I could read 50,000 resumes for every opening at my company in order to be “inclusive”, or I could target certain colleges which I know train its grads with the type of analytical and creative skills I need and only have to read 800 or so.
Our shareholders prefer that I take the easy way out so I can hire the talent we need in as efficient a manner as possible.
I am not telling you that your kid should go major in Psychology at Hofstra or Framingham State College so that he or she can get a job in the Analytics group at T-Mobile or Procter and Gamble or Amazon or Disney. But I am pointing out that for some companies, a job in an actual academic subject- whether history or psychology or linguistics- is a better on-ramp for a corporate career than a vocational subject such as marketing or mass communications. And that there are more business functions than just finance and accounting, although folks on CC seem quite convinced that this is not true.
Amherst has an open curriculum however, and only one non-major course is required of all students, a freshman seminar. So no distribution reqs beyond those required of the major. A lot of students double major, some manage a triple.
The number of courses listed for those majors at Amherst refer only to those courses for the major.
Page 69 of https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/71658/original/Section%2B4.pdf says that bachelor’s degree students must complete at least 31 courses and 8 semesters to graduate (average of 4 per semester for 32 total, but a student is allowed to drop or fail one in the first year).
So a chemistry major who completes the 8 courses for the major plus the 3 other courses that are prerequisites for those courses still needs 20-21 additional courses to graduate.
I just checked the Chemistry major at Binghamton, and it looks like it requires 15 courses for the BA and 21 for the BS. That’s a lot different than Amherst. I can see where a kid could easily double major at a LAC, and maybe even triple major, like you said.
I looked at Fordham a while back, and I think the core is so extensive there, that it would be hard to even double major.
I know STEM fields are more stable/better paying than liberal arts and humanities fields, but in no way does liberal arts guarantee life failure. I know people who majored in art history who are making 10-20k more than a chemistry major.
The most popular kind of STEM major is biology, which tends to have relatively low paying job prospects for those who do not get into a professional school (e.g. medical school) afterward.
That’s very YMMV depending on time period and industry. For instance, engineers and parents who were aware of the downturn in the ChemE field in the '70s and early '80s were doing their utmost to dissuade their own kids/their friends from majoring in ChemE as the market was so bad some joked one had a far better chance of landing a leading role in a star-studded Hollywood production than getting a job as a ChemE graduate.
Also, I knew of several engineers who ended up as SAHPs including one older cousin who was an EE major either due to cyclical downturns in their respective fields or in the latter case because his spouse’s much higher income in a non-STEM field(business organizational consulting) and need for a parent at home meant it made far better financial sense.
This has absolutely nothing to do with major choice and everything to do with ambition. It’s possible to live outside of your mother’s house with a job that doesn’t even require a degree at all. Stop.
Oh honestly. I know kids who graduated from Harvard who have gone nowhere. I know kids who were gender studies majors who now run their own non profits. I know English majors who are now doctors and engineers who are now lawyers. I know Asian Studies majors working for a start up in New York. I know a Sociology major running Apple in China. I know a history major who is an analyst at a hedge fund. It is not the major. It is not the school. It is the kid and their hustle some luck and the opportunities they discover.
I just ran into a friend whose D graduated last year with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from an excellent university and still hasn’t gotten a job. She and her boyfriend moved to large SoCal city where he got a job (electrical engineer.)
Meanwhile, S was a poly sci major and history minor who was accepted into exec training program of Fortune 200 company (only 15 people were accepted out of 3000 applicants.) He loves his job and it has zero to do with what he majored in.
I am of the belief that a motivated, driven kid will not be living in the basement regardless of major. My daughter is one of those type A, highly driven kids. She is currently a biology and nutritional sciences double major (not officially declared yet) and a chemistry and Spanish minor. She is not interested in being a nutritionist and right now is not interested in “pre” anything- pre med, etc. She keeps telling me she is “exploring her passions.” This is exactly what the school encourages, and she is taking full advantage.
I am not exactly sure what she plans to do with these majors, but given her personality and past performance, I keep telling myself that it will work out. She does tell me she plans to attend grad school, even if she takes a year off to do something first.
I know of several recent college grads who are not attempting to find work at all, and they come from a variety of majors. One girl in particular graduated with a degree in international business and according to her mother, she “refuses” to look for work #-o She basically hangs out now.
Young adults living in their parents’ home is an interesting phenomenon in which choice of college major appears to play a relatively small part. According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of 18-to-34 year olds living with parents (32,1%) recently surpassed the percentage living with a spouse or cohabiting partner (31.6%) for the first time in the modern era. But that’s mostly a function of plummeting rates of marriage and romantic cohabitation. In 1960, a record 62% of 18-to-34 year olds were living as couples, but now young people are marrying or cohabiting later, or not at all; Pew estimates as many as 1 in 4 millennials will never marry. To some extent, the recent increase in young people living with their parents represents regression to the mean, as the current rate of 32.1% is actually quite similar to the 1880 rate of 30% and the 1940 rate of 35%; it was the marriage-crazy 1950s and 60s, when that figure fell to a record low of 20%, that were aberrational.
To be sure, economic prospects play a significant role here. Jobs were plentiful and wages were rising in the 50s and 60s. Women married younger and relatively few participated in the workforce after marriage. Male unemployment is now higher and in many fields real wages have been stagnant or declining, which pushes against early marriage and toward more stay-at-homes. But at the same time, Pew points out that women now participate in the workforce in much greater numbers and their incomes are rising, which also appears to push against early marriage as more women delay marriage for a career, or never marry. And it’s not just stay-at-homes who are increasing. The percentage of young people, especially women, living alone or as single heads of households is at an all-time high, as is the percentage in “alternative” living arrangements which includes college dormitories (college attendance is at record highs) and in group living situations, e.g., living with a “tribe” of friends rather than a romantic partner.
Still, 18-to-34 year old college graduates are far more likely to live with a spouse or cohabiting partner (46%) and less likely to live with their parents (19%) than non-college graduates. So it appears the college degree most likely to lead to your parents’ basement is the degree not earned.
If I can get into an elite, then it matters a lot less what I study. (Post 200 is simply Lauren Rivera lite). If I am not accepted into an elite, then the major comes to the fore:
I get that “failure to launch” is a legitimate concern on some fronts, but I’ll never believe living at home with one’s parents is automatically a bad choice. I’m sure I sound like a broken record in this regard, but it’s common form in my upper-middle class neighborhood for college grads to live at home when their jobs are within commuting distance and frequently not to move out until they marry. Given the size of their parents’ homes (all of which have 4+ bedrooms) and the cost of rentals in the more desirable locations downtown or nearby, it just seems like a prudent financial decision.
And many of these “new grads” everybody is fretting over are not not living “in the basement” either:
We bemoan how stupid people are by overspending, but then we bemoan young adults making smart decisions to live with their parents versus waste money on apartments, utilities, etc? If the young adult is gainfully employed or actively trying, I just can’t condemn it the way I used to.
While I’d love to just say “LOL look at those useless psych and theology majors” and be done with it, I suppose that’s not really what I’m supposed to take away from this.
This whole study is with a grain of salt, because maybe we can draw more conclusions about the type of person that goes into each particular type of major, rather than just how useful the major is for finding a job.
As long as graduates are continuing on a path to move forward, who really cares where they live for a few years. Upon graduation most have school loans, a car loan, graduate school to complete, a work wardrobe to buy and many long term life decisions to make including finding a life partner/spouse.
I would be interested in learning if there is a long term benefit to being surrounded by family members as these decisions are made. I lived at home for a couple of years to pay down loans (no-one is interested in being debt free anymore), work full-time as an engineer and go to grad school at night. Remember the energy you had during those years? Work, school, friends and vacations took so much time that you basically just slept at home. At 21 when I graduated, I could have easily been ready to flee but learning to live with a family again gave me more patience and precious time with siblings and grandparents.
Today’s society has many more single parents, so graduates living at home may be a helping hand to their parent.