In the last few years I am involved with some new and emerging technology. There are very few experienced people, so I look for people who are trainable and teachable. When I review resumes, if they are new graduates I will look at their GPA and possibly test scores, and if they are experienced I will look at if they have adapted to new technology easily.
@jym626 : That one started the year I graduated and I always keep tabs on it as I am doing studies at the masters level across town (I basically started over switching from biology to chemistry completely so no prestigious grad program for me yet. We’ll have to see how much I like the biophysical chemistry/structural biol stuff I am doing now before I decide if I want a doctoral degree and decide on where to apply. So far I really like it! I am finally doing computer aided drug design, something I always wanted to do. I’m actually glad I turned down my lab job offers and the WW Teaching Fellowship though I was initially reluctant) and communicate with professors back at Emory. On top of my research, I am also very interested in education in general. I enjoyed running problem solving sessions as a UG and continue to take legit TAing opps over at GSU. As in, I don’t just grade papers and proctor, I am helping to redesign problem sets for workshops and run tutorial sessions so that I can stay decent at teaching and understand students better. Given this, I naturally want to keep tabs on how Emory is doing in the arena and whether it is offering anything particularly good or not, or at least tell people what is good and what isn’t (I’m not one of the alums that will present the school as perfect in everything).
In addition, when I try to give advice or info. on this forum about the school, I try to avoid talking generically about it and put a website or some numbers about each program so staying in the know really helps. I don’t want people, especially prospective students, getting superficial opinions about this type of stuff just so I can get them to send Emory an application. If I think Emory is worse at something than somewhere else, I’ll admit it. If I feel it is better or at least good at something, I want to be able to say so, but be able to support with something other than “well its a selective private school so it must be good”. I also don’t want people jumping to conclusions due to rank or popularity differences (whether in our favor or not).
Ah… a yellowjacket 
Nice jym! I wish I knew how good y’all were at things like structural biol because I am already thinking ahead…I am considering your bulldog enemies because that darned Complex Carbohydrate Research Center is amazing (that was one of the job offers I got, I almost felt miserable turning it down, but I figured a masters in something I like/am super interested in is worth more than a standard lab tech job). Also, considering University of Colorado Boulder because they have a solid one. Mainly considering public schools because they are good in things like structural biol and medicinal chemistry (I may consider this). But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. I have lots of research, a thesis, retaking the GRE (my score will expire :(, but it was pretty good so I can probably repeat or improve), a GRE subject test to go, and some pretty interesting grad. classes to try out.
In the NYT interview at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1 , Lazlo Block also said, “One of the things we’ve seen from all our data crunching is that G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless — no correlation at all except for brand-new college grads, where there’s a slight correlation.” This doesn’t support screening based on an extremely high test scores. And I expect the Google rep is bigger on students pursuing electrical and computer engineering majors than psychology because being a tech company, they offer far more positions related to electrical and computer engineering than psychology. I expect Google does not favor these majors because they are screening candidates based on majoring in “something hard.” Instead if it is a software/hardware engineering related position, they are looking for persons who learn related skills during college in their EE/CE/CS major. For the same reason, a counseling type job would favor the psychology majors over the EE/CE/CS majors.
I agree that STEM is a convenient acronym, rather than a group of majors with similar characteristics. However, I expect a large portion of persons choosing to major in biology are influenced by the high potential salary for medical fields (rather than planning to get a job with only a BS). I’d make a similar statement for economics at “elite” schools as well.
Some groups do hold many of the STEM majors in higher esteem than others, and there is often a financial component to these feelings. For example, we’ve seen multiple threads on from parents appearing to be concerned or disappointed that their excellent student son/daughter wants to go in to a field such as teaching instead of engineer, doctor, etc. Society offers similar reinforcement, which has probably contributed to the shift in majors towards those fields at selective colleges. For example, compare the most popular majors at Stanford today to 10 and 20 years ago. There appears a greater portion of students choosing higher salary fields and STEM fields than any time within the school’s history, including a larger portion than during the tech boom of the late 90s.
1994 – Psychology, Biology, Economics, Human Biology, English, Political Science, History
2004 – Human Biology, Economics, Biology, Computer Science, Political Science, Psychology, English, International Relations
2014 – Computer Science, Human Biology, General Engineering, Science Technology & Society, Biology, Economics, Mechanical Engineering, Management Sciences & Engineering, Electrical Engineering
Re: #225
Were these major popularity rankings for those who entered during those years, or those who graduated during those years?
Apparently, the CDS or much of its information does get sent to whoever maintains http://www.collegedata.com , which publishes a substantial subset of the information (including much of the information in section C for frosh admission, including test score ranges; see http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1039 ). So it is not like they are hiding such information by refusing the publish the CDS. But they are hiding information about degrees conferred and other parts of the CDS that are not published by http://www.collegedata.com .
The popularity rankings look at the total number of undergraduate students across the full 4±year class who have officially declared the specified major.
Looks like Stanford allows declaring a major from autumn quarter frosh year to spring quarter soph year, so the count should include all juniors and seniors, but may be skewed if students in some majors tend to declare earlier versus later in some other majors. When do students at Stanford typically declare their majors, and does that vary much in different majors?
Most students declare in freshman or sophomore years, but hundreds are undeclared at the start of junior year, as described at http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/09/25/uar-targets-sophomores-to-ease-declaration-process/ . The article also mentions some example students and their reasons for declaring late or switching majors such as,
I haven’t seen any official numbers, but I’d expect the types of students who declare late because they are unsure about what to major in are more likely to choose a major that can be completed in 4-years without a lot of long prerequisite sequences. So engineering and other majors with that are difficult to start late are probably overrepresented. However, engineering should be overrepresented in earlier years as well, so I expect trends are valid.
@Data10 : The economic climate could have contributed. Like I wonder if there was a suddenly dramatic shift in 2008/2010 for example (would be interesting to see if shift was gradual and then boom!). Because yes, Stanford lately has reminded me more of places like MIT than HYP.
@ucbalumnus : Yeah, I’ve actually noticed that this isn’t the only thing not being reported anymore. For a while the CDS was replaced by this thing called an academic profile which then stop in 2013 (only up to 2012 I think). This isn’t the only cases of reports ceasing to exist. Ironically it seems to largely coincide with the where several dept. cults and reallocation (Emory College “revisioning”) were announced. I think faculty were a bit shaken up by it which may explain why things compiled by faculty committees (such as minutes of meetings) stopped being reported publicly. They may have wanted to hide the nature of those discussions/discourse (say educational policy and curriculum committee minutes) from the public, but I cannot explain the CDS and academic profiles which are usually managed by the provost’s office.
There is definitely an economic climate contribution, as well as a contribution of various world or national events that happened in that period. If I go in 5-year increments instead of 10, then the previous tech boom in the late 90s becomes visible with a strong CS presence that declines tremendously after the dot com burst. The economics peak also likely was influenced by the stock market boom. 2009 seems similar to 2004, with slightly higher CS+engineering, and CS+engineering gradually increasing in each year since 2009.
1994 – Psychology, Biology, Economics, Human Biology, English, Political Science, History, Computer Science
1999 – Economics, Computer Science, Biology, Psychology, English, Human Biology, History, International Relations
2004 – Human Biology, Economics, Biology, Computer Science, Political Science, Psychology, English, International Relations
2009 – Human Biology, Economics, Biology, Computer Science, General Engineering, International Relations, Psychology, Management Sciences & Engineering
2014 – Computer Science, Human Biology, General Engineering, Science Technology & Society, Biology, Economics, Mechanical Engineering, Management Sciences & Engineering, Electrical Engineering
@Pizzagirl Post #212, I am with you in not putting added value on the monetary potential of a profession. Being in a position to give advice to high school students on prospective college majors, I always tell them to choose something they like, something they are good at, & something that pays enough to live on. My wife & I use that with our own kids. Give the example of looking at our career earnings year-by-year (social security webpage), we make more than 4 X what we made when starting our careers, but in reality our day-to-day lives have remained relatively unchanged. We may have a little nicer car, a little nicer home, but our everyday life is basically the same.
@bernie12 What I described earlier is just to get a precious interview slot, believe it or not. Here is the complete process: They start with an SAT screen. Then they check for GPA and course rigour. The successful candidates would then go through 3 layers of interview; many are cases, but also the “get to know you better” type. Finally they hire holistically among the survivors. It is important to note that most of the survivors are screened out after each layer of interview. So, of the ones started, only a tiny number gets an offer.
The process has its merits. You don’t have to have an Ivy degree to apply. They recruit quite extensively, at 40-50 universities, at both the undergrad and graduate (MBA) level. They also accept the ACT, GRE, GMAT etc., and scale them accordingly. All indications are that they are looking for the highest performers who can crack tough analytical problems under pressure on one hand and be smooth as butter on the other, all in an extremely competitive marketplace. Other MBB firms, investment banks etc. follow a similar system of recruiting, apparently. SES matters little in such a system, ability is what they are looking for. That, I respect.
Like it or not, Harvard sent 47% of graduates to finance and consulting in 2007. Princeton still sent 35.9% into finance alone in 2011. I seriously wonder about this “diversity” they talked about so much…I suspect it is simply a PR job.
@Data10 I disagree. Capable of doing electrical and computer engineering at a reputable school is an excellent proxy of high test scores. (Maybe not as high as physics, but high nevertheless). Another important point to remember is that Google is in the enviable position of being able to hire the best. We are no longer talking about a normal distribution, and so test scores to them are “worthless”. It is simply a problem of “range restriction”, if you will.
With respect to the young woman, let’s look at his exact words:
“I think this student was making a mistake,” said Bock, even if it meant lower grades. “She was moving out of a major where she would have been differentiated in the labor force” and “out of classes that would have made her better qualified for other jobs because of the training.”
He also said the following:
“I was on campus speaking to a student who was a computer science and math double major, who was thinking of shifting to an economics major because the computer science courses were too difficult. I told that student they are much better off being a B student in computer science than an A+ student in English because it signals a rigor in your thinking and a more challenging course load. That student will be one of our interns this summer.”
I think you are simply twisting his words to fit your opinion.
All of these facts do not matter to a HS applicant. One fact that they have to be prepared to face is that if they are going to engineering, architecture, pre-med and few others, they will have to adjust their academic efforts up considerably at ANY college, period, or face to be derailed from their initial track. This group includes every single student at every single college, it includes the HS valedictorians from the best schools in nation who decided for whatever personal reasons to attend in-state public colleges with obscure un-known names. Slacking will not work, even the same level of efforts as in HS will not work in these rigorous fields of study. The reasons for rigor is also different. For engineers, the academics is simply the most challenging in comparison to any other major. For pre-meds, the reason for rigor is a bit different - they have to maintain college GAP of about 3.7+ to have any chance at Med. School. They have to be involved with many medically related EC concurrently with high GPA requirements. The time management skills for them is absolute must.
There are specifics in each challenging major, but there is no question that at the same college, business major will not be as rigorous as engineering or pre-med. Many premeds have some kind of unrelated minor or even another major basically for R&R (like Music, Language, Art), to be away from the rigor of the classes in their main major.
What is a point to compare across the colleges when it is not possible? I believe that it is a waste of time. In some majors, just be prepared to work extremely hard, you will not be able to slack no matter where you attend.
In our very technologically advanced society, there are many jobs that need 4 years of difficult STEM related work at a academically sound institution (ABET accreditation is real, so good enough). There is simply no way for people to self teach themselves physics or calculus or how to do engineering analysis or advanced chemistry and no employer is going to train these people in house, unless they have special skills. For programming or even some related hardware work, there are likely self-taught experts without a lot of training, but Google probably can afford to pay BS salaries, so you would have to be extra magical to get those jobs, someone with a data base or Excel or normal IT may not need that much advanced computer science training so is likely using much cheaper staff.
So if you have those type of degrees, some elite technical employers will hire you. Biology and medicine have always had an issue that there are lots of PhDs and some MDs who are doing research and may not want to pay one of the plentiful biology BS degree folks a high salary. Physics seems to be headed the same way.
Employers really like new hires, because regardless of their salary they are still 30% cheaper than a senior person, and may be willing to work crazier hours, and because we are a youth-oriented culture with somewhat dim view of our elders (who are also retiring in droves).
Now not everyone needs to be a STEM expert, and STEM related fields like technical management don’t necessarily require 4 years of intense engineering work, maybe just something like the Ivy League engineering programs.
Obviously, our society still has a place for lots of liberal arts type majors too and lots of business majors since optimization is very important to stockholders, etc.
So not everyone at elite schools needs to major in STEM to be successful (and they probably have better social and communication skills than average engineers in lower tier ABET schools, so are better managers, sales folks).
@PickOne1 : It seems that calculus is not that hard to self-teach and neither is calculus based physics, thermodynamics, whatever. I haven’t seen Electricity and Magnetism in years, and yet went and helped a guy back at Emory taking sophomore (actually the brother of one of my good friends who is an alum) E and M figure out most of his homework (mainly the circuit stuff. The HW was of course more intense than the examples in the book). I had forgotten most of the material (I am much stronger at mechanics concepts and those seemed to stick), yet I just looked at the book, figured out some clever strategies for the problems at hand, and then they worked. I do not consider myself a particularly bright person, BTW. My main strengths are in things like biology (mainly molec. cell, biochem., enzymology, stuff like that) and organic chemistry and I am now working on getting extremely good at thermodynamics (physics perspective) and quantum mechanics. I just refuse to see myself as special…maybe it is because I like to challenge myself, and learn…has less to do with “raw” capabilities and more so grit. I’m not a perfect MC or SAT taker for example but can likely beat many great ones on a more open ended exam (as I often did during UG, even in STEM).
@Canuckguy It has some merit, but those are the wrong type of analytical problems (on those exams) in my opinion. I feel the US needs to find a way to begin designing exams with free response for science and math sections and encouraging younger people to be able to solve more open ended problems and think deeper. The problems at said companies will be more open ended and you’ll want to be able to solve them in efficient, yet creative ways. Also, I remember not liking multiple choice much because when prompts are written poorly/ trying to be tricky then the issue does not come down to knowledge more so than how you interpret the prompt. They can naturally punish those who overthink things. I remember I had this problem in my general biology 1 course where vague and convoluted questions would be asked to test higher order skills, but since they were so convoluted, it actually ended up making more than one answer valid depending on how you interpret the question or the assumptions you made. I would be more comfortable with people taking an entrance exam that they could not prepare for or maybe doing a screen based on other things and then ask the summoned to do something that clearly displays their supposed abilities in a non-MC format (maybe teach/communicate about something in a STEM area of interest/one that helps them for the job). I think in some cases the process is very important to how one gets to good answers and MC diminishes this importance and trades it for what are often cheap tricks taught be testbooklets. Like I remember the GRE (and SAT) math having so many tricks where you straight up need not understand the concept or math behind it fully but could use suggested short cuts to avoid wasting time. My experience in a computational chemistry lab right now tells me that said shortcuts are better informed by actually knowing the material instead of just finding clever ways to guess to quickly arrive at a, b, c, or d as a correct answer. In addition, there are multiple ways of doing the same task in things like CS. The real workplace rewards coming up with alternative methods of thought and even “answers” than an MC test.
Google revised their hiring practices to deemphasize school name and stats after their internal studies found that test scores were near “worthless” in predicting job success. It’s surprising that such high score persons at Google would all come to the wrong conclusion about how to interpret and use their internal studies and not realize that it is “simply a problem of range restriction.”
Let’s look at the currently offered at Google. Most of them have a qualifications section which says something like,
–BA/BS degree in Computer Science, related technical field or equivalent practical experience.
–MS degree in EE or CS or equivalent practical experience.
–BS degree in ME or equivalent practical experience
–Master’s degree in psychology, I-O Psychology, Organizational Development, related field, or equivalent practical experience.
They clearly aren’t just using major as a proxy for high test scores and are instead choosing degree qualifications that relate to learning about the field during college and receiving training that increases the chances of being successful in the position. You mentioned physics majors have higher scores that electrical and computer engineering, yet CS majors qualify for more than 10x the number of open positions at Google than physics majors. If they were just looking for high scores, the results would be very different. Psychology majors fair even worse than physics majors at Google with only a small handful of positions emphasizing psychology training, and many of those few requiring grad level degrees. This fits with his exact words you quoted saying “classes that would have made her better qualified for other jobs because of the training.”