"paying" daughter to go with STEM - doing the wrong thing?

Parents Forum
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<p>I don’t think you seem to understand that our society needs some of everything. Think of the launch of an art museum. (I’m assuming you appreciate art museums, though I recognize that might be a leap on my part.) You probably look at it and see only the parts of the building that are scientific / mechanical in nature - the physical structure, the materials, the electricity, etc. Do you not fully understand that society needed more than just engineers for that art museum to happen? Architects to design it, bricklayers to lay the bricks, interior designers to make it attractive, sales and marketing people to drum up interest, accountants to handle the finances, copywriters to write the materials, historians to link the paintings to other historic aspects of the time in question, florists and caterers and musicians at the launch party, and of course, artists to create the art that goes there. Do you seriously not get that STEM is only one part of life? I mean this with all due respect - have you ever left a lab? </p>

<p>I never had a negative impression of STEM majors before (math major married to a bio major!) but I gotta tell you, the stereotypical geeky STEM major who can’t possibly understand anything that isn’t on a calculator or in a petri dish is alive and well on CC. It’s pathetic.</p>

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<p>Is that the only one of my posts that warrants a response?</p>

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Do not put words into my mouth - as you will read in my original post my sister, my best friend, was a political sci major and though we do love to make gentle fun of her, she matters more to me than most people on this earth. It’s just that it’s a different situation when it involves us potentially having to give financial support an adult woman with a college degree - now is that so hateful or hard to understand </p>

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A is that no, I would not because engineers are generalists of a sort in that they are able to do most types of work - if he chose to go on to something else, he could probably do so pretty seamlessly. B is do not put words into my mouth, I have not once used the word “useless” in this whole thread.</p>

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<p>You only think they are impractical because you haven’t a clue that there are art historians working in museums, French majors teaching French enrichment classes, theater majors running community theater, history majors running programs at local museums, etc. You think the world consists of engineering labs and don’t even see the half of what’s out there. So I challenge your very definition that non-STEMs are by definition impractical. There’s no expansiveness or conceptual thinking in you, at all.</p>

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I am upset that you think this. I am just going off of statistics and the general consensus which is that it is easier for people with “practical” majors (I am defining practical as majors that teach students hard quantitative skills or failing that business management, technical, scientific etc skills) to get jobs that are secure and pay well. Look at job postings online - count the number of openings for “French enrichment class director” you see compared to, e.g., “systems analyst” or “software designer.” I KNOW liberal arts majors ARE NOT WORTHLESS and I NEVER said that. I value the friendship of MANY of my non-engineering friends and GASP even some people without college degrees (one of my best friends since childhood now does hair).</p>

<p>And something else i failed to address earlier is the blatant false statement that most engineers get sent overseas - oh, give me a BREAK.</p>

<p>Maybe it is a cultural difference preventing me from getting my message across here , I sincerely do not know. I do not understand why everyone here must resort to intensely damaging and upsetting cyber-bullying when they do not agree with my opinion.</p>

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<p>OP- What was the point of this thread. Why did you ask if you were doing the wrong thing when you clearly had no intention of listening to anyone with a dissenting opinion? Did you just assume that everyone would agree with you?</p>

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Of course I did not because I recognize that my opinion is unwanted and unpopular. But I did not expect to have “PERSONAL” attacks shoveled on to me like this. I have refrained from directly insulting anyone in this thread yet everyone continues to tell me I have no brain or thinking skills, am bad mother. And I have already modified my position more than once which you would see if you would look back especially on the discussion about community college.</p>

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<p>To the op…when you listed majors or careers that youndeemed valuable and adding to society, you listed science and fianance. It would seem my histoy major daughter with two minors now working in the news field isn’t in your category ofnadding to society. Or maybe my mom the teacher of special Ed, or my friends son the high school football coach, or my librarian neighbor, or the lady who caters weddings. As for the seemless transition to other fields for an engineer, what fields would they be?</p>

<p>I feel for your your daughter she hasn’t even taken a college class and she has already failed in you eyes. Maybe your son will have his own imperfect life you will have to deal with. Steve jobs was more artist than scientist, it was his artnthinking that made apple what is is, not the science</p>

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<p>But software developers have to design for something. Maybe the software designer is designing software for a new French language application - well, obviously there are French speakers consulting on that. If everyone became a software developer, who would come up with the creative ideas for which the software needs to be designed? </p>

<p>I have a graphics artist who is Mr. Creativity and a statistician who is a PhD in my company who sit side by side (or cubicle by cubicle I suppose). I need them both to do the job and run our business. Business doesn’t happen unless you have all sides.</p>

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<p>Exactly. That’s precisely the tone that some of us are objecting to. </p>

<p>And uh, finance people have to finance SOMETHING, like our proverbial art museum example.</p>

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<p>Maybe, but you seem to interpret a lot of posts as an attack on non-STEM majors when they aren’t even arguing the importance of STEM. For instance, when I and others have said that math olympiad winners should be admitted everywhere, you got all bent out of shape as if this was an attack on non-STEM pursuits. Clearly, there are other arguments as to why someone might say a math olympiad winner should get into any college, the most obvious one being that it is likely that a math olympics winner would be within the top X of math majors being selected or Y technical majors for the typical (X,Y) of math/technical majors that colleges admit. Or to contrast one of your recent statements, they should be more than a longshot to get in a top 20 university. </p>

<p>As for the “stereotypical geeky STEM major,” it seems that for many the threshold for crossing into geek territory is defined by one’s own level of talent and commitment. People who perform less academically than you are limited intellectually and/or not disciplined; those who perform better are geeks who are limited because they are too focused on academics. I saw this particular conceit at MIT. </p>

<p>Relax, us “STEMmies” won’t take away your lipstick like they wanted to do in college.</p>

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<p>“And something else i failed to address earlier is the blatant false statement that most engineers get sent overseas - oh, give me a BREAK”.</p>

<p>try reading carefully next time. This is what I said:</p>

<p>CHEAP engineers in INDIA or CHINA have a lock on the ENTRY LEVEL engineering JOBS that used to be available here. </p>

<p>Ever heard of outsourcing??</p>

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<p>I didn’t put words in your mouth. From the thread, it seems as though you believe that the only worthwhile degrees are STEM degrees. I asked a legitimate question- would you think your son’s degree was useless if he got a job in a non-STEM field. I don’t recall saying that you called anything useless.</p>

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<p>I suggest you read, carefully, this article from the Chronicle of Higher Learning regarding the persistence, or lack thereof, of many women who start college intending to become engineers. </p>

<p>Lack of Confidence as Professionals Spurs Women to Leave Engineering, Study Finds</p>

<p>Specifically, women lack “professional role confidence,” a term that describes, loosely, a person’s sense that he or she belongs in a certain field. The term encompasses more than mastery of core intellectual skills. It also touches on a person’s confidence that he or she has the right expertise for a given profession, and that the corresponding career path meshes with his or her interests and values.</p>

<p>As one of the most sex-segregated professions outside the military, engineering carries ingrained notions and biases about men being more naturally suited to the field, which can have self-reinforcing effects, notes the paper’s lead author, Erin Cech, a postdoctoral fellow in sociology at Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research.</p>

<p>“The more confident students are in their professional expertise, the more likely they are to persist in an engineering major. However, women have significantly less of this expertise confidence than do men,” Ms. Cech writes, with her co-authors, Brian Rubineau of Cornell University, Susan Silbey of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Caroll Seron of the University of California at Irvine.</p>

<p>[Lack</a> of Confidence as Professionals Spurs Women to Leave Engineering, Study Finds - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“Lack of Confidence as Professionals Spurs Women to Leave Engineering, Study Finds”>Lack of Confidence as Professionals Spurs Women to Leave Engineering, Study Finds)</p>

<p>now of course, you can blow this off, as you have blown off lots of good advice from other parents, or you can step back and think about your continued efforts to try to force a “square peg”- your D, into a round hole. Your mindset re: engineering seems be hindering your ability to “think differently” about your daughter’s strengths and weaknesses.</p>

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<p>Agree that the oft-times off-putting tone of many of the OPs posts, the selection of which posts to respond to, that seem to be those that are more “confrontational” or challenging, and the acrimony seen in many of ther responses seem to make the cry of “cyberbullying” pretty darned hollow.</p>

<p>Thank heavens for those students who choose to study film and art history and music and foreign languages and the classics and marketing and advertising and ancient mediterranean civilizations. The world would be pretty darned dull without them.</p>

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<p>For the record, I don’t think there is anything wrong with majoring in a non-STEM area. It might be more important to try to compete for internships in some business during the summers, though. The important thing from a practical standpoint is to get a high GPA if your only goal is to secure a good-paying job in the future.</p>

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<p>Hasn’t it been established that this thread was started by a ■■■■■? Has anyone looked at the thread tags recently?</p>

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<p>My parents are trying to blackmail me into having Computer Science as a major. They refuse to help fund me, or assist me to get a student loan (I’m a minor- I need their signature!).</p>

<p>I know that Computer Science is a good major, but I do not want a job where I will look back when I’m 40 and curse myself for choosing the easy, risk-free path. </p>

<p>Ask your daughter if she REALLY wants that particular major. Warn her of the risks, but if she insists, SUPPORT her. She may end up resenting you if you fail in this basic need.</p>

<p>As for me, I’m looking for a scholarship where I won’t have to rely on my parents for anything.</p>

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<p>"Sigh, and this is why we wish she would just do engineering like her brother, in this market you’re almost handed a job and “WOW!!!”-ing internships - but before i get attacked again for saying that, i know it won’t happen and she doesn’t want to do it, but it’s just a dream. Life is not fair. "</p>

<p>Life is not fair? Can I ask you - does your child’s happiness matter at all? Would you honestly be happier if you see your daughter pursue STEM (miserably), find a job (and live miserably) and hate every moment she spends at work for the rest of her life (or at least until she decides to move in a better direction). Perhaps she will resent you - will you be happy with that? This is not YOUR life you are trying to control. This is your daughter’s. I bet your daughter is thinking that life is not fair either, since her brother developed an interest in STEM and she didn’t, so he gets to pursue an interest he enjoys while she doesn’t. He doesn’t have to work as much while she does. None of that is fair. It’s playing favorites. And that is awful.</p>

<p>You also keep talking about statistics, and forgive me if I missed one, but I have not seen you cite a single source. I would love to know what kind of sources you are pulling from. I hope they’re not observation or personal experience. </p>

<p>I agree with another poster - the fact that you asked this question at all, “doing the wrong thing?” tells me that somewhere deep, deep down, you might feel that you are very wrong for doing this. I hope that is true. I wish the best for your daughter, and I hope she is able to pursue her interests and find a good job that she enjoys so that she can move away from this ridiculous situation. I hope she proves you very wrong.</p>