Dear Counselor,
I know things are rough financially on our students right now. I appreciate that you take their finances into account when helping them schedule their classes. However, would you please refrain from telling students to not consider entire MAJORS because it would cost extra time and money? Telling a student that he/she should not be a science major because they'd have to spend an extra year catching up on math and it would cost them some extra money (and at a California community college, we're talking an extra $60 in fees for the math classes in question) is fiscally irresponsible for that student in the long run. It's like punishing the student for going to a crappy high school or having bad counselors in their past. I do sympathize with your intent and acknowledgment of the poor economy, but dampening the goals of the students with deficient backgrounds who want to go into high-tech/high-wage-potential majors does a disservice for all of us in the future.
Thank you for your time,
Science Professor (who is seeing dwindling numbers of science majors)
8 comments:
Geez.
Sometimes I hear stories like this and think we're doomed.
Thanks for fighting the good fight; the last thing we need is *less* science majors.
Business and Finance on the other hand....
Dude. That might be worth escalating beyond your blog.
(What do you figure the guidance counselor's major is? Education? American Studies?)
I'm pretty much convinced that no undergraduate degrees in business should be given.
I'll be bringing up the incident that triggered this post at a faculty meeting this week.
An undergraduate business degree is code for "Why do I have to go to college? Doesn't my job at Hot Dog On A Stick count as a career?"
I've thought of an exception so that undergraduate degrees would be allowed: if the student is about to inherit the family business. Otherwise, go learn about something before you try to manage it. But this comes on the heels of a very nasty Tax Day, so I could be overreacting there.
That really is appalling... :\
I agree. I don't think the student in question will be thwarted, but was definitely disheartened by the discussion.
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