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great question deserves an answer.
america does not need 20 million more managers.
traditional blue collar and pink collars jobs are the future. no advanced college degree required.
trade and vocational school is the future. the jobs are not here. they are in dubia and saudi arabia. like the japanese we must now leave america to make good money-- if and only if we have skills is this possible.
dont listen to the people at burger king that say sweeping up and patty flipping are skills
try to follow me on this, i will speak slow
bek you have been brainwashed.
you dont need a phd to fix a toilet. wire a house for 110v and to nurse the sick.
stop the PHD student loan insanity.
So you are saying the professional thing to do is go into a career I have no aptitude or interest in and compete for promotions against people who love the career, just because there is lots of jobs available?
No.
The point is to give you options.
My parents pushed my brother ino electrical engineering when the naval academy bounced him bc of medical issues.
He hated it. He wanted to be a navy pilot.
But then when he graduated, he had options.
He started by doing research at a cutting edge nanotechnology company.
He loved it...and then got published and then got to teach in Australia and then got a masters in physics to expand his knowledge and then realized what he really wanted to do was be part of process that brings tech out and who gets to make what and call what novel, etc.
So he went to law school.
So...at the age of 30, he had three degrees, was published, had traveled all over to talk about cool stuff, AND got a job straight out of law school paying 4 times the national average of a new law grad bc of his background in technology (he is an IP attorney).
This job has meant good salary, more travel all over the world, and more opportunities in the last six years. Oh, and plenty of dating opportunities, too.
18 years ago, an 18 year old heartbroken boy screamed at his parents for "making him do engineering."
It was just about opening the door wider with a stronger foundation. He takes his dumbo doctor sister (me) to his fancy country club to play tennis and have nice meals and talk about life and work and family. Seems like it all worked out.
Btw, neither of us were math/science kids as youngsters. I was always nose in novels, drawing my own comic strips, writing stories, playing sports, and spoke 5 languages. I wanted to be a doctor to directly help people. And disease processes fascinated me.
He was the ROTC badass who loved tennis, golf, and airplanes.
Math/science helped us achieve our dreams. They were not an end to themselves.
I think what you mean is that not everyone is willing to put in the effort to get these degrees. They skim over the available degree plans at whatever college was willing to take them, and looked for the one that required the fewest math/science courses or whichever one looked like it would take the least amount of effort. Then, they suddenly become "passionate" about that subject. The rest is barista history.
I think part of the issue is that only a minority of students know what they really want to do by the time they need to declare a major. Another major factor is the quality of math instruction in the public schools. I'm not saying the teachers or the curricula are bad; most of the math teachers I had were clearly dedicated professionals. But for those students still struggling with first year algebra in their sophomore year of high school, they can't necessarily be expected to "turn on the light", because the reason why we became math-averse some time around grade 3 is different for each of us.
All this can happen anywhere from three to nine years before we enter the university gates, so it isn't a matter of "choosing" not to major in accounting or a STEM field. I don't think you can possibly do a STEM major if you aren't ready to take rigorous calculus your very first term--if you haven't already done it in high school.
There are intelligent people and idiots in every degree. The idea that STEM people are smarter just because they might get paid more or get a job more easily after graduation is pure ignorance... and so is this thread.
Its important to understand The whole "everyone goes to college" is a relatively recent thing. Back in the day the only people who went to college are the really gifted kids and the rich kids.
Its important to understand The whole "everyone goes to college" is a relatively recent thing. Back in the day the only people who went to college are the really gifted kids and the rich kids.
Back then there were plenty of alternatives. You could get a union manufacturing job right out of high school. Today it's been replaced by service industry jobs that largely are part time and do not pay a living wage.
There are intelligent people and idiots in every degree. The idea that STEM people are smarter just because they might get paid more or get a job more easily after graduation is pure ignorance... and so is this thread.
true words of wisdom. thank you.
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.
Why do you feel there aren't any "diploma mills" in New Jersey? I'm going to have to disagree with you there. There are many schools across the nation that are diploma mills.
Take a look at the grant proposals that are awarded from the NSF and alike. Penn State is hardly anywhere near the top.
I'm very familiar with Penn State, btw. I didn't attend but I have taught there, peer reviewed papers there, and evaluated the university for regional accreditation.
I don't get how grants determine if a University is a diploma mill or not. I guess that top teaching oriented and liberal arts colleges are considered diploma mills as well?
Research is completely unrelated to the quality of most undergrad educations, in fact there is a lot of evidence that it can have a negative impact. Most large universities that have a lot of grants use graduate students to teach their UG classes. So the fact that they have top academics doing research and teaching graduate students has little transfer to the students that are taking psychology 101.
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.
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