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<p>Somehow it made me think of Gilbert and Sullivan</p>
<pre><code>I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I’ve family electrical, civil, and mechanical …
</code></pre>
<p>I have tried to be patient but you are all bullies without a visible grain of politeness or human decency. I am going to spoon feed my situation to you all and see if anyone actually responds to it in a non sarcastic/bullying way. </p>
<p>1) Son and Daught are both smart, son excelled more in school and chose an objectively more difficult major
2) Daught is capable, genuine, sweet, responsible, sociable - but not very serious and not really “interested in anything,” in high school she seemed to focus on the here and now, blew off SAT studying, hung out with friends constantly, etc
3) and BECAUSE of no. 2 we are questioning her real level of commitment to this women and gender studies major. she has never expressed interest in anything of the sort before and we are saying if she is going to go into college with just a random major, then she should go into one where she at least has the opportunity to pick up some skills. </p>
<p>“THAT’S ALL FOLKS” … some of you are trying to read so much into it pretending like i’m some loony idiot spewing lies and being impractical. you would think <em>I</em> was the one on here calling people names and telling them they are freaks. i have said several times i did not mean to demean the liberal arts. I even said that I was sure there are many capable and successful lib arts majors. We are just skeptical of her choice of major. for example she is unlikely to take a liking to chemistry while taking all classes on women’s studies. But if she did a technical major she could start by take=ing the core courses and maybe get interested in them WHILE TAKING maybe a couple liberal arts classes for the fun of it. </p>
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What is “STEM triumphalist” - did you make up this term.</p>
<p>If you all think I am such a desperately bad parent then I would suggest that you fly over here and adopt my children.</p>
<p>Here’s some advice from two civil engineers that begat a history major-to-be. Have you had her do a career aptitude test? Many high schools no longer do these since the good ones cost money. Son took one, and we discovered, that A’s in math and science do not neccesarily stack up to what it takes to be an engineer. His apptitude test says he should be an attorney or a professor (great vocabulary, lousy mechanical ability!) The test might show her strengths she didn’t know she had and counsel her on what kind of work she would thrive in. The Highland is the one son took.</p>
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<p>See post 43 about the poor job and career prospects for biology graduates. Do yourself and your daughter a favor by not pushing her into biology if she is not inherently interested in it.</p>
<p>Also, consider that for a very undecided student, going immediately to a four year school may not be the optimal choice, since it puts the student on a clock to decide a major in about two years. Some students may take longer than that to figure out what they really want to do, or may choose poorly and regret the choice after graduation.</p>
<p>The alternative? Community college, where there is less financial and no institutional pressure to decide soon, and where the door is still open to transferring to a four year school to complete a bachelor’s degree once the student has decided. And if the student decides to do something other than something that needs a bachelor’s degree, community colleges offer vocational studies in those other areas as well.</p>
<p>This is obviously an engineering student trollin</p>
<p>it has everything</p>
<p>I mean, when I want to rip on liberal arts, what major do I use? Women’s Studies</p>
<p>If I wanted to rip on an “easy” science I’d pick the one I think is the easiest, biology.</p>
<p>It even has some sexism in there.</p>
<p>That is insane, to suggest that an undecided kid should just go to comm college. Hello? Are you not aware that the best colleges in the country admit, and are perfectly fine with, kids who are undecided?</p>
<p>I’m so sorry some of you are deathly afraid of poverty and think that justifies you pushing STEM on non-STEM kids, but too bad. in the final analysis, it’s your kid’s life, not yours.</p>
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<p>Sorry, but you DO come across like an idiot, and an impractical one. And you may not be lying, but you have no idea how awful you sound. You are demeaning people right and left – starting with your own daughter, which in my book is a pretty awful thing to do. You can call that “practical”; I think “loony” is too kind for it. I am trying to imagine what could be practical about undermining your own child and trying to force her to study something she dislikes. If you want to throw your tuition money away, and wreck your relationship with your daughter, that’s exactly how to do it.</p>
<p>Bottom line: If you acknowledge that there are many capable and successful liberal arts majors – and you are darn right about that – why can’t your daughter be one of them? What are you doing to help her succeed on her own terms?</p>
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<p>I remember a friend in university took one offered at the career center. They said that “college professor” almost always scores high on these career interest assessments.</p>
<p>Your son may want to take some math and science courses (not necessarily a formal major or minor) alongside his history major in college, since he is good at them, and honing both his “humanities” thinking and his “quantitative / logical” thinking in college may help him more (including on the LSAT) than if he concentrated on just one type of thinking. History of science, engineering, and math may itself be an interesting subject as well.</p>
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<p>It is an option that can be considered. Granted, a lot of the HYPetc.-obsessed students and parents here would turn up their noses at “lowly” community college, but I know plenty of people who went to community college, transferred to four year schools, and graduated. And some went on the graduate school.</p>
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<p>Yes, it is true that many students go to four year schools undecided. But some of them find the two year clock to declare a major to be less than optimal.</p>
<p>No one is dissing comm college, and in my neck it’s actually quite popular as a money-saving strategy to send kid to cc for 2 years and transfer to state flagship for the last 2. </p>
<p>But why on earth should a bright kid whose parents can afford a good school drop down to cc if he doesn’t have to, just because he’s not sure if he wants to major in English or history?</p>
<p>“i do not see any problem in op’s post when she wants her kid to go STEM major, what is wrong with that”</p>
<p>Because it’s her daughter’s life we are talking about here. Why not arrange her marriage while she’s at it?</p>
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<p>Note that I wrote “very undecided” above. This would not be the case for a student undecided between a few majors that do not have long prerequisite chains or huge numbers of requirements (your English and history example), or which are related with overlapping prerequisites. In this case, the two year clock to decide and declare a major is unlikely to be too much of a problem.</p>
<p>On the other hand, a very undecided student who has many interests which are all over the place in different majors with non-overlapping prerequisites, some of which have long prerequisite chains or a large number of requirements, may not find the first two years at a four year school to be sufficient time to explore and experiment all of his/her interests without eliminating some possible majors by default (e.g. if you do not take a certain prerequisite by the first or second semester, you won’t be able to major in something if you are at a four year school).</p>
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Oh puh-lease, now I think you are just entertaining yourself. </p>
<p>I will admit that I have not been as receptive to some of your commentaries as I should be per the title, and i’m sorry. I would just like you all to be constructive and work off the assumption that I am NOT a horrible manipulative monster like some of you are making me out to be. </p>
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more melodrama, IMO.Your description makes me sound truly maniacal. “undermining your own child.” “force her to study something she dislikes.” you are trying to make me sound like the SS and are putting words into my mouth.</p>
<p>D has worked a lot and during school, so I am sure she would be fine especially if she took a lighter course load in order to work. In fact I might be safe in even assuming that she would try to get a job even if she were an engineering major - she is a hard worker and with that note, I would like to steer the discussion to – what could she do with a women and gender studies major, no bachelor’s, no work experience as some of you would have it?</p>
<p>" description makes me sound truly maniacal. “undermining your own child.” “force her to study something she dislikes.” you are trying to make me sound like the SS and are putting words into my mouth."</p>
<p>If your kid isn’t interested in STEM, and you force her to study it, ta-da-- you are forcing her to study something she dislikes. If that’s your position, then own it.</p>
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<p>What do you mean by “no bachelor’s”? She will have her bachelor’s degree when she graduates. She could still go to law school if she decides she’s interested. Law schools don’t care about the major and I would think all the reading and writing involved in the major would serve her well in law school. She could join a non-profit. That is not particularly lucrative, but I have a friend who worked her way up to head up a well known non-profit and is now a professor at a top rated school. I knew a woman who did diversity recruiting for a major corporation. She minored in women’s studies - can’t remember her major.</p>
<p>Sorry, no masters is what I meant to say. </p>
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Again, and read carefully please, this whole thread is about us giving her the choice between doing one and working or doing the other. What I want to know is Am I doing the wrong thing even having the choice there. We are NOT forbidding her from doing the gender studies thing, we are just adding an extra condition.</p>
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<p>Very small sample size, but here is what some Gender and Women’s Studies graduates did:</p>
<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major2006/WomenStud.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major2006/WomenStud.stm</a></p>
<p>Just an insight from a student - maybe your daughter never expressed any interest in women’s and gender studies until now because she was afraid of the repercussions of doing so in a house full of engineers? If she gets into the major and decides she hates it and isn’t passionate about it, she’ll find something else. Let her live HER life. It’s unfair to subsidize your son’s education while condemning your daughter’s as valueless.</p>
<p>– what could she do with a women and gender studies major, no bachelor’s, no work experience as some of you would have it?</p>
<p>Graduate studies in Astrology would be a possibility.</p>
<p>If the OP is actually a ■■■■■, then he or she is doing an awfully good job of impersonating someone whose first language isn’t English. I’m impressed if that’s the case. But I suspect it’s not. There really are people like this.</p>