IMO it is most often the seasoned, experienced senior posters who are the most helpful, providing accurate and educated guidance to new posters. That is what makes this site great.
Not first hand knowledge, but a family member of mine attended Berea (they were from a rural, homeschooled background) several years ago. They worked in DC out of college at National Geographic and other publications. They loved their experience at Berea and seemed to have found internships/work in the journalism field after their time at Berea.
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I think Bates has changed now ā the most recent info I saw listed finance and medical/health careers as the most popular after college. Lots of econ, bio, and neuro/psych majors. They have also added a business program with Tuck (Dartmouth) for short term that was overenrolled this spring.
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Yes - have a current student at Bates so have been following what the seniors are doing. Lots of Linked In posts about summer gigs and the most popular are finance/business internships and health/medical internships. There are all kinds of other paths as well (law, sports, environment, etc) but seems to be that the two I mentioned are currently the most popular career paths at Bates.
Again, not first-hand, but Berea has been around for a long, long time. Iām actually surprised that it survived so many shocks to the world and national economies over the years, with its business model intact. I met a fellow summer school counselor from there years ago and was very impressed by her intelligence, and upbeat attitude. She made me wish Iād known about Berea when I was still applying to colleges. Unfortunately, Berea has sort of the same ādisadvantageā that so-called, elite colleges have in the sense that middle-class kids would fall through the same donut hole that works against their attending, only from the other side - their families make too much money.
I expect many people go to Bowdoin, Bates, as well as other highly selective private colleges with expectations of high earnings. This contributes to why many highly selective private colleges (more often universities than LACs) do well in the WM outcomes rankings by overshooting earning expectations. Kids attending such colleges are far more likely to choose majors and careers associated with higher earnings than typical. Specific stats for Bowdoin and Colby are below, both with a concentration of majors associated with high earnings. The most common employers of both Bowdoin and Colby grads includes Google and Goldman Sachs.
Top Declared Majors at Bowdoin
- Government and Legal Studies (often followed by JD)
- Economics (often followed by finance/consulting)
- Biology (often followed by MD)
- Mathematics
- Computer Science
Top Majors at Colby
- Economics (often followed by finance/consulting)
- Government (often followed by JD)
- Neuroscience (often followed by MD)
- Computer Science
- Global Studies
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While I have no personal experience with Berea, I do know it is a member of The Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty (SHECP) which encourages the study of poverty as a complex social problem, by expanding and improving educational opportunities for college students in a wide range of disciplines and career trajectories. SHECP began in 1998 as the Shepherd Poverty Alliance. It was founded at Washington & Lee University and allied with Berea College and Spelman College. The Alliance incorporated as SHECP, an independent nonprofit in 2013, and since then, has grown into a consortium of colleges and universities that provides coordinated internships, coursework, and co-curricular support. SHECP provides unique programming through direct educational opportunities such as the Summer Internship Program, networking and collaboration opportunities for students, alumni, faculty, and staff, and a range of events featuring professionals and experts from within and outside the Consortium.
My D21 was part of SHECP at one of the member schools and found the program extremely rewarding. She participated in a summer internship and attended conferences with students from multiple member schools, including Berea. The access to educational and experiential programs and internships was an influential part of her undergrad experience.
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I guess I am also informed by the clustered interests of my studentās friends and colleagues. More public interest, graduate school, medicine and not a one interested in Wall Street. Batesā own reporting ranks healthcare and education above finance. But itās true, thereās something for everyone.
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in full?
I am more shocked by US News methodology these days TBH.
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Yes, but theyāve been branded as āthe sourceā - although some like Poets & Quants for b-school. When I got my MBA, Business Week was all the rage.
Thereās always one major player - and then the rest it seems
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Brandeis Pours $25M Into Careers-Focused Liberal Arts:
Is there an article defining ā¦.
A sign of the times? Will there be more of this to come?
At todayās prices, people want ROI. More and more schools have added Business oriented programs like this one. Rice, for example, recently extended its Business School down to the undergraduate level. itās also been interesting to see colleges, who never had engineering, to be adding these programs in the last 30 years. Washington & Lee, Sweet Briar, Smith, Boston College, Fairfield, Sacred Heart, and Western New England for example
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And adding engineering involves paying high salaries to faculty who could have otherwise earned a high income in the private sector, so adding engineering likely contributed in part to increased tuition costs. And so it goesā¦.
Adding a program is one thing. Actually creating a competitive program to teach a quality academic track is something else.
The ying and yang of business, engineering, etc. is that there are more than enough roles in industry to keep qualified people employed. So attracting them out of industry and into academia is hard- and expensive. You can create a program with a bunch of part-time adjuncts (which is what law schools do- augment the full time faculty with partners at law firms, judges, etc. who teach to āgive backā, not for the money) but at some point you need actual faculty.
Some of the new engineering programs (including CS) seem to be struggling in the āhigh quality facultyā department. Not mentioning names, I get enough flames. But a part-time professor of finance isnāt going to have the bandwidth to supervise, mentor, advise undergrads in the same way that a full time faculty member can.
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Good point. And an engineering school is expensive to run because of all the equipment needed as well as the faculty. Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, for example, was founded as an engineering college 150 years ago and later expanded into Art & Architecture. But 30 years ago during economic hard times for them, they eliminated the engineering school in a cost cutting measure because it was the most expensive of their programs to run.
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Excellent points My sister was adjunct faculty in retirement for years at a NYC university. Itās amazing how little they pay those people. She recently retired from her āsecond careerā.
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Yep. I was going to mention the cost of the labs (and then @blossom ās and my posts, which were very similar, would have probably posted simultaneously!)
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I can definitely see a shakeout in the world of liberal arts colleges to stay afloat. Some, with established reputations and a bit if an endowment (Amherst, Williams, Pomona, etcā¦) wonāt need to change as employers are still looking for ābest available athleteā for many careers. Others will have to look at fundamental changes, and many will fail because they just donāt have the time or money to transform into a āNortheasternā. IMO, the ones that might succeed without having to undergo some difficult and expensive changes are like Brandeis which has a solid reputation and access to a large employer market. They may just need to enhance and add resources to their career centers and offer more quantitively driven classes, including basic business type courses like accounting. The ones that feel like they need to add an engineering school/degree, unless they have deep pockets, are likely whistling in the wind.
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