(09-20-2023 03:06 PM)WMInTheBurg Wrote:  

(09-20-2023 09:56 AM)Tribe32 Wrote:  

(09-20-2023 08:09 AM)wm_geographer Wrote:  Long-time lurker here. Graduated in 2015 and a remain a big Tribe fan.

While it may be true that Liberal Arts degrees--on their own accord--are not as high-paying and shiny as STEM degrees, I find that the types of skills I learned as a liberal arts major (writing, critical thinking, problem solving, eager to learn new things) are the skills and traits that make much more useful day-to-day than the types of skills my more STEM-background colleagues possess (coding, databases, etc.). STEM skills, without any commensurate knowledge of liberal arts, are very, very, very replaceable. The wholistic liberal arts education, interspersed with STEM, is much more marketable than you think.

I hate seeing liberal arts denigrated at the expense of STEM. Yes, their benefits seem less intuitive or obvious at first. All the while, the benefits they provide are much, much harder to visualize and quantify, so they get left out of these types of discussions.

W&M definitely got me to a place I would not be otherwise. Definitely didn't recognize this as a student or recent grad, but it's become more clear 10+ years out of school.

I agree with your post, but I think the real differentiator in our students is their intellect/brain power. To me it's less about liberal arts or whatever and more to do with the students that come to Williamsburg.

Our big problem is that we aren't a factory putting people into jobs. Outside of the business degrees, big companies don't flock to William and Mary to recruit (with the exception of athletes). When is the last time that someone like Apple/Amazon/Google was interested in a Philosophy major?

Apple/Amazon/Google don't care about your major. Aside from that, is your argument that it's hard to get a job at big corporations with a W&M degree? What's the basis for "we aren't a factory putting people into jobs". I graduated forever ago, so my experience isn't particularly relevant, but at that time people didn't have a hard time finding jobs with their degrees. I haven't seen anything indicating that changed. On top of that, one of the stated goals for our current strategic planning initiative is guaranteeing paid interships for students that want them by 2026. I would think that would lead to jobs in the related fields for the internships.

Let me address your questions, but first I will say that Apple/Amazon/Google absolutely care about your degree and often recruit kids straight out of high school based on their ability to code and do other technically oriented work. They also love really smart people, but aren't going to spend a lot of effort recruiting liberal arts majors on college campuses. If we had a better Computer Science reputation or an Engineering school, maybe they would hang around Williamsburg more often.

I never said that a William and Mary degree wasn't valuable, nor did I say it was hard to find a job with a William and Mary degree. I have two and owe a lot of my success to William and Mary. What I'm saying is that outside of the business school, big business doesn't line up for liberal arts majors. We aren't a conduit into big business. Quite frankly a lot of our undergrad liberal arts majors don't go to big corporations right out of school anyway. Many go to law school, medical school, or other grad schools. Many go into teaching.

As for the factory comment, the bigger schools, especially in larger metro areas have much better relationships with companies for internships, and help place thousands of students into jobs every year. Other than the business school, we don't do that in a meaningful way. I appreciate that Rowe has this as a stated objective and heard her speak about it last year at homecoming. I know that Dean Mooradian is working hard on the same concept and trying to build strong ties in the DC area.

My post wasn't a slam at the college as much as my feelings around the value of a liberal arts major in today's world business world.

(09-20-2023 04:53 PM)Tribe32 Wrote:  

(09-20-2023 03:06 PM)WMInTheBurg Wrote:  

(09-20-2023 09:56 AM)Tribe32 Wrote:  

(09-20-2023 08:09 AM)wm_geographer Wrote:  Long-time lurker here. Graduated in 2015 and a remain a big Tribe fan.

While it may be true that Liberal Arts degrees--on their own accord--are not as high-paying and shiny as STEM degrees, I find that the types of skills I learned as a liberal arts major (writing, critical thinking, problem solving, eager to learn new things) are the skills and traits that make much more useful day-to-day than the types of skills my more STEM-background colleagues possess (coding, databases, etc.). STEM skills, without any commensurate knowledge of liberal arts, are very, very, very replaceable. The wholistic liberal arts education, interspersed with STEM, is much more marketable than you think.

I hate seeing liberal arts denigrated at the expense of STEM. Yes, their benefits seem less intuitive or obvious at first. All the while, the benefits they provide are much, much harder to visualize and quantify, so they get left out of these types of discussions.

W&M definitely got me to a place I would not be otherwise. Definitely didn't recognize this as a student or recent grad, but it's become more clear 10+ years out of school.

I agree with your post, but I think the real differentiator in our students is their intellect/brain power. To me it's less about liberal arts or whatever and more to do with the students that come to Williamsburg.

Our big problem is that we aren't a factory putting people into jobs. Outside of the business degrees, big companies don't flock to William and Mary to recruit (with the exception of athletes). When is the last time that someone like Apple/Amazon/Google was interested in a Philosophy major?

Apple/Amazon/Google don't care about your major. Aside from that, is your argument that it's hard to get a job at big corporations with a W&M degree? What's the basis for "we aren't a factory putting people into jobs". I graduated forever ago, so my experience isn't particularly relevant, but at that time people didn't have a hard time finding jobs with their degrees. I haven't seen anything indicating that changed. On top of that, one of the stated goals for our current strategic planning initiative is guaranteeing paid interships for students that want them by 2026. I would think that would lead to jobs in the related fields for the internships.

Let me address your questions, but first I will say that Apple/Amazon/Google absolutely care about your degree and often recruit kids straight out of high school based on their ability to code and do other technically oriented work. They also love really smart people, but aren't going to spend a lot of effort recruiting liberal arts majors on college campuses. If we had a better Computer Science reputation or an Engineering school, maybe they would hang around Williamsburg more often.

I never said that a William and Mary degree wasn't valuable, nor did I say it was hard to find a job with a William and Mary degree. I have two and owe a lot of my success to William and Mary. What I'm saying is that outside of the business school, big business doesn't line up for liberal arts majors. We aren't a conduit into big business. Quite frankly a lot of our undergrad liberal arts majors don't go to big corporations right out of school anyway. Many go to law school, medical school, or other grad schools. Many go into teaching.

As for the factory comment, the bigger schools, especially in larger metro areas have much better relationships with companies for internships, and help place thousands of students into jobs every year. Other than the business school, we don't do that in a meaningful way. I appreciate that Rowe has this as a stated objective and heard her speak about it last year at homecoming. I know that Dean Mooradian is working hard on the same concept and trying to build strong ties in the DC area.

My post wasn't a slam at the college as much as my feelings around the value of a liberal arts major in today's world business world.

We're the #1 public school in the country for 3 years running for internships according to Princeton Review. Links at the bottom of this post, the most recent update for Vision 2026. https://www.wm.edu/about/administration/...review.php

Before you said the problem was we weren't a "factory putting people into jobs", but if graduates are getting jobs in the fields they want or going on to post-grad degrees, why does it matter whether it's tech or "big business"?

w/r/t tech companies and degrees, they care about whether you can code (or do whatever the job entails) not the degree you have. If you had a W&M Philosophy degree but passed their coding tests, they'd hire you. I think you're saying that as well, which leads me back to the question in the last paragraph.

I'm not sure if it's still a thing, but as a Computer Science major I used to get emails about W&M teams participating in "Hackathons". I think there was a hiatus for COVID and I'm not sure if those events are back yet. Those events act as recruiting tools for big tech, although not all events necessarily have big tech sponsors. My point is that while W&M doesn't have a big tech presence, if you want to do that there's ample opportunity to do that and succeed at whatever company you want. The Vision 2026 post linked above states that W&M is the #16 public university for tech salaries for graduates, according to the Wall Street Journal, meaning W&M grads are getting tech jobs and getting good tech jobs.

I'm not trying to catch you out, I'm trying to understand the distinction you're trying to make and why it would be a problem for W&M.

More fodder for this discussion: an article about cuts in liberal arts programs at West Virginia University.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/19/opinions/...index.html

From the article:
"Most employers rely on on-the-job training to onboard new employees, whatever their degree. When I visited Cisco Systems, the network engineering firm, a couple years ago and asked if their new cadre of trainee engineers all came with engineering degrees, the recruiter chuckled. “They have all kinds of different degrees,” he said. “We have English majors, history majors. We teach them what we need them to know.” What was most important, he said, was that they were enthusiastic, knew how to listen and ask questions and were willing to try different solutions until they found one that worked."
"The disconnect between what campuses think employers want and what employers actually need can be stark. Yet many colleges continue to eliminate the programs that produce the very skills, in communication, cultural awareness, research and synthesis, that employers need and want."


Meanwhile, totally unrelated to the academic aspects of this, I also found this quote to be interesting:
"What could be more cynical and opportunistic than the combination, in a public institution, of eliminating educational breadth and at the same time, cultivating elite status for selected programs? For instance, Gee told The Post that cuts to the liberal arts programs would allow the university to develop a “world-class” program in neuroscience."

Substitute athletics for academics in that quote and I immediately thought of how some on this board favor eliminating numerous Olympic sports at W&M in order to reallocate budgetary resources to the Men's Basketball program....as if we would suddenly become world class in that sport and garner invitations to prestigious conferences based on our having eventually (presumably) won a few NCAA tournament games.