<p>If you want to keep open the chance for getting into a good law school, then she needs to graduate with a very high GPA. Forcing her to work may impact her grades and close doors to good graduate programs. If she doesn’t have to work, don’t make her do so just to punish her for choosing a major you don’t understand. Support her. You used words like “silly” in the OP. I recommend you lose that word if she does decide on a liberal arts major.</p>
<p>Looking at those stats for Womens Studies majors I am actually surprised how high the mean income is.</p>
<p>Of course not only was that a terribly small sample sized but also a voluntary response survey. Two conditions that make those stats almost useless.</p>
<p>I mean, would you rather respond to this study if you got a job, or were unemployed.</p>
<p>And what about double majors? I feel like womens studies is something a lot of people would include in a double major with something else. If you double major in WS and Education then get a job as a teacher, that wasn’t really thethe WS degree.</p>
<p>Finally, after looking at those crappy statistics, only 50%was percent</p>
<p>We have the opposite problem which won’t result in anything different than what you’re going through I’m afraid. Our daughter is a bio major who clearly should become some sort of show producer or entertainer. God help us all. My feeling is that people need to focus on a career path, but of their own choosing.</p>
<p>Only 50% got a job. </p>
<p>And what’s “Other Endeavors”? I’m guessing house wife.</p>
<p>Is this a joke? It doesn’t sound real. Sorry.</p>
<p>Thanks Ucbalumnus, son is actually in a STEM high school now and is looking forward to geology, environmental science and calculus in college (HS calculus teacher’s teaching methods do not match his learning style). He is also considering teaching secondary history and plans to try that out freshman and sophomore year before he commits to a major. He figures if he doesn’t like teaching, he can be a CIA analyst! Law intrigues him, but he has not fallen in love with it. As far as being a professor goes, he was toying with that idea before he took the aptitude test. </p>
<p>Off-beat majors do not preclude success: Niece was an African-American studies major, but got into working with urban youth groups during the summers in college, which translated to a well paying career after school.</p>
<p>I’m bemused by the folks (trolls or otherwise) who would want to live in a world where students with no special talent or affinity for STEM majors are required or maneuvered by their parents into becoming them. Give me a doctor who’s enthralled by biology or an engineer who can’t think of anything more fascinating than engineering. I think we’ll have better medicine and better bridges if that’s the case.</p>
<p>■■■■■? Not a ■■■■■? It really doesn’t matter as every year I have at least one new freshman in my office telling me they’re some kind of major, often biology (pre-med), becasue that’s the only one the folks will pay for. I’ve never seen it work out.</p>
<p>I’m guessing that a lot of incoming freshmen who think they want to major in Women’s Studies have not had a Women’s Studies class in high school - and then they take one or two in college - and then they decide to major in something else. Same thing for Anthropology and Philosophy. This is not a criticism of Women’s Studies as an undergrad liberal arts major, just a note on what happens in a liberal arts undergrad program - and this doesn’t reflect a problem - this is how liberal arts is supposed to work. You explore a bit.</p>
<p>If I did not want to be an engineer and my parents said they would only pay for a four-year college if I started out in a four-year engineering track - freshman year full of physics, engineering, and calculus and each year’s course schedule nearly mandated - I would look for a college where I would get a very good merit scholarship. If the D were on cc instead of the mom, I’d tell her to check out the “what I learned about full ride scholarships” threads. She should probably head somewhere where she’ll get free tuition and free room and board.</p>
<p>To Gussied: I think you should let your daughter go to the college of her choosing, and tell her you are sorry to have pressured her so early on what major she will do and what career she wants. </p>
<p>She probably came up with women’s studies because you have required her to decide prematurely. Once on campus, it may or may not change.</p>
<p>I read a great term, “wise wandering,” in an article that said that all this anxious need to control life, and to plan every thing out early, actually prevents opportunities, because the planning closes people’s minds off from things that come across their path. </p>
<p>Being undecided and flexible at the age of 17 or 18 is often a positive. Please believe me.</p>
<p>As for work: be careful about that. Often a freshman female with limited job experience will end up just doing more low level jobs that do nothing for job prospects. I would suggest unpaid internships, if she/you can afford that. In the long run, those kinds of experiences are more valuable both financially and in intangible ways, and she can build up a pretty good resume that way. Also, internships can help clarify majors and career goals along the way. Internships do not have to be related to specific major either.</p>
<p>My youngest was the odd one out in a family of readers. Now, I think she will be the first one to get a master’s in an academic field. A close family member of mine dropped out of a sports managment field years ago, went back to school a few years later, and is now a tv executive. You never know. High school is not a good basis on which to judge future prospects. Be open to your daughter’s strengths and possibilities. </p>
<p>Most of all, be open to trusting her judgment and ability to find her own way. Show her your support.</p>
<p>This thread became unpleasant, but I think, Gussied, you need to respond with a different tone. Some of us may be posting in sympathy with your daughter, which may strike you as being against you. I can understand that your first post had a tone you did not intend, and it is good that you tried to explain further. </p>
<p>The main thing, for me, is that I think you have some misguided ideas about how college and how the job market really go. You care about your daughter’s future and want her to be employable. You need to relax and trust that it will work out. Showing your daughter support and respect may ensure that more than any major can. Kids tend to drop out or fail in other ways if they do not have that positive foundation from parents.</p>
<p>Finally, women’s studies is actually a fine major. History still neglect a lot of social history dealing with ordinary life. My preference would be for women’s studies to move into other disciplines like history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, English etc. signalling less of a need to compensate for the traditional emphasis on men in history. But if you check craigslist, you will see there are plenty of jobs open to a student with that major, or any student who has earned a BA, for that matter.</p>
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</p>
<p>But that would so liberal arts of us.</p>
<p>I am the mom of kids that were STEM majors and LA majors. The LA majors do make a little less money, but in general are much happier, more well traveled and frankly more educated, and can actually carry so many different faceted conversations, etc., (Making them generally more interesting) This is a sample from my world, so take it for what you will, but then again I am just a ‘mom’ business owner, humanities educated, who has earned enough to educate my children.</p>
<p>Sorry so much negative on here allgussied. I assume you are sincere in your request for ideas. So here is another to consider. </p>
<p>I have a different view of college than many others on here. I do not believe that college is soley an opportunity to send kids off to a 4 year camp to “find themselves” or as some like to say on here “just get educated”. I think that is part of it. But to me, and in my family, college is an environment to be trained and prepared for work/ job/ career. And I know that there will be many that disagree, that is fine.
I am getting the feeling that you think along those same lines. </p>
<p>If I am correct, how about approaching this with your daughter in the reverse. I like that one poster suggested a career aptitude test. It might give your daughter some idea on what she would like to do for a career. Even in a general sense. I would almost bet there are a few she could take on line that would provide some insight to her interests and available careers. Hopefully, it will give her some broad general ideas:</p>
<p>Medicine (nursing, therapy, MD…)
Engineering
Sales
Business
(you get the idea)</p>
<p>Once she has some type of idea of an area she may want to have a career in, she can look at schools that offer majors in those areas, and might find something that interests her. She can set goals to meet her endpoint, rather than trying to find a starting point with no goals. Even if that endpoint is a rather large target. </p>
<p>Students do go to college undecided. But they usually have some type of idea what direction they want to go in as far as science/engineering/lib. arts. And it sounds like your daughter has no idea what direction to even be able to pick out a school. So if she does go to college undecided, make sure the school has a wide varity of major options, and she will have the opportunity to change or expand her major. </p>
<p>Also, I am wondering if you have a community college close to you where she can take a womens studies course, and/or speak with a professor that teaches it to determine what kind of careers someone does with that major. She may find that after she learns more about it, she is not that interested. Or she may obtain info that changes your mind about that career path. Some community colleges have career exploration courses that guide students through looking at career options, what they offer, and the education they need. That may be available to her at the community college as well. </p>
<p>Good luck to you and your daughter!</p>
<p>A girl who is interested in women’s studies should study teaching or nursing. Those are the traditional women’s careers. Tell her she should be considering those areas as undergrad and can always minor in or go on for grad school for women’s studies, but you are concerned that she not starve. She can teach anything from K to women’s history to hs physics or become a CNM or NP. There will be plenty of opportunities to contect with and understand women along the way. Women’s studies might be a wonderflu way to round out her career and her life experiences. Daughters of female engineers can be at a serious disadvantage when it comes to connecting to the feminine.<br>
BTW if you really are a female engineer I would love an explaination of All Gussied Up - not a name a single SWE member I can think of would have picked including myself. Mama wears steel toed boots - now there is a proper name for a female civil engnieer!<br>
If it makes you feel any better I wouldn’t pay for a kid to get a degree in women’s studies either. A BSRN with a minor in women’s studies. no problem!</p>
<p>
My brain just exploded. And hey, you left out home ec.</p>
<p>Those who choose to major in Women’s Studies are perhaps the least likely candidates for “traditional” women’s careers like nursing and teaching.</p>
<p>Cross posted with Hunt - my head exploded right along with yours.</p>
<p>cartera45, we cross-posted with the same reaction, but you put it so much more nicely.</p>
<p>What I think is so funny about STEM triumphalism (epiphany’s phrase, so credit given where due) is that these people just don’t have any common sense.</p>
<p>Let’s see. So you major in a STEM field and then you have your fancy new salary, better than your LA friends. So what do you DO with that salary? You buy a nice house – which might entail buying some pieces of art and hiring an interior designer. You buy season tickets to a concert series where you listen to music and watch dancers. You buy your iPad or Kindle and take advantage of that technology to download the latest book by an interesting historian or economist. Or maybe just a fun novel for the beach. You hear a foreign phrase you don’t know and you use google translate to figure it out. You have kids, and you enroll them in children’s theater, and take them to the library to read books. All of these things have people and jobs behind them to make them happen, and then you go home to CC and declare that there is little use for non STEM majors and certainly no job prospects. Honestly, how dumb can someone be to think this?</p>
<p>Hunt and cartera - move over on the exploding bench and make room for me!!</p>
<p>
In fairness, maybe some STEM folks don’t do any of these things. They may just sit at home and fiddle with their slide rules.</p>