Also, last I checked, college grads generally do not get hired into management positions. Usually, you get hired and learn something about the business you are in first.
Got a call from a professor at half time last night regarding $ at Universities
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My last point. I don’t want to come across as arguing with you as I agree with your points above. I do think the skills you mention are useful.
The original point of let’s say a government class is as follows. Utilize a subject in the social sciences to develop reading, writing, critical thinking, analysis and a host of other soft skills as part of a classic university education. Other than learning about a subject, the benefit is really understanding and analyzing a complex issue or problem, and demonstrating one’s mastery of material, while identifying causes, effects and critical thinking. For example a class on comparative politics takes a deep dive into differing forms of government in several countries. A student would be asked to fully understand the sometimes nuanced differences between systems, pro’s and con’s, and how certain systems or policies impact economic or social systems in a given country. An appropriate assignment may be: pick two governments and identify certain procedures or laws present in one country that if applied to the other, would provide significant economic or social benefit. Explain why the change will benefit county A in achieving goal X. This is a difficult assignment that requires critical thinking, analysis, a well constructed argument and solid writing or presentation skills. The student learns these skills and can apply the above to any subject or problem. It becomes where the subject is essentially irrelevant, it is simply the framework to present a complicated problem for the student to think through, and apply skills to complete the assignment effectively. This is the “learn how to learn”dynamic that would theoretically provide skills and framework to carry forward in life.
I am in complete agreement that a government class that requires memorization, and ask things like “How many votes are needed to override a presidential veto?” are totally useless. My hunch is that most throw away electives are conducted in this way and totally miss the point.
On its face your idea is sound. However, of the topics you mentioned, how many do you think can be effective in a 15 week semester?
Critical thinking in 15 weeks? I don't think so.
Presentations? I know people who can't give a presentation worth a lick after 5 years experience.
Leadership? After 30 years in the workforce I firmly believe (despite what the military might believe) is that leadership can't be taught. Certainly not in 15 weeks. Leadership is something that is developed.
That said, I agree with your premise. Instead of having a business major take a history class, give them a class on doing presentations.
Oddly, I would think that today's students in the ordinary course should be better at giving presentations, since they are subject to the constant validation of their own ideas, so as to build self confidence.
Doesn't matter -by definition someone in that group is in the bottom 20 percent of it and they have to go, even if it's just by one measure for one short period of time and has nothing to do with their actual value to the organization.
When I was in graduate school it was common that the kids with engineering degrees or other technical degrees couldn’t write effectively. They were likely to be stuck in engineering for their professional lives without ever progressing into management. They couldn’t communicate verbally either. Some communications classes would have served them well.
Also a number of the liberal arts majors set themselves up well to succeed in law schools. There are a lot of occupations which require advanced degrees in things like English, political science, psychology, economics, etc. to do well.
So how do you measure that? Best student evals on RatemyProfessor.com? Most research published? Best onion dip brought to the faculty parties? Most like the department head? I'll point out that the "worst performing" thing was a metric for managers at GE. A lot of uninformed managers have grabbed onto it as a practice for rank and file employees, which it was never intended for.
Spoken like an Accountant and not someone that has had to actually get the hard work done.
My youngest daughter got her masters in speech pathology 3 years ago at IUP. We went to the commencement ceremony for Masters and PhDs. I was completely amazed by the student population getting MBAs and PhDs there that day. Please do not take this as narrow minded on my part but maybe 30% were Mary and Joe’s but the others were a mix of races and nationalities and from what I could learn a very large percentage were from Asian, Middle Eastern and Africa. My thought that day was how important a graduate degree from an American institution of higher education must be to those students, their families and presumably their home nations. Many may not feel strongly about IUP’s standing but it was a draw. My sense is Covid and limitations on travel is quite devastating to a place like that.
Do you know any college students? It may be a hassle but the students still love being at Penn State. They absolutely love it. It may not be the complete mayhem it once was but they are still having lots of fun, way too much fun for this father to like but I've got to admire the effort and enthusiasm they put into having a great time.
A University education shouldn't just be about getting a good job. It should also be about getting a well-rounded education. Some of the "bogus" majors might offer classes that would be useful to someone going into other fields. So I think we have to be careful there.
The days of getting a liberal arts degree and getting accepted into a Management Training program at a bank, insurance company, etc are long gone.
In today's economy, if you are getting a degree in something that you don't know what you are going to do with it, you need to pick a different major. It works out for some people with a psychology, women's studies, interior design, etc degree, for the overwhelming majority it does not.
How does a Steeler fan transplant to the Browns? I am a fan of the team I rooted for growing up and the team of the University I attended. I will never change that no matter where I live.She is a big Steeler fan. I was a Steeler fan but transplanted to the Browns. She called me to BS about the crazy game. (one of C Collinsworth's female football crazies). I took the dog for a walk and we hit all kinds of subject.
But, hey, why do I need to explain this to you?
I rooted for the Steelers because I lived in western PA. 30 years ago I moved to Ohio why should I root for the Steelers?
Why do you root for Penn State if you live in Ohio? Shouldn't you root for Ohio State?
Not sure. Soon graduated from Ohio state but I’ve always hated them. I toured for the Steelers until the brown rose from the dead
Add in over-the-top political correctness. Even those who agree with it can’t have any fun, lest they offend someone.
Actually, part of his point was the study of the humanities is best accomplished in person.
If I ask "what are the essentials of good leadership", I know one thing: I'll get so many answers that the course itself would be essentially worthless.
We can be sure that whatever is passing for leadership in today's higher education and corporate America is a joke. So, we can be sure that what's being taught to these so called leaders is garbage (because today's typical leader is of so dumb compared to prior leadership that it isn't funny).
No one respects today's leadership.
That’s not true. PSU’s economics majors (yes it’s in liberal arts) are getting a lot of high paying job offers. It’s a great major.
LOL. Takes quite a few student's tuition to pay for some of PSUs top end admins. The bloated admin is driving tuition not profs.
LOL. Teaching students how to make presentations somehow make a student well rounded??? That is total BS.
Full disclosure, I have a liberal arts degree in Political Science/International affairs. I sell software. I was hired initially in this industry because I was able to communicate, present and help problem solve for customers. I picked up technical knowledge along the way. However, if I knew this is what I was going to do, I would’ve certainly taken some MIS classes. Interesting enough, many of the senior members of my company who hold roles as VP of Product or Development do not have technology degrees (most are older). In fact the CTO has a degree in animal science of all things, but is a brilliant man. He basically taught himself how to code 40 years ago, got an entry level developer job and went from there. Our VP of Sales, who is also very talented, has a degree in Philosophy.
My aunt has a degree in English from PSU, and built a great career in HR. She retired as the VP or HR from a fairly large insurance
However, if someone does get a liberal arts or social science degree, they should be aware of a few things.
1.) It may take a few years to figure things out. You didn’t select a major with a specific career path, so be prepared to sell yourself, your degree and what you can bring to the employer. Be open minded and learn about various career paths that may be available.
2.) You probably need to move to a large city. If you want to live in your small hometown and make $, you probably need to be in a medical or technical profession. Most people I know with non-technical degrees, who don’t have Job’s that require a degree, never seemed to vigorously explore career options, and seemed to think something would just happen in their rural hometown. Not going to happen. You need to be around major corporations.
3.) The school matters. It doesn’t matter after 20 years, but does when starting out. Companies are aware of what public and private schools produce bright and motivated graduates, regardless of major.
Quick story. A few years ago when traveling for work I was chatting with two ladies who were recruiting colleges in VA for a major corporation. They were headed to JMU. They were debating whether or not to recruit UVA that year. The younger more enthusiastic one was all about it. The older more experienced one stated that well we don’t usually have luck at UVA, even with liberal arts majors as they don’t choose us. Again this wasn’t an investment bank, but was a well respected major corporation that was offering entry level positions in a variety of roles. They were lamenting their lack of success with liberal arts majors from UVA, and were happy to settle for JMU grads.
A university president saying "Give me your 20% (or whatever number)" simply delegates the difficult decisions to department heads. Have courage to re-allocate resources to strengths, which may mean some things no longer exist.
My son is a sophomore in college who roomed last year in an honors dorm and this year in a regular dorm. His grades are good, but he is still having a good time. Visiting a friend from Colorado in Colorado (Tickets only $127 from Ohio) and they are making a film to use as a marketing pitch to a company that sells coats. (My son is a marketing major and from what I can see, he could learn 50% of what he is learning in college on his own.) From the lens of his experience, I don't see the college as being a painful experience at all. We discussed online learning or him living in a dorm and and chose the dorm, and we are both glad he did even though it is an extra cost.
you must not do much in the business world as knowing how to construct and give presentations is a very important work product. And a lot of it goes to definition of well rounded. Well rounded doesn't mean you take courses in a potpouri of stuff, it means you learn skills that are not specific to your exact major that are important many times in the outside world when you get a job.
The problem is they can't fire the buildings and other fixed overhead
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I work at Johns Hopkins University and we already did this over this past summer, we did not wait to see what was going to happen with the virus. They assumed that it was going to last through this coming summer, looked at the financials and everyone had to cut 10%. Out department was fairly easy, we closed all open positions that we were trying to fill and a couple people that were at the right age, retired.
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