Here is the rub. CS is also over saturated. My S22 lost his job as a programmer in November. He is not getting any bites, and yes, he is sending out resumes daily, reached out to contacts, etc. I recently read an article that the number of jobs for junior programmers (based on years working, not actual skill level). has been cut in half. My S is now thinking of moving back home and developing an App that he can market to someone. The college my S went to had a coop program, so they did prepare him, and he got a job right out of college. Right not job prospects are tight. hopefully they will turn around soon
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Bowdoin is not “acknowledging that we didn’t prepare all our grads for career success”. They are acknowledging that they have extra resources and our choosing to use them to help 20 to 40 students have a smoother transition into the workforce.
Below is a snippet of Bowdoin’s purpose, you can agree or disagree that it has a place in today’s world.
Finally, Bowdoin’s intellectual mission is informed by the humbling and cautionary lesson of the twentieth century: that intellect and cultivation, unless informed by a basic sense of decency, of tolerance and mercy, are ultimately destructive of both the person and society. The purpose of a Bowdoin education—the mission of the College—is therefore to assist a student to deepen and broaden intellectual capacities that are also attributes of maturity and wisdom: self-knowledge, intellectual honesty, clarity of thought, depth of knowledge, an independent capacity to learn, mental courage, self-discipline, tolerance of and interest in differences of culture and belief, and a willingness to serve the common good and subordinate self to higher goals.
Two of my 4 sons attend/ed LACs and two universities majoring in Engineering or CS. What has helped them most in their career paths is not any hard skills they have learned, but the ability to continue to learn, adapt, communicate and have ethical boundaries.
All or most University Career Center’s continue to provide services to their alumni throughout their careers. Universities general report employment rates of graduates at the 6 month mark not the day after graduation. None of that is a statement that they did not prepare their graduates to be productive members of society.
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I’m sorry, as you said CS is over saturated. As a Mom I swing between fear for my CS sophomore and hope that he can pivot and adapt. Just wanted to wish your son well in his job search.
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I’m not saying they need to do CS. The app example came from the article.
You will always have debates about ‘which major’ and what is the point of things whose name ends in ‘studies’ or liberal arts majors.
We know what the market or society are saying - like it or not, colleges are cutting these types majors and some LACs are adding these pre professional majors. Or becoming healthcare hubs etc.
Schools like Bowdoin can hang out longer given its wealth but it’s one of many LACs.
This is a nice statement (last paragraph below)and for Bowdoin yes - it’s great but other schools - LAC or otherwise, are facing a different marketplace and are adapting in order to hopefully survive.
I’m not here to deny Bowdoin or others or certain majors are good or not but the truth is this is the debate in life - and why schools like WVU, St Cloud State, Fairleigh Dickinson and so many more are adapting to the new demand cycle. A Bowdoin student is not the norm - and today most parents want bang for the buck, which means solid employment prospects. Now you are right - that’s usually following the fad - which today is CS and for many, that’s not going to work out like they thought.
Higher education - its goals and outcomes - is certainly an interesting area of discussion - and there are believers on so many sides of the discussion.
“is therefore to assist a student to deepen and broaden intellectual capacities that are also attributes of maturity and wisdom: self-knowledge, intellectual honesty, clarity of thought, depth of knowledge, an independent capacity to learn, mental courage, self-discipline, tolerance of and interest in differences of culture and belief, and a willingness to serve the common good and subordinate self to higher goals.”
Higher education: US colleges are cutting majors and slashing programs | AP News
In my view, one of the main purposes of college is to give students the intellectual tools to ask questions, identify problems, and solve them – the “soft-skills” approach that can prepare them for a range of careers. That doesn’t mean there won’t be job-specific skills to pick up afterwards. If students graduate without those skills, if doesn’t mean that their colleges didn’t prepare them for career success. Many majors can lead graduates in a number of directions. Some require on-the-job training, some require grad school. College isn’t supposed to provide all of that, but it should equip students with the skills to learn more and pivot when they need or want to.
I graduated with a degree in history and American Studies. My first career was as a HS teacher, so I needed to get a one-year MA in Education with certification for that. Then I needed to take a separate certification exam in the state where I actually got a job (different from where I got my degree). That degree didn’t prepare me to use the new technologies that were becoming essential in teaching secondary school. I had to learn on the job, because they were constantly changing. Is any of this this an indictment of my BA and MA-granting institutions? Of course not.
Clearly, there are exceptions: actuarial science, accounting, engineering, and others. But even there, I would imagine that there are new methods, knowledge, technology, and so forth that grads will have to learn on the job.
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I won’t speak for the others, but every engineering grad should expect to learn a LOT on their first job…both engineering skills and work place culture.
But back to the thread, there are jobs for real go getters. And they might not be exactly in the field they majored in. But they are out there.
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Well said. And as you know, those “career outcome reports” can have issues of their own, often limited by low % of responses and the likelihood that those who do respond are those who are proud to share their salary and those with lower salaries or are still job hunting may not respond.
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Of course. I just meant that some majors emphasize more applied learning and specific pre-professional skills than others.
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Or folks preparing for professional school applications who simply don’t have time to post this stuff to their undergrad schools.
There are job prospects out there for any graduate who is willing to work…and especially those who are willing to learn new things, and maybe even work outside of their immediate comfort zone.
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And sort of off topic, but we’ve had an entry level engineering job open for over a year and haven’t had anyone halfway decent apply. And in half way decent meaning any kind of degree or almost degree with something even semi related to engineering work work experience.
Of course imo we don’t advertise to the right places. I just recently introduced them to handshake and we went to our first job fair at a school. So maybe we will get some bites soon…
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yep - i’d say that’s true 
You should list on indeed too.
Hope you find someone.
There’s something to be said for being taught how to think.
Thinking back a while, where I came from had two branches of higher ed - one was basically the same as the old UK polytechnics/ aka technical college, and the other universities. A family friend worked for a large company that recruited, mainly, engineers. He said that the polytechnic graduates would always be more productive faster, but that they would also often struggle when the work progressed much beyond what they had learnt as job skills, and the university trained engineers tended to be broader thinkers, solve more problems and go further in their careers at the company.
Tl;Dr - college is not just about training people to be able to do a job on day 1.
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Agreed but it is about being able to obtain employment.
Many kids, without the right backgrounds, struggle.
I think the Bowdoin effort acknowledges that.
I think that’s partly marketing, and that’s something that colleges can certainly help with,but it doesn’t need to change anything they actually study.
From what I’ve seen, US graduate in say history: “ I can do history”
UK graduate in history - will have drummed into them what they can sell as transferable skills -here’s an example from a very ordinary uni in the UK of what they can “do” with\have learnt from a history degree other than history:
- Understand how people have existed, acted and thought in the context of the past
- Read and use texts and other source materials critically and empathetically
- Appreciate the complexity and diversity of situations, events and past mentalities
- Recognise there are ways of testing statements and that there are rules of evidence which require integrity and maturity
- Reflect critically on the nature and theoretical underpinnings of the discipline
- Marshall an argument, be self-disciplined and independent intellectually
- Express themselves orally and in writing with coherence, clarity and fluency
- Gather, organise and deploy evidence, data and information
- Analyse and solve problems
- Use effectively ICT, information retrieval and presentation skills
- Exercise self-discipline, self-direction and initiative
- Work with others and have respect for others’ reasoned views
- Work collaboratively and participate effectively in group discussions
- Show empathy and imaginative insight.
Of course, you also need employers to be open to hiring diverse candidates in terms of subject background. That’s something the US seems a little less likely to do than the UK.
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Please believe me when I say that history faculty in the US identify all of those skills in the major for our students. Just to keep our departments alive in the face of cuts, we spend a lot of time and effort drumming up exactly these skills as part of the inherent value of our discipline.
Whether our students take a list of skills like this and put them on their resume, well, I can’t say.
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They can convey them in an interview, or in actual job performance at their first job!
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That’s the hope!
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The point of the article though is - if they can get a first job.
It may not be the students or schools. It may be the audience - the employers - but that’s who matters.
Transferable skills are important.
Your first job may have nothing to do with your major, or it may have little to do with the career that you want to enter….but it will likely lead to skills and experiences that will help get you there.
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Exactly. IMO what students learn in college, in addition to content, is to engage in critical thinking, to question and challenge and learn from others in a reasoned, sophisticated way, to polish their expressive language skills (in written and oral format) as well as to demonstrate their knowledge base. If they want to learn a trade, they can go to a trade school.
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