On Sat, 19 May 2012 21:14:52 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 19 May 2012 09:01:39 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:


fields such as law and technology. Some contend that colleges
are churning out too many liberal arts majors and not enough
scientists.


The largest major area of study in US colleges is science and
engineering (17.8 million enrolled, not counting social sciences or
psychology). Business is 11.6 million. Education is 8.0 million.
Liberal arts, including communications, is 9.8 million. That's as of
2010.

There are more engineering students, alone (4.513 million) than social
science students (4.501 million)


An engineering degree doesn't prevent you from being unemployed. My
son has a masters in electrical engineering and was unemployed for a
year. He finally got a position early this year when the economy
looked like it was turning around.

Well, sure, a degree is never a guarantee of anything. We're talking
about statistics here, and having a college degree, in general, puts
one in a far better position for employment. There really isn't any
question about it. But a degree alone is no assurance of a job.

There are multiple stories playing themselves out simultaneously. One
story that still sticks in my mind, from six or eight years ago, came
from the owner of a high-tech company on the west coast, who was
complaining about the unavailability of good graduate engineers in the
US. Then he said he'd sent some of his design work to India, where he
was getting all of the good engineering services he wanted, from
engineers who were working for (then) $10,000/yr. He planned to do
much more of it.

So what was he saying to kids in the US? If I were a college student,
he would be telling me that he wanted more engineering students to
apply at his company, but that he wouldn't hire them if they did,
unless they were willing to compete with engineers in India at
$10,000/yr.

He was talking out of both sides of his mouth. I've interviewed a lot
of bnusiness managers over the last three decades, from companies
large and small, and he was more typical than we would like to
believe. They aren't being untruthful. They're just talking through a
conventional narrative that is in conflict with many of the business
imperatives that they have to follow.

That isn't a criticism: businesses have to follow the imperatives of
finance, of markets, and of costs and competition. But the real story
about employment is not as simple as their narratives. Your son
apparently has had that experience. I'm glad to hear he got a job.
I'll bet that some of his classmates, even those who did well in
college, probably don't have jobs in their field. My son, too, is one
of the lucky ones. He graduated two years ago and he's been working at
a good job in his field for over a year and a half. Many of his
friends from college are not.

My sense is that the kids can see these contradictions, and they're
wary about job prospects, while at the same time knowing that their
chance of being unemployed will be half as great if they get a degree.
So they keep plugging. More power to them. As for what they choose to
study, they aren't going to buy into the simplistic stories they've
been told. They can read the statistics, which really are quite simple
but which most people haven't bothered to study at all. I think they
can see the gap between the conventional wisdom and the real story
about who is being hired and not.

--
Ed Huntress