<p>There is a discussion in the Parents’ Forum about how important employability is following college. I’d be curious to know if employability was a consideration when you chose a particular college or selected your major. </p>
<p>Do those of you who chose a highly employable field feel that you missed out on any intellectual exploration? Do those of you who studied a subject with low employability feel any anxiety as graduation draws near? Do students approach college as a purely intellectual pursuit, or do you think about supporting yourselves when you graduate?</p>
<p>I don’t think I considered employability because I knew the area I was entering, music, was not going to be a “highly employable” field.
Once I was in college, I decided to make myself more marketable by adding Psychology and getting a wide range of work experience.
I don’t really feel anxious about it since things have always pulled together in the past and ultimately I know God will take and place me where He wants me, oftentimes despite my own decisions and mistakes!</p>
<p>As far as most college students go, though, I don’t think most of us think a whole lot about supporting ourselves until later on in college as we realize our time is almost up!</p>
<p>Q: Is employability a consideration for choosing a college and/or major?</p>
<p>A: I can guarantee it is for almost everyone. Of course, people will weight it differently depending on their priorities, but it’s usually an important factor regardless. In general, people arn’t too eager to put themselves into thousands of dollars worth of debt unless they know it will pay off, and the world of higher education is no exception.</p>
<p>Lets start with college majors. If you are REALLY interested in a subject, you could self-study or take classes in it for a fraction of the cost of an undergraduate degree. Instead, most people choose to get degrees anyway, mainly because it vastly improves their employability.</p>
<p>Ditto with the choice of school. A huge draw of the Ivy league and other top-ranked schools isn’t so much for the education (considering grade inflation as well as the focus on research, it could be argued that these schools are often worse for undergraduates); it’s for the big, shiny degree that will bolster a person’s chance of landing their dream job.</p>
<p>I hope that wasn’t too cynical, but I think most people who respond to this thread will at least agree that employability is an important factor in many of these decisions.</p>
<p>I’m not in college yet but so far, employability has been a top priority in choosing my major and school. I’m not going for the ivy league schools but I have been looking at schools that offer direct-entry acceptance into their pharmacy school straight out of high school.</p>
<p>Being a future teacher, I’m not concerned with it at all. I’m more concerned with my performance as a student teacher and also with my GPA. If I can excel in both areas, it doesn’t matter what the employability rate of the school is, especially if I am applying at the school I student taught at. Just my opinion though.</p>
<p>Non ed majors could probably apply this to internships as well.</p>
<p>I chose my major (math) as a repsected liberal arts degree that will get me into profesional school. I doubt it will get me that many jobs straight out of college.</p>
<p>Do those of you who chose a highly employable field feel that you missed out on any intellectual exploration?
No, I felt like I took enough gen ed classes and sat in enough courses to find something I truly like to do. However, I did get a word of caution from someone already graduated and in a PhD program that with any field you cannot narrowly focus your studies on just that one area. This person, for example, reads a lot of fiction books because he says it helps him think out of the box more often at work, which is very important in my field. So it is not like intellectual exploration stops once you have picked something. Because even after college you can change fields, and even if you’re well into another graduate program.</p>
<p>Do students approach college as a purely intellectual pursuit, or do you think about supporting yourselves when you graduate?
I did not think much about how I am going to be employed afterwards until the beginning of my junior year of college (i’ve finally picked a major at the end of 2nd year). So for two years it was just a pursuit of knowledge and fun, and then I started to think more practically about it. In my field, you need to get a good hands-on experience with work. So the classes I took I felt were still simply for intellectual exploration. But I started to work couple jobs during year and in summer to be more employable after school.</p>
I thought about both. I wouldn’t want to major in business because of the lack of intellectual development, and I wouldn’t choose physics/math due to the lack of employability after graduation. I decided to choose engineering because it is the best of both worlds. </p>
<p>I came across ChemE when I took an online career test, and the first thing that came up was ChemE. Since then, I’ve set my eyes on becoming and ChemE.</p>
<p>For me, college is an intellectual pursuit. If I wanted a high paying job I would have decided to go to a trade school or gotten real estate license or something like that.</p>
<p>Employability is one of my top priorities. My parents will laugh in my face if I tell them I want to major in something that does not equal a stable, upper-middle-classish income. We simply don’t have 40k to spend on intellectual pursuit. Those of you who approach college as a camp of knowledge should feel VERY fortunate to have that kind of opportunity.</p>
<p>I feel fortunate that my parents are willing to even pay for my totally career oriented college career. They wouldn’t even consider paying for me to just <em>explore</em> my interests. Had I had no idea what I wanted to do they would have told me to take a few years off and figure it out… NOT go to a 40K/year college to figure it out in. </p>
<p>The way things are going I think I’ll have close to 250K in college bills by the time I’m done and that’s with cutting two years off the normal route. Engineering undergrad- 3yrs @ 30K/yr = 90K, accelerated MS/law program - 3 yrs @ 50K+/yr = at least 150K. With those kind of college cost I don’t see that random intellectual persuit is reasonable.</p>
<p>Well, I guess some people can afford to go the intellectual pursuit way. You could go to a state u which are usually reasonably priced, or to the local cc. </p>
<p>I think that you can get the best of both worlds. Universities usually have liberal arts/humanities electives (lots of them) that you have to fulfill as you take an “employable” major. The schools I’m looking at (offering pharmD) have 28-32 mandatory credits you have to take that are NOT related to the maths or sciences. It’s not a purely intellectual pursuit, but you can still broaden your horizons.</p>
<p>What about this question which hasn’t really been addressed yet: “Do those of you who studied a subject with low employability feel any anxiety as graduation draws near?” As a prospective history major (very low employability unless you go to professional school later on) I’m v. curious.</p>
<p>I view college as more of an intellectual pursuit but like other people on the board, will worry more about it once I become an upperclassman. Right now, I’m still digesting the fact that I’m going to be in college next year…</p>
<p>employability is very high on my list of important things to consider, mainly because i’m entering into a major that is impacted and i don’t want to burden my parents anymore by being a bum.</p>