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Haha. I found out that the business majors and STEM majors were barely literate at times. They couldn't write a coherent paragraph. I never thought that they were necessarily "smarter" than me.
The ability to write coherently can take you a long way in a lot of fields. The vast majority of STEM jobs are not pure science and require interacting with people who don't have a STEM background. If you don't have the ability to understand others and communicate clearly with them, your usefulness to any company is pretty limited.
About a decade ago I got promoted from department head to upper management and had to recommend a replacement for the department. I went with a guy who wasn't the strongest programmer, but he could write well and had a lot of experience outside of work managing regional Burning Man type events. Basically he could communicate well and resolve conflicts, so he got the job. He worked out great because he was well rounded and could relate to a wide variety of people. No matter what anyone chooses to study basic skills like that will go a long way.
The ability to write coherently can take you a long way in a lot of fields. The vast majority of STEM jobs are not pure science and require interacting with people who don't have a STEM background. If you don't have the ability to understand others and communicate clearly with them, your usefulness to any company is pretty limited.
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The science and engineering majors at my college had to take various writing component and liberal arts courses I think specifically for this reason.
I remember going over my friends' papers for them.
STEM is all book knowledge. Of course it's necessary, in demand and pays well. It's STEM. But a lot of the STEM people lack soft skills. They're phenomenal at math, science, physics, etc. But salesmanship of ideas/product, managing others, being articulate, writing, being creative is not their strong suit.You can't be great at everything. Somebody out there has to be the architect, computer graphics designer, interior designer, screenwriter, etc. Not everyone is hard wired for STEM. Society would fall apart if there was only STEM and no other professions around.
These "we're STEM so we're smarter, get paid more and are better than non STEM" threads are very tiresome and yes,ignorant. Just like not everybody can be a Michelangelo, not everyone can be Bill Gates/Steve Jobs. You have talent in every field. And both STEM and creative fields tap into different strengths and talents.
Good post.
Lucky for us (me especially), we are not paid by who is smarter.
Rather, we are paid based on which skills/production ability is deemed most valuable by society.
And/or supply/demand on the labor side.
As is evident on these threads, many of us are capable of stringing together coherent sentences.
I don't get it as well. Research is fine as a concept but it is nearly impossible to budget for. You cannot anticipate a discovery and this is why in the private sector r&d was replaced with m&a. Why bother putting money into research if you can buy it? Well that's what happened and in aggregate pushed for crowdsourcing and open source.
For the most part I do not think there are "bad" schools. I think the for profit ones have built a bubble that frankly they cannot get out of. ITT, Devry and University of Phoenix are the only ones I think that will survive.
Certainly there are some institutions that are know for specific expertise. Sometimes this is directly known and sometimes it is not. I know of a university in Vermont that supposedly has one of the best language programs in the country. So much so that the intelligence community has sent people there (not openly).
The other thing to remember is professors are not 100% fully tied to a given institution. I've had professors that also teach at MIT and private schools in California. Professors publish but not the schools themselves. I have more of a specific bond with someone who has had my professors rather then someone in a different major that attended my undergraduate and graduate schools. Why? Because higher education is not like jr high school where it might be the same people in the same classes going room to room.
The reason ITT and Devry are legacy for-profit schools. I personally don't have experience with ITT but Devry has worked especially for computer repairs and IT majors like my brother (then again, he took that seriously.) Those schools have existed from the late 1980's/1990's, I remember commercials for them when I was home from school watching ABC in the morning. I am not saying these schools are great but they work for some just like other options. Trade schools maybe the best for any but by the time people realize they should learn a trade it is typically to late and they are saddled in debt from public, private or for-profit institutions and would have to pay off two different schools. To tie back to an earlier post deriding college education, I think the issue with the trades is this. Because college is pushed in high schools and the trades aren't even pushed as a viable option, it is often discovered too late.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Attrill
The ability to write coherently can take you a long way in a lot of fields. The vast majority of STEM jobs are not pure science and require interacting with people who don't have a STEM background. If you don't have the ability to understand others and communicate clearly with them, your usefulness to any company is pretty limited.
It very well could be. The issue with many are soft skills. In a lot of cases there's no classes to develop soft skills. I know in my university NAU, there was a writing requirement in the junior year however there wasn't much about building soft skills. Perhaps this is the problem with college graduates, they haven't been forced to develop soft skills in their time in school.
It very well could be. The issue with many are soft skills. In a lot of cases there's no classes to develop soft skills. I know in my university NAU, there was a writing requirement in the junior year however there wasn't much about building soft skills. Perhaps this is the problem with college graduates, they haven't been forced to develop soft skills in their time in school.
Yup. Many people on this forum seem to not get the bolded part and/or don't understand how important it is to being successful in many roles.
The main reason why people get useless degrees is because the curriculum is easy and basically a joke. The fact of the matter is that not everyone has the intellectual capability and commitment to get a degree in engineering, accounting, or computer science.
Common graduate programs that people with useless degrees tend to purse is JD, PsyD, MBA, Master in useless subject.
If you have a useless degree and don't want to do sales, what are your options at a good paying white collar job?
I agree with the people who said they get those degrees because they have an interest in the job they're working towards. At least that's why I did. Little did I know it's pretty much a dead field.
I guess the bottom line is you can settle but at least have some interest in the work. I wish I had gotten a degree in computer science because I think I can be satisfied with anything computer related...problem is it's too late. I don't have the degree in it so I would start all over and owe more money. I shouldn't have to. I know there are certain things I still need to learn but I feel like I'm a fast learner with computers. I could very easily learn the rest on the job and I don't mind starting at the bottom as long as I'm getting paid something but no the only job I found wanted 50 dollars for a background check. Extortion.
Yet people who don't understand supply and demand don't realize that life is on a spectrum and isn't black and white. The spectrum is constantly changing. Many out there never studied engineering, but started billion dollar companies. Those studying computer science or whatever now could be studying for something that might now have a market in 10-20 years. I'm just saying. That's life, so you have to be careful.
If you have a useless degree and don't want to do sales, what are your options at a good paying white collar job?
Degrees aren't a measure of skill, they are a measure of follow-through. You committed to something for 4+ years and saw it through. Everyone who ever went to college knows that you essentially learn very little real world applicable concepts, methods, or acquire any skills that actually make you employable.
I wish I could find the article by Goldman Sachs where they wrote that it's a lot less expensive to hire people without an MBA and teach them the Goldman Sachs way than it is to hire MBAs and still have to teach them the Goldman Sachs way.
A degree doesn't define you, and in many cases an employer doesn't care what degree you have just as long as you have one and you have verifiable work experience in the field.
You can't be a CPA without an accounting degree in most states, but you can certainly be a bookkeeper which in many parts of the country can absolutely make quite a decent living. Can you do basic arithmetic error free? Excellent! You are hired!
You can do medical billing (recession proof), you can do all kinds of marketing and communication jobs, you can absolutely get into IT without a STEM degree and there's lots of demand and money in IT, especially in networking and security.
It's really easier to list the few things you cannot do without a STEM degree than it is to list the things you can do without one. You can't become a professional engineer that requires state licensing.
Life is what you make it. Don't let the lack of a STEM degree hold you back.
Lastly, you can run your own business regardless of any degree. Find something you like doing, that others think you are good at, and then find someone who will pay you for it. You don't need to build the next Facebook or Google to make a decent living running your own business. You need a few local clients. Treat them well, provide value, and you'll make money.
STEM is all book knowledge. Of course it's necessary, in demand and pays well. It's STEM. But a lot of the STEM people lack soft skills. They're phenomenal at math, science, physics, etc. But salesmanship of ideas/product, managing others, being articulate, writing, being creative is not their strong suit.You can't be great at everything. Somebody out there has to be the architect, computer graphics designer, interior designer, screenwriter, etc. Not everyone is hard wired for STEM. Society would fall apart if there was only STEM and no other professions around.
These "we're STEM so we're smarter, get paid more and are better than non STEM" threads are very tiresome and yes,ignorant. Just like not everybody can be a Michelangelo, not everyone can be Bill Gates/Steve Jobs. You have talent in every field. And both STEM and creative fields tap into different strengths and talents.
In fact, Apple wouldn't be where it is today if it were simply STEM only peeps. We saw what happens when Mr. Jobs left and it was up to the engineers and money-folk running the show. It became a completely different show.
For example, we have tablet's today because of creative thinking/liberal arts. Tablets existed before, but they were just engineering feats. They had no ''soul'' but for tech nerds.
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