Support NeoGAF

[Korey]

http://www.businessinsider.com/china-majors-bleak-outlook-2011-11

China quietly announced this morning it would phase out college majors with a bleak employment outlook, according to China Daily.

For any college major with an employment rate of less than 60 percent for two consecutive years, enrollment quotas will be reduced and the major eventually phased out.

China's graduate unemployment problem is as bad or worse than America's, with countless highly educated youth living in "intellectual slums" outside Beijing while looking for work. Major controls stand to improve the lives of college grads while also training China's workforce to meet demand.

Would this kind of pragmatic regulation happen in the U.S., where college students flock to liberal arts majors despite their bleak employment outlooks? We can't imagine it would.

China is also taking measures to increase employment options like offering loan repayment for people who work in remote areas and encouraging firms and universities to hire recent graduates.

 

[Ketchup Boy]

I feel like it's a smart move for the economy of the country, but to limit majors especially for people interested in them is not the right move. Some people don't really care about money. They should on the other hand maybe require more classes in math and science so that if they cannot find employment for the majors they chose, they can come back to school and pursue majors that have better employment outlook like with engineering.

 

[Angry Fork]

obligatory:

Note - I don't necessarily agree with what's being insinuated but still find it really funny.

 

[hteng]

that sucks, but won't phasing out less popular majors increase competition on other majors?

 

[Al-ibn Kermit]

I feel like it's a smart move for the economy of the country, but to limit majors especially for people interested in them is not the right move. Some people don't really care about money. They should on the other hand maybe require more classes in math and science so that if they cannot find employment for the majors they chose, they can come back to school and pursue majors that have better employment outlook like with engineering.

Limiting it makes it so that only the most competitive/passionate students get a lib arts degree. These are the students who are going to get the only jobs relevant to their field anyways.

An alternative is requiring everybody to get a minor in some sort of liberal arts while mainly focusing their studies on getting a degree that's more hire-able

 

[Jason's Ultimatum]

I feel like it's a smart move for the economy of the country, but to limit majors especially for people interested in them is not the right move. Some people don't really care about money. They should on the other hand maybe require more classes in math and science so that if they cannot find employment for the majors they chose, they can come back to school and pursue majors that have better employment outlook like with engineering.

I think it's a good idea, but then again, if say, employment rate among political science grads was low, and they removed the program, then I'd be pissed.

Political Science was the only program that interested me, because 1) I was interested in politics and knew It would help me get better grades, and 2) I wanted to learn more about political philosophies.

I graduated back in August, and I still haven't found a job.

 

[Zoramon089]

Are they still going to offer those classes as electives for people? I know I took some classes that I definitely wouldn't major in but thought were fun and interesting

 

[ronito]

Just another thing to point out that the idea of "college" is largely outdated.

I think there needs to be a traditional college/university experience for scholars and artists and such.

But if you're looking at college as job training, it's incredibly wasteful.

I love the concept of a university as a scholarly experience more than most but come on, really, it's not supposed to be there to get you ready for a job.

 

[Goro Majima]

Something similar that the US could do is just remove all federal aid for students pursuing unemployable degrees. That would at least eliminate these college grads with $100k+ of student loan debt for getting a music degree from a private school.

 

[Angelus Errare]

Something similar that the US could do is just remove all federal aid for students pursuing unemployable degrees. That would at least eliminate these college grads with $100k+ of student loan debt for getting a music degree from a private school.

Or alternatively, they could just standardize higher education in the US and basically get rid of these private schools.

 

[Ketchup Boy]

Just another thing to point out that the idea of "college" is largely outdated.

I think there needs to be a traditional college/university experience for scholars and artists and such.

But if you're looking at college as job training, it's incredibly wasteful.

I love the concept of a university as a scholarly experience more than most but come on, really, it's not supposed to be there to get you ready for a job.

Honestly, I see college as just a training ground to train your mind to think more logically and analytically. I feel like everyone should go to college because they'll (at least they should be) worked harder to think much more than in high school. Although the benefits may be hard to see, there is no question that you probably can solve much more difficult problems than your peers that have not gone to college and you can solve problems quicker, too. We train our mind to learn new concepts and we get used to it. So whenever we need to learn something down the road, we'll have the experience to learn it efficiently and quickly.

 

[Big-E]

Not so bad an idea. I know where I went to school, they keep graduating more and more people in the education program year after year but there aren't that many positions. People getting an education degree are people who already have a bachelors who want to get into teaching so it is a program where you are directly learning to do one type of job. Seems shitty to be bringing in more and more kids when there are no jobs there. I believe the College of Teachers for the province has told the university to start cutting back but that would mean less money for the university so that doesn't happen.

 

[Haly]

I feel like everyone should go to college because they'll (at least they should be) worked harder to think much more than in high school.

This is the ideal but I don't think there's a chance higher education will ever work out like this in practice.

 

[TheMan]

Why don't they just require students who want useless degrees to double major in something that can actually land them a job?

 

[Zzoram]

Even many STEM majors are overflowing with far more students than the market can handle.

The real problem is that the economy just isn't set up to handle a workforce made up of so many university educated people. Increasing enrollment is something politicians and parents think is great, and universities do for the tuition, but it just results in more competition for the same number of jobs in many fields.

All universities are also really misleading about the job prospects of their many majors. Even the more technical and professional majors are massively over-saturated, stuff like law being an obvious example.

 

[outunderthestars]

Or alternatively, they could just standardize higher education in the US and basically get rid of these private schools.

THIS. Too much federal aid is going to bullshit online diploma mills.

Everyone with Netflix needs to watch this:

http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Frontline_College_Inc./70139469?trkid=2361637

 

[Ketchup Boy]

I think it's a good idea, but then again, if say, employment rate among political science grads was low, and they removed the program, then I'd be pissed.

Political Science was the only program that interested me, because 1) I was interested in politics and knew It would help me get better grades, and 2) I wanted to learn more about political philosophies.

I graduated back in August, and I still haven't found a job.

Yeah, I hear ya. Sucks. Right now, I'm in my 5th year and I'm studying econ (done with econ requirements) and math and taking comp. sci. courses. Of course, I'm interested in these subjects, but they kind of don't have anything to do with what I really want to do in life. But still, I'm probably going to stay in school a 6th year to try to get a major in comp. sci.. I just want to be sure I'll be able to find employment in a field I like when I graduate and get some experience. Then after that I'll pursue my true dreams.

 

[delirium]

As much as I make fun of liberal art majors, I don't think this is a good idea. A major point of college education is just to learn, just for the sake of learning. Yes, there are some majors which you might not want if you want to be employed, but I don't think you should get rid of them because of that.

 

[2San]

"For any college major with an employment rate of less than 60 percent for two consecutive years."

With an employment rate of less than 60 percent they should indeed ban that shit from existence. If you like it so much do self-study. Getting proper instruction from a teacher isn't going to help you, since it doesn't seem to have any real world application anyhow.

 

[Tornado Condor]

I hope this doesn't happen in the US, otherwise us science majors won't have art majors to make fun of.

 

[loosus]

But if you're looking at college as job training, it's incredibly wasteful.

I love the concept of a university as a scholarly experience more than most but come on, really, it's not supposed to be there to get you ready for a job.

This is only true for poor universities. A good university will prepare you for a real job, regardless of the field or major and also regardless of whether there are a few truly "fluff" classes that are ultimately meaningless. Don't try painting all universities with the same brush.

 

[Genesis Knight]

Just another thing to point out that the idea of "college" is largely outdated.

I think there needs to be a traditional college/university experience for scholars and artists and such.

But if you're looking at college as job training, it's incredibly wasteful.

I love the concept of a university as a scholarly experience more than most but come on, really, it's not supposed to be there to get you ready for a job.

How can you say this so unilaterally? I think my chances of being able to get a job in software engineering without a college education would be minuscule.

 

[Ketchup Boy]

As much as I make fun of liberal art majors, I don't think this is a good idea. A major point of college education is just to learn, just for the sake of learning. Yes, there are some majors which you might not want if you want to be employed, but I don't think you should get rid of them because of that.

Seriously, learning makes people more interesting and fun to be around. It makes the world more interesting.

 

[CornBurrito]

I hope this doesn't happen in the US, otherwise us science majors won't have art majors to make fun of.

Science majors (not counting math/physics/engineering) can only be employed if they move on to med school. And you can go to med school after majoring in a lib art.

 

[Phoenix]

That's an incredibly short sighted and largely implausible idea. It takes a wide variety of disciplines to make up an economy - even though some of those might be in short supply. You can't build product strategy with just those that are highly employed. For every group of PhDs in Engineering on a successful product team there is a group of tech writers, artists, and designers that made the product actually usable by real people.

 

[Quixzlizx]

Seems it would make more sense to simply un-subsidize unproductive majors, rather than completely eliminate them.

 

[Bgamer90]

"For any college major with an employment rate of less than 60 percent for two consecutive years."

With an employment rate of less than 60 percent they should indeed ban that shit from existence. If you like it so much do self-study. Getting proper instruction from a teacher isn't going to help you, since it doesn't seem to have any real world application anyhow.

So real world application is based on employment rate?

No one that goes for a major with an employment rate <60% can use what they learned in a creative/innovative way?


I mean that goes against what college is supposedly about. It's now seemingly becoming more and more about getting a good job and nothing more.

 

[Jason's Ultimatum]

Yeah, I hear ya. Sucks. Right now, I'm in my 5th year and I'm studying econ (done with econ requirements) and math and taking comp. sci. courses. Of course, I'm interested in these subjects, but they kind of don't have anything to do with what I really want to do in life. But still, I'm probably going to stay in school a 6th year to try to get a major in comp. sci.. I just want to be sure I'll be able to find employment in a field I like when I graduate and get some experience. Then after that I'll pursue my true dreams.

I want to work in federal law enforcement. If I majored in, say, engineering, information technology, or computer science, then I could still become a special agent with a government agency, but in a specialized position, like in the majors I described.

Too fucking late now.

 

[dinazimmerman]

I agree that you should able to learn fluff just for the sake of learning fluff. But the price of such an education should reflect the fact that it's a luxury good. Learning postmodern critical theory just for the sake of it should be expensive. Private organizations can by all means establish scholarship programs for students of these fluff fields, and universities dedicated to the liberal arts can continue to offer financial aid to their students irrespective of their choice of major. But the government shouldn't offer financial aid to students of fluff fields.

 

[delirium]

I think a much better change (for the US) would be major regulation of for-profit schools. They drain a disproportional amount of educational grant money and are in my opinion a huge fucking scam. A good start would be saying that grant money can't go to for-profit schools.

 

[2San]

So real world application is based on employment rate?

No one that goes for a major with an employment rate <60% can use what they learned in a creative/innovative way?


I mean that goes against what college is supposedly about. It's now seemingly becoming more and more about getting a good job and nothing more.

Was kinda being overdramatic, but cutting funding would be enough. Though cutting funding in China is pretty much banning it in China.

Sure they could, but you could self teach yourself to great effect without wasting money to great effect as well if you are actually dedicated.

What's wrong with that? Just so you know proper science major all have real world application. Majors that have an employment rate lower then 60% are really really out there.

 

[Natetan]

Just another thing to point out that the idea of "college" is largely outdated.

I think there needs to be a traditional college/university experience for scholars and artists and such.

But if you're looking at college as job training, it's incredibly wasteful.

I love the concept of a university as a scholarly experience more than most but come on, really, it's not supposed to be there to get you ready for a job.

yeah i agree with this to an extent. i would not have been able to do my jobs after college and grad school without my liberal arts degrees though. that said, there never was a 'here's how to use your skills in the working world'.

i think they should just extend high school another four years. or extend it two years like community college where you can get requirement out of the way and choose your major, and then two years of undergrad at the end. two years is enough time time to booze out, find a spouse, etc, have a scholarly experience, and the other auxiliary function the college experience serves.

 

[Haly]

I agree that you should able to learn fluff just for the sake of learning fluff. But the price of such an education should reflect the fact that it's a luxury good. Learning postmodern critical theory just for the sake of it should be expensive.

I don't think higher education should be expensive. But I do think that colleges shouldn't present the humanities as a viable alternative to the sciences, which gives the false impression that the two fields are comparable in terms of applicability.

Institutions should make it clearer that going into field where something like postmodern critical theory is a core will not result in a degree with high employability.

 

[Ketchup Boy]

I want to work in federal law enforcement. If I majored in, say, engineering, information technology, or computer science, then I could still become a special agent with a government agency, but in a specialized position, like in the majors I described.

Too fucking late now.

You're in like your twenties, right? You got a good 50 something years left to live on this beautiful planet, in this beautiful universe. Spend your life right and you have so far. You majored in what you wanted to major in and what interested you. That get's respect from me. Now, for the job you want, if you really want it, look at what others have done to get it and then do the same thing and don't stop until you achieve your goal. Here's a cool motivational video to hype you up (kind of stole some of my lines from it haha) :

http://youtu.be/ujMP41Rphzc

 

[_Xenon_]

Are they still going to offer those classes as electives for people? I know I took some classes that I definitely wouldn't major in but thought were fun and interesting

Yes. Actually, you HAVE TO take some of those art / literature / history classes in order to graduate. I have 2 degrees in engineering, but I still had to get credits from something like history of Christianity, paintings art appreciation, etc in order to get my engineering degrees. In China, collages usually have 2 kinds of credits you have to take in order to graduate: credits from your majors and (only a few) credits from art/literature/history/society.

That's an incredibly short sighted and largely implausible idea. It takes a wide variety of disciplines to make up an economy - even though some of those might be in short supply. You can't build product strategy with just those that are highly employed. For every group of PhDs in Engineering on a successful product team there is a group of tech writers, artists, and designers that made the product actually usable by real people.

You are talking about majors you are not interested in, not majors have a low employment rate. Some of the collage majors simply have no practical use outside schools. The only job they can get is teaching these useless things in another collage.

 

[Bgamer90]

Was kinda being overdramatic, but cutting funding would be enough. Though cutting funding in China is pretty much banning it in China.

Sure they could, but you could self teach yourself to great effect without wasting money to great effect as well if you are actually dedicated.

What's wrong with that? Just so you know proper science major all have real world application. Majors that have an employment rate lower then 60% are really really out there.

I just don't get the whole "this degree is completely unemployable" view since I personally know people of science majors that have had a hard time and people of non-science majors doing well.

I mean, it's just really short sighted to me since you don't know how the student will use their learning and/or what situations they will face after graduating.

It's funny since a good number of people I know who went into "well paying" majors they hated ended up not finding the work they expected where as the people I know that went into "not so well paying majors" due to them loving the subject matter ended up doing cool/innovative stuff for new companies and have good paying jobs.

And in terms of wasting money, there's people of various (seemingly all) majors that feel like they wasted money so again, I (obviously) feel that it varies and you can't just base things on statistics since they always change with time. Maybe I'm wrong for thinking that way though.

 

[Tarazet]

Or alternatively, they could just standardize higher education in the US and basically get rid of these private schools.

When was the last time you heard of a private college going out of business? Easy credit has created a higher-education bubble much along the same lines as housing..

 

[Xeke]

Yeah lets get rid of well rounded people and a source of culture. Blah. We'll all become a nation of people great at computers and engineering with no real sense of culture.

 

[loosus]

Yeah lets get rid of well rounded people and a source of culture. Blah. We'll all become a nation of people great at computers and engineering with no real sense of culture.

What we're ultimately going to become is a world of unemployed because what a lot of the STEM masturbaters don't realize is that (a) not everyone can even do STEM from a mental capability (i.e., not everyone is wired for it) and (b) quite a lot of activity in STEM is from the arts. There are numerous engineers involved in the production of movies, for example.

 

[LightOfTruth]

Science majors (not counting math/physics/engineering) can only be employed if they move on to med school. And you can go to med school after majoring in a lib art.

Sorry, I don't really understand this. Can you clarify?

 

[dinazimmerman]

I don't think higher education should be expensive. But I do think that colleges shouldn't present the humanities as a viable alternative to the sciences, which gives the false impression that the two fields are comparable in terms of applicability.

Institutions should make it clearer that going into field where something like postmodern critical theory is a core will not result in a degree with high employability.

Well, a degree in postmodern critical theory should be relatively expensive compared to a degree in chemical engineering. It should be expensive enough to incentivize more students to pursue high-demand majors.

I agree that students should be provided more and better information about career prospects. This should start in high school, though. High school guidance counselors do a horrible job providing this sort of information (not to mention they try to persuade students to go to small and exorbitantly expensive liberal schools far from home...).

 

[Haly]

Yeah lets get rid of well rounded people and a source of culture. Blah. We'll all become a nation of people great at computers and engineering with no real sense of culture.

You can become cultured outside of college.

I don't understand this argument. From my experience, it's much harder to gain formalized training in a technical skill (such as programming) without the aid or discipline provided by a college environment than it is for something like writing. Hell, I've probably learned more about people/the world by just posting on and reading NeoGAF than I have from my Liberal Arts cores.

 

[CornBurrito]

Sorry, I don't really understand this. Can you clarify?

Well there is a glut of bio/chem majors. Unless you go to med school after earning those degrees your options aren't much better than someone who got a liberal arts degree.

But if you are going to go to med school then you don't even need to bother with a science degree as long as you satisfy the prereqs.

 

[ccbfan]

Where the heck did this liberal arts majors are consider more "well rounded" originated. I only hear it on GAF and its like used in every topic concerning colleges.

What I find weird is that Science/Engineering Majors have to take more Liberal Arts classes than Liberal Arts majors have to take Science Engineering classes.

Don't get me wrong I loved the required 8 semester of Liberal Arts classes during my college years. It was really easy. Classes was like 4 hours instead of the 6-8 for sciences. The tests I didn't even have to study for. Plus I got to take some interesting classes like Video Game psychology, Buddhism, Environmental Sociology, Japanese, economics ect.

 

[Bgamer90]

What we're ultimately going to become is a world of unemployed because what a lot of the STEM masturbaters don't realize is that (a) not everyone can even do STEM from a mental capability (i.e., not everyone is wired for it) and (b) quite a lot of activity in STEM is from the arts. There are numerous engineers involved in the production of movies, for example.

Yeah it can definitely go hand in hand especially in this current tech filled world that we live in.

But things are becoming less about making people become well rounded and more about "getting a high paying job" which is funny since you would think that it would be the other way around based on how the current state of the economy is.

 

[kmfdmpig]

(b) quite a lot of activity in STEM is from the arts. There are numerous engineers involved in the production of movies, for example.

Good points. One of the more interesting points in the Steve Jobs book was that a class on calligraphy, of all things, was very important to him.
If we look at college in clinical terms such as future employment prospects then we deny that type of potential inspiration.
College is both about helping improve one's job prospects, but also about expanding one's mind. I was a liberal arts major, and I've never been unemployed except for a 5 month period in between jobs. Should my choices have been denied to me because others took a similar path and failed? It's great to try to help people make smart choices, but when we prohibit them from making (potentially) bad choices that is a big step in the wrong direction.

A final factor worth thinking about is that the average person changes jobs and careers much more than in the past. Having a well rounded education can help in a wide range of positions. Having very specific training might be more helpful in that one field, but would be much less useful during a transition to a new career. Someone that can think critically, write well and research effectively has a leg up in many fields.

 

[ccbfan]

What we're ultimately going to become is a world of unemployed because what a lot of the STEM masturbaters don't realize is that (a) not everyone can even do STEM from a mental capability (i.e., not everyone is wired for it) and (b) quite a lot of activity in STEM is from the arts. There are numerous engineers involved in the production of movies, for example.

The arts still are going to be there. Its just now there won't be a bunch or art grads working in starbucks. No one said there' won't be art majors. It about making it more competitive. Making it so the amount of art grads coming out is a lot closer to the amount of jobs availiable then having a shit ton of art grads come out because it was a fun and easy major.

 

[Bgamer90]

Where the heck did this liberal arts majors are consider more "well rounded" originated.

Many non-stem majors have at often times blended various study fields & skills together in their line of work. Also many arguably take more classes dealing with social interaction or being able to state your thoughts/ideas in different ways which helps in terms of dealing with various people.

 

[Wilsongt]

Well there is a glut of bio/chem majors. Unless you go to med school after earning those degrees your options aren't much better than someone who got a liberal arts degree.

But if you are going to go to med school then you don't even need to bother with a science degree as long as you satisfy the prereqs.

You can also go to graduate school and get a Ph.D.

 

[Bgamer90]

There should be more kids pushed into trade schools and 2-year-or-fewer medical certs (nursing, lab techs, medical coding, etc) right out of high school, instead of diluting the arts & scientists with more well-meaning but average dullards. These are actual employable service/maintenance jobs that can't be pushed out of country and will exist until we get robotic replacements to do them sometime next century, after which point we'll all be brutally killed by a robot uprising caused by the great Artificial Intelligence Singularity, o'course.

Also, liberal arts tend to be oversaturated with bullshit such as postmodernism & critical theory and could probably use a ruthless culling & downsizing anyway. Um, go China?

Can't really say what's "actually employable" and what's not. Statistics may support it but there's many who can't find work in jobs that are considered that way.