who decided to choose a stupid major
you can have him consult this list first.
On a related note, I was kicking around contacting my state senator when I lived in Minnesota about recommending this idea. After never hearing back from him about other ideas I had, I decided it was pointless.
This will be one of those ideas that will never make it to the floor of a state legislature because Republicans lack a spine.
8 comments:
I clicked on "Unemployment Percent" (twice, to put the highest percentages at the top) and laughed all the way down the column. Clinical psych, educational psych, industrial & organizational psych, miscellaneous psych, social psych ... gotta wonder if these kids need their heads examined.
Instrumentation and control tech in a nuclear power plant - last year 135K. Good to know I didn't waste a ton of time and money on degree (although I do have two different tech college diplomas and an electrician license. - minuteman
Strange that the list didn't include "Puppeteering" and "Transgender Studies".
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/11/23/china-to-cancel-college-majors-that-dont-pay/
It is not a matter of stupid.
It is a matter of "won't listen" and also educrat propaganda.
Smart kids have no idea how the world works and think they will succeed somehow even if they major in something dumb. Also they bave tezchers telling them "do what you love and you'll be fine".
In Case You Have a Stupid Parent
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/24/fashion/babies-surnames-to-hyphenate-or-not.html?pagewanted=all
Advice to a student:
Even worse than useless courses is grade inflation. It is nearly universal in universities and colleges. It comes from a combination of professorial and administrative gutlessness, cynicism, opportunism (more bums in seats), and perhaps the usual leftist idealism. Employers, not to mention university graduate officers, are good at reading transcripts. These days a student can lie to his parents but not to those people. Grade inflation will drain you or your parents of money but is of no benefit to you.
Anyway, if you the student are getting less than 70% (or 75%, depending n the school), consistently, quit. QUIT. Save everybody some money. That is what Steve Jobs did. He was not willing to work at his courses, and he wished to save his not-well-heeled parents the tuition costs, which even then were considerable.
If your transcript has many marks below 70%, you won't get a job. You may get a literacy test, as happened to a chap I know, when he applied for a loan. Graduate officers know that you know nothing - NOTHING. But a degree with a 65% average costs every bit as much as a degree with a 90% average.
Even a graduate with a women's studies degree may be worth something if she has a 95% average. An engineer, an accountant, or an economist, with a 65% average knows NOTHING and is worth NOTHING these days.
Such is grade inflation in the modern university. It is the nastiest thing we do to our students. I am marking an exam as I write this. Some of the students in the course are good, maybe more than half, but why the H*** did we let the rest get into a third year physics course!
Every high school counselor ought to show that list to every 9th grader.
And every parent ought to as well.
Unfortunately, the list stops at 173 - I'm sure there are more that didn't make the list.
As for the Captain's suggestion, I agree. Universities and colleges do need to realize that they have limited resources and they should target those programs which have the most benefit to society. Land-grant universities should be covering the programs that meet the specific needs of their particular state.
And while we're at it, there is no reason why public universities and colleges should duplicate some of the less ubiquitous degrees. For example, in North Dakota, UND has the aviation school, NDSU has the Operation Research school. UND has the med school, NDSU has the pharmacy school.
I'd also agree with the grade inflation business - if you're not pulling in B average grades in your major after two years, you either need to get your stuff together and work hardware or get out.
When I was a TA teaching remedial Algebra which wasn't even a class that college credit was granted, I had a kid come in just before finals all worried about passing. It was the first time I had seen him. He claimed he worked hard and just couldn't get it and his father would make him drop out of school if he failed.
I tried to be kind but firm, I told him that passing him would not help much because it was a non-credit class and a D was darned near as damaging as an F. But I also told him if he really did work as hard as he had claimed, he needed to do something other than go to college, and if he didn't work hard and goofed around, he wasn't ready for college.
That was an extremely difficult and almost cruel thing to say, but it had to be said.
The student had people willing to help, including tutors available during the day and on evenings, yet hadn't used them. And yes, I failed him.
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