That’s NOT what she said. Again, you are putting words in people’s mouths. Are you intentionally being difficult? Would this be a good time to remind folks of the reading comprehension skills developed by those liberal arts students in majors like history and english? 
My immediate family has majors in history, economics, sociology, psychology, and political science. All of us took calculus and 4 were required to take stats classes for the major. The other had to take a stats-heavy research methods course.
You’ll likely be disappointed if you try to be someone you’re not. Do what you’re good at. If you aren’t mathematically inclined, you generally won’t excel in STEM. If you’re an introvert, you’re highly unlikely to become a super salesperson or an inspiring leader. Everyone needs and should learn some basic set of general skills (including some basic quantitative skills). Beyond those, certain aptitude is needed in addition to a willingness to learn.
“That’s NOT what she said. Again, you are putting words in people’s mouths.”
I’m not, these are a couple of posts:
“If I could put him in a basement and had him do what he was told with no interaction with another human being, that would have worked.”
This perpetuates ta very negative stereotype that stem people do best in their (or parent’s) basement where they don’t have deal with anybody.
“It is always frown upon in our company when someone is so technical but just can’t take that next step, they would just be a worker bee for the rest of their career.”
Another negative stereotype that technical people do what they’re told, do subordinate work and don’t get credit.
There’s a lot of stereotyping on this thread, from stem and non-stem but I don’t think anyone should be defending use of words like basement and worker bees when talking about people. Similarly using words like afraid of math when talking about humanities majors.
Here is the problem as I see it.
When a person makes a general comment, I implicitly understand that he is talking about a general tendency or statistical norm, the middle 68% of the normal distribution curve. The retort, however, usually comes from the right tail, 2 and in some cases, 3 SD above the norm. We are talking about two entirely different units/population. Of course there can be no agreement.
More later.
@Canuckguy, spoken like a true social scientist.
(Don’t mind me, I just wanted an excuse to mention the broad category that’s generally sadly totally ignored in these humanities vs. STEM fights…?)
I’ve tried not to make general comments. My posts have been, this thread of any other threads, and almost Will always be about my own experiences. People like data and UCB are very good with links and statistic, and agree or disagree always appreciated their posts. I am not one of those people, cuz I am lazy. But what I have is a vast experience in my career and I like to shared them.
Validation/testing is easy at my company…yes it’s true. I have personal experience, you twisted my words to make it stereotyped, not me. Not cool.
It’s frustrating to work with tech guy who can’t take the next steps. That happens a lot where I am. It’s not about tech guys in general or about tech guys that you worked with. It’s about MY tech guys. Take it or leave it but don’t make it more than what it is.
Time to change your hiring practices for these jobs?
What percentage of students attending four year colleges are required to have calculus or statistics (or similar methods course) as a general education requirement (as opposed to a major requirement) for a bachelor’s degree?
We have been, by outsourcing a lot of development work. In-house (IT) employees are supposed to be doing more strategic work (build business cases, cost impact analysis, next generation technologies, study industry trend, etc. and provide oversight during execution but we are not supposed to be so hands on. Many are still used to hands on and head down, me included at times. Last few years I’ve hired more “generalists” than “Specialists”.
In a thread with full of biases against LA people, and some are upset that I pointed out, via a few personal examples, that one also needs LA skill set in addition to whatever they have to be fully successful. It baffles me that some thinks my post are stereotypes against STEM people and generalizations. Maybe it’s my communication skill the failed me?
I hope that the take away for any kid who happened to read my posts is that being technical is good to certain point (decent salary), but if you want to go further you need to have soft skills or LA skillset.
My whole family are stem people. I can’t write to save my life. I have a chemistry degree from Cal. DH has master in CS (CMU) and PhD (Cal) in chemistry. D is cognitive science/premed (Cal), S will be CS. My extended family are doctors and engineers. No one in my family is LA people. But I recognize how important it is to have LA skillset. I gave my son the same advice and examples from my experience as I posted on this thread. But he has the wit to know that I didn’t stereotype against him, or STEM people, nor did I make generation about tech guys. He knows that mom is giving him advice, something to think about for his future. He isn’t as social as his sister, he said hi but doesn’t look at the adult in the eyes when he talks…he never asked how someone is doing (maybe typical for a teen boy? Idk). He likes to blend in instead of leading, etc… My hope is for him to start learning the soft skill, say the next time when he met someone he would try to look them in the eyes and say hello using the person’s name. Being good at communication is a fabulous thing. For some it comes so naturally, for others it can be learned.
You still seem to be stereotyping STEM, and conflating college major(LA skillset) with personality traits. An English degree will help you write with fewer spelling and grammar mistakes. It won’t make an anti-social person become more social. It won’t make someone who likes to blend in, decide they want to lead. A history degree won’t teach you to say hello using a person’s name or asks them how they are doing, although you might get some of that in a business etiquette class. While we don’t have enough information to judge, not making eye contact is one symptom of ASD, which tends to be more common in boys. If someone does have ASD, the most effective interventions need to happen long before a kid heads off to college.
That may be true at your company, particularly among you group which it sounds like relates to IT. However, most tech majors at highly selective colleges choose other types of industries that often have very different practices.
I mentioned Google was the most common CS employer among Brown and Cornell grads earlier the thread. It’s probably the most common among highly selective IVY+SM type colleges overall. Like many larger tech companies, Google has a separated technical track ladder that has parallel positions to the more “soft skill” emphasized management ladder or business ladder . A partial summary is below.
Google Technical Track and Management Track Positions
Level 5 – Senior Software Eng (tech track) or Software Eng. Mgr. I (manage track)
Level 6 – Staff Software Eng (tech track) or Software Eng. Mgr, II (manage track)
Level 7 – Senior Staff SW Eng (tech track) or Software Eng. Mgr. III (manage track)
Level 8 – Principal Software Eng (tech track) or Director (manage track)
Level 9 – Distinguished Software Eng (tech track) or Senior Director (manage track)
Level 10 – Google Fellow (tech track) or Vice President (manage track)
Level 11 – Senior Google Fellow (tech track) or Senior Vice President (manage track)
Soft skills are still certainly important at Google and almost any larger company, particularly communication and teamwork. Written input from peers within the group/team is a key factor in promotions. A person who can’t work in a team probably won’t do well at Google or similar. However, promotions to these higher technical track levels are not primarily about soft skills, as might occur in certain other industries. Promotions on the tech ladder are far more likely to relate to successes on tech projects. I’ve personally known several CS employees who appeared to have awful soft skills in our limited interactions, yet still advanced to a high level on the tech track or comparable within their company (not referring to anyone where I currently work).
Your family sounds like LA people to me. Chemistry and Cognitive Science are both liberal arts fields. Cognitive Science has been called, “the ultimate liberal arts field” due to the way it combines and integrates multiple liberal arts fields. CS is interesting in that it is sometimes considered a liberal arts field and sometimes not. I’m still not clear on what exactly is a liberal arts skillset?
Now you are just being argumentative and disingenuous. You really think the OP thought of those majors when they started the thread?
Google, Amazon, Fidelity, IMB, JP Morgan, and Liberty Mutual Insurance are among the top 10 employers at my kids’ traditional LAC. The others are Wayfair, two hospitals and a research university.
The school offers neither engineering, a business major, nor a computer science major.
Clearly these companies are not limiting themselves to business, CS, engineering, and math majors.
The OP didn’t say liberal arts majors, liberal arts skills, or anything about liberal arts. Instead he quoted a most and least regretted majors list. The most and least regretted majors lists do not follow STEM vs non-STEM, or your grouping above. For example, the top 2 most regretted majors on the list are English and Sciences. Regardless of whether you consider chemistry a liberal arts major or not, it appears in the regretted major grouping.
As described on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education ), liberal arts typically refers to the following fields:
The question I’ve had throughout the 20 pages of this thread is what exactly is the one thing the most regretted majors all had in common?
To recap, the Ziprecruiter list is,
Most regretted:
English/foreign languages
Biological and physical sciences
Education
Social sciences and law
Communications
Least regretted:
Computer sciences/math
Business
Engineering
Health administration and assisting
Health sciences and technology
Aside from the fact that this list doesn’t make sense (English and FL are not the same field, ditto for lumping all sciences together, and what is a health assisting major?) what is the first list supposed to have in common?
[quote=“roethlisburger, post:392, topic:2075179”]
Last post on this thread I promise. Thanks for the suggestion. But I said he doesn’t look at the adult in the eyes when he talks to them. Should add that the adults he doesn’t know well. He is shy but is completely fine with his friends and us and family members. He tutors math for his friends and younger kids since forever and he would stare (Looking at them with emotion) them down if they forgot something he just said lol. You would be surprised how many interns I interviewed who didn’t look at me in the eyes. I just realized this thread has just taken a very strange turn
There appears to be a correlation with low early career earnings. The 3 that are most regretted have an especially low median earnings with just a bachelor’s. The 4th is also low, but not as low as the first 3. The reverse also occurs with the 4 least regretted majors , although business is ranked higher than expected based on earnings alone.
Specific numbers from the CollegeScorecard database is below for students who did not pursue grad degrees. This database only includes federal FA recipients – both grants and loans. I listed the most common major in each grouping, so Biology for “Biological and physical sciences” and Nursing for “Health administration and assisting.” The first 4 college groupings are exclusive, so T20 indicates T20 that are not Ivies, T50 indicates T21-50, etc.
------------------ MEDIAN FIRST YEAR EARNINGS BY MAJOR -----------
Major Ivies T20 T50 Pri T50 Pub All
Computer Science+ $110k $104k $86k $81k $66k
Nursing $74k $66k $74k^ $62k $64k
Engineering (All Majors) $70k $73k $69k $67k $63k
Business $62k $70k $61k $54k $42k
...
All Students $60k $57k $51k $44k $41k
...
Psychology $42k $36k $33k $29k $29k
English $36k $34k $34k $28k $27k
Biology $36k $34k $32k $29k $28k
Education $32k $37k $37k $35k $33k
+Includes Computer and Information Sciences Major
^Nursing drops from $74k to $67k without NYU
How many years after finishing college was to survey taken ? Answers may change as people get older : for example, in the first 10 years after college, you may value more the income and intensity of the work environment while after you get older, you may value more predictable schedule and quieter environment. Also, the novelty of you profession may fade away and the administrative/ bureaucratic component may take over, so the passion for the work may decrease.