education and presenting new research to their respective field.
Traditionally, the United States has held the position that ww must continue to invest in research and innovation and that's why we supply research grants to research labs at universities.
The problem arose when we started providing funding to public universities so they could just enroll students in undergraduate classes. We have the lowest rate of people continuing beyond their bachelors degree than ever before. And it's a shame. We should take a stance to develop educated people instead of people who leave college.
It amazes me how often people mention GPA as if that's a metric of learning at a university. It's not. A low GPA like your 3.51 doesn't mean that you received a horrible education. A good GPA doesn't mean you received a great education. The GPA does not take into account what you did in research labs and out in the field with experts.
You need critical thinking skills to be successful at the masters and PhD level. Heck, my graduate degree is in hospitality... a professional field... and I had to tear apart authors and researchers using critical thinking skills in order to develop my thesis. Grad school is no joke... unless you go simply to generate a GPA.
Here's something funny: Everyone seems to forget that most STEM degrees require a significant number of LA courses, far more than the LA degrees require in the STEM fields. Heck many STEM undergrads take 300/400 level LA courses for fun and to relax the mind but you don't see many LA undergrads taking 300/400 level Quantum or P-Chem for fun.
So you could argue that STEM students are more employable because they are more well rounded which opens up a wider range of job opportunities. You see, I'm not arguing that it is STEM vs LA. Rather that LA knowledge is vital for STEM majors because it is really a both/and rather than either/or question.
Non-science liberal arts majors usually have room for electives. It is not uncommon to see non-science liberal arts majors taking CS/IT/IS classes for fun. This is actually very common at Stanford University. I took CS/IT/IS and business classes for fun. While certain fields of psychology and anthropology have been federally-designated as STEM, the ignorant people on this forum will never see them as STEM. So, I will give examples of the courses biological anthropology and BS in psychology majors usually take at traditional universities.
Introductory courses (21 hours). Anth 1001, 1002, 1003, and 1004, BiSc 1111-1112 or equivalent biology courses with labs (8 hours)
Second-Group Biological Anthropology Courses (four courses; 12 or more hours). Select from Anth 3401-3491, 3802, 3832.
Other Second-Group Courses in Anthropology (two courses; 6 or more hours). Any two or more of Anth 2501-2750 and 3501-3891 (excluding 3802, 3832).
Second-Group Biology Courses (8 or more hours). Students should select at least one upper-level course from (a) cell and molecular biology (BiSc 2202-2323 and 3320-3325) and (b) suborganismal, organismal, evolutionary, and ecological biology (BiSc 2318-2340, 2450-2458, 3320-3325, 3466-3463) and at least one additional course.
Other Science Course (3 or more hours). Any one or more courses (3 hour min.) in Anatomy, Chemistry, Geology, Forensic Sciences, Mathematics, Statistics, or cognitive or neuropsychology (Psyc 2014, 2015, 3118, 3122).
many just want the easiest classes possible, so they can handle part time, or even full time classes, while working,. they are getting loans, grants, GI bill money, all very welcome additions to their very low paid jobs these days. They expect their student loans to be "forgiven', one day. If they become cops, nurses, fire fighters or teachers, they are correct about that expectation.
The only "secure" jobs these days are govt jobs, which require a Bachelor's. They do not require you to really know anything. You just have to have the scrap of paper. Many federal jobs retire you after 20 years, on 30k per year (no tax, no SS) and free medical care for yourself and your spouse, for life. the pension is worth another 20k per year (clear) The insurance, likewise, cause it gives full coverage for your <18yo kids, too. That's in today's money. In 20 years, if we still have a USA, the pension payment will be twice that, 60k per year.
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