<p>Also, not sure why people are being so hard on NYU lawyer even if we might disagree with him. He has started, in my view a very interesting thread raising important issues.</p>
<p>Muckdogs07: If your kids are like mine, they will listen to your advice, but then they go do whatever they feel is right – even though you or I may disagree. I imagine NYULawyer did the same thing with his parents. Try as you might, it’s impossible to convince an 18 year old that they should go into this-or-that because it would be a “better” choice in the long run. Heck, I think my kids would be better off today if they went into plumbing or auto mechanics than going into debt for college, but would they listen to me?</p>
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<p>This seems likely poorly thought out advice. So you suggest not only borrowing a fortune to go for an undergrad degree, but also borrowing even more to go for another degree before you figure out what it is you think you want to do without actually having done it?</p>
<p>Something of a paradox isn’t it Lakeclouds? How does anyone figure it all out or manage to do anything at all?</p>
<p>Lake Clouds:</p>
<p>(1) In essence, except for the size of the fortune one had to borrow, that is the story of 80-90% of the successful people I know. It’s true that the astronomical cost of college now makes one leery of following that path, but if you don’t . . . </p>
<p>(2) What other path would you recommend? Arbitrarily selecting some narrow profession and borrowing a fortune to get trained in it, without any idea if it will make you happy at all, or whether you can succeed at it? Joining the Army or working as a manual laborer until you thought you knew what you wanted to do? Never going to college at all?</p>
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<p>I agree with this sentiment. Nowadays, everybody and his brother has a college degree. In US, there is absolutely no control of supply for higher education. There are like what, 5,000 colleges in this country. (I think there are more than this) Hence, a college degree in and out of itself doesn’t carry much weight.</p>
<p>Same thing with graduate school, with the possible exceptions of med, dental, or other specialized STEM degrees. If you just go to college aimlessly just because everyone else is doing it, and because those clowns in the Congress push this hilarious notion of “education = success” non-stop, well, you are doing yourself a serious disservice. </p>
<p>Also, many people seem to forget the rule of supply vs demand. There are millions of college grads in excess supply, compared to the level of entry level jobs available. Simply put, it’s a buyer’s market. The recent recession only aggravated the problem, but it is not the source of the problem in hand. You don’t go around and tell employers that you are only interested in doing X,Y,Z type of work for A,B,C level of salary, when there are thousands of other equally qualified people lined up who can easily replace you.</p>
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<p>As Gildor stated “seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill”</p>
<p>It’s hard to know which course may run ill, but clearly taking on massive debt for a generic degree is not a good move. I’d say if a student has the ability/interest for a field with strong employment prospects, then that’s the way to go. I won’t rule out the military or being a plumber either.</p>
<p>I am accountant with just a BA from a tier 4 school and I work with some attorneys in my tax practice group. They pay them 10k more than the BA-CPA eligible hires. We hired 2 of them last year one from Georgetown (tax LLM) and the other from some other tier one school that escapes me. They make 10k more than our BA staff but they also have six figures in debt so adjusted for payment they are more poor. Also they are supervised by the BA holding seniors like me. (who make more than they do) FYI just because you have a law degree from a top that doesn’t mean you are a genius. Some of these attorneys have some serious issues bridging the theory-practice gap. LOL</p>
<p>^ But your firm wouldn’t even have considered them unless they had extravagant degrees from fancy pants universities.</p>
<p>Are you a boomer?</p>
<p>@VA Oh, youth!</p>
<p>Lost amidst all the chest-puffing, I think there is an interesting question here… are some majors simply “dead-ends” as far as career advancement?</p>
<p>Many of my peers at prestigious schools have come out with degrees that don’t necessarily have promising job opportunities with the assumption that their institution’s name would save them, and this is proving not the case (ie a psych major from Dartmouth, an asian studies major from Rice, and a social studies major from Harvard). </p>
<p>On the other hand, many people get these majors because it’s what they want to study and want to pursue a career in something like teaching, for which it is well suited. People too often assume that what they want for their career is what everyone wants. Everyone’s life goals are different so a major that might be a “dead end” for what you want might be exactly what someone else wants. </p>
<p>But again, it is important to think about which majors have serious limitations on job prospects.</p>
<p>^ Your being “lost” is evident from the simplicity of your argument as compared to most of the 90 or so posts before yours, which I suggest you read. But it’s cute that you think that some people pick majors because they don’t actually want job prospects!</p>
<p>You’re right, I didn’t read it, because I don’t really care that much about this topic. I just wanted to chime in my 2¢ on the matter. </p>
<p>That said, I don’t need your patronizing attitude, kid. You didn’t understand my post at all. Many people do choose majors because they want to teach or do things that others, like us, might consider to be a dead end. I graduated from MIT with an engineering background; obviously, my POV will be different than someone who is studying humanities.</p>
<p>Realistically, many majors will restrict the job possibilities out there. That’s what I said I think people would think about. That does not mean, however, we should necessarily consider something a dead-end based on our POV, as this may be exactly what someone else want.</p>
<p>I think it’s cute that a Harvard undergrad is trying simplify and trivialize my post.</p>
<p>The other 90 posts in this thread are about how Harvard majors don’t place into jobs, which is why DE suggested you read it. Except engineering, almost every single concentration here is a “dead end.” You do engineering, so that’s not your mindset. Those of us at Harvard who aren’t engineers (including most students in the pure sciences) will be employed for our resumes, not for our transcripts. This resume-not-vocational-degree approach doesn’t work at lower-tier schools; that being at Harvard makes it work so well is possibly Harvard’s greatest blessing.</p>
<p>If they had a BA with a concentration in accounting and 150 units they could have gotten the same job. It may have paid around 10k less per year. That being said in the years they spent going to law school one promotion will increase your pay around 15k and it is easy to get promoted in 3-4 years. </p>
<p>Law school with 6 figures in debt only makes financial sense if you go big law. Same thing goes for various degrees. A BA in English is not worth 50k in debt.</p>
<p>I admit I was being patronizing, but I here I invoke the ancient legal principle of “you started it.” Specifically, when you say:</p>
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<p>You are not arguing the common trope that humanities degrees are a sham, children’s fantasy, waste of money, etc., which is in my opinion a poor but nevertheless understandable, and popular, argument. In fact, you a priori assume that argument to be fact.</p>
<p>Instead, you are taking the grossly patronizing stance that humanities concentrators are aware of their degrees’ inherent inferiority, but they have different “life goals” and therefore pick it anyway. But here’s the point. The only reason you’ve put forth for humanities degrees’ inferiority is that they have limited job prospects. So, if a humanities guy does not steer clear of humanities because of his different “life goals,” the “life goals” necessarily involve not worrying about job prospects. Which is what I said when I said:</p>
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<p>So, instead of you hedging and saying that you and humanities concentrators consider “dead end” to mean two different things (as if there’s any chance you’d let me call an engineering degree a “dead end”), I welcome you to step up to the big kids’ table and actually say you want to say.</p>
<p>^You’re too kind to answer him. Maybe someday s/he’ll be a “grad” long enough to know professionally successful people outside of STEM majors. In the meantime, why not leave it to life to rid him of his patronizing tone towards the humanities? Did he check to see if his own employer majored in something STEM?</p>
<p>I wonder if as an engineer, will newmitgrad have the skills to actually one day move ahead into a management position or will s/he be forever stuck with his entry level job, while lamenting the sad employment prospects of us liberal arts majors.</p>
<p>I know this will start a lot of arguments, but below is a look today at the 7-man suite I was in at Princeton, 30 years ago. Note that only one of us got an advanced degree, which is unusual for Princeton. The lack of correlation between the majors and careers that followed, however, is not atypical for Princeton grads, and I’m pretty sure that the same holds for Harvard. All earn over six figures, by the way, and some earned over a million or well into the millions before they quit/retired. GPA’s in this group were unexceptional – this wasn’t the 4.0 suite.</p>
<p>I could go on and on like this, but those who feel that your choice of major will shape your entire life and career if you go to Harvard or another Ivy won’t be convinced. By the way, when we graduated, the unemployment rate was higher than it is now.</p>
<p>In my work, in looking critically at the careers of over 50,000 people, I can conclude the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>You’re more likely to get a job with a technical company with a technical degree and you’re more likely to get a degree with a scientifically-based company (such as biotech) with a bio, chem, or related degree.</p></li>
<li><p>Most engineers have engineering degrees; a portion of engineers have degrees in fields having nothing to do with science or engineering.</p></li>
<li><p>In hiring (and I’m in the catbird seat), work history trumps college name after a few years; elite college trumps major from non-elite college unless the position requires technical skills such as an engineering degree. Do you want me to tell you the story of the biotech client who hired a VP with a PhD in Physics from an Ivy League School and no industry experience over someone with industry experience and a degree in the biochem (mostly because he was just plain good, but when I first met with the client to discuss the candidates for the position, they said, “Look at his education …”. And he was 15 years past earning his PhD).</p></li>
<li><p>Go getters get good jobs, regardless of their major, or even their school’s brand. </p></li>
<li><p>The Ivy name provides a tremendous brand advantage, frequently elevating the person in the eyes of the world to a level above where they should be because of the aura. </p></li>
<li><p>Ivy graduates are generally phenomenally successful, regardless of major. Sometimes it takes them a while to get on the right path. Stories of Harvard grads working at Blockbuster make good news stories, but are usually dealing with rare exceptions or people in their fumbling-around-after-college-until-they-find-the-right path phase.</p></li>
<li><p>A person’s first job out of college sometimes shapes their career. Most of the time, it doesn’t.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Williams College recently did a study of their alumni, and found a fairly weak correlation between major and ultimate career. Here’s the link: <a href=“https://www.williams.edu/feature-stories/visualizing-the-liberal-arts[/url]”>https://www.williams.edu/feature-stories/visualizing-the-liberal-arts</a></p>
<p>So here’s our suite:</p>
<p>Major: Chem Eng’g; Career: Prestige Wall Street firm Partner (retired, age 39)</p>
<p>Major: Politics/Economics; Career: Sr. Exec, Prestige Wall Street firm (retired, now putters with his own firm).</p>
<p>Major: History; Career: Medical Devices Executive. Positions have been held in sales, operations, product development and general management.</p>
<p>Major: Geology; Career: Project Manager, Waste Treatment/Remediation Company (The only one in the group who ever had a job, let alone a career, that was related to his major).</p>
<p>Major: Psychology; Career: VP, Major Bank, runs a small, profitable business sector.
(He has an MBA, but was in banking before he got his MBA)</p>
<p>Major: Psychology; Career: Retained Executive Search Consultant/Business Consultant</p>
<p>Major: Anthropology; Career: Runs an urban renewal non-profit</p>
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<p>By the way, the only Philosophy major I knew became a partner with a prestige Wall Street firm.</p>
<p>Boondocks, very interesting info. Thanks.</p>