Four-Year College Degrees

Great Essays
The Primary Role of Four-Year Colleges College is viewed by many as an educational institution in which students attend for four years. Generally, most students will graduate and receive a diploma and a degree in their chosen major in four years. Students wish that diploma would aid them in getting a job after graduation. This is a path that millions of students take each year. These students have been preparing to get a dream job after college and start their adult lives. This path, however, raises a question. Is the main goal of a college to solely prepare students for a career after graduation or is it to expose them to a wide-range of education? Although, the ultimate goal after college is to get a job, some people believe that by incorporating …show more content…
The majors that tend to focus on preparation for after college and less on all-around education tend to be the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors, also known as STEM majors. These majors mostly focus on math and science classes throughout education and have less of a concern for the humanities. Endless research (http://www.ed.gov/stem) proves that STEM education increases critical thinking and problem solving skills, therefore, some teachers start STEM education at an early stage in a child’s education such as first or second grade Due to this, STEM education in early educational settings has increased dramatically in recent years (Linder et al. 87). This interest in STEM education is understandable considering the income advantage STEM graduates have over non-STEM majors as stated in a study by Anning Hu and Jacob Hibel (67). This study, however, was researching the decrease in this advantage. While conducting research in China, Hu and Hibel, noticed a trend in the decrease of the wage gap between STEM majors and non-STEM majors. In the private sector, the STEM majors continue to have a wide gap between the non-STEM majors. In the state sector however, the gap is significantly less …show more content…
This new education is known as STEAM, or science, technology, environment, engineering, art, and math. The addition of art into the STEM fields, which contributes culturally, connected and site specific contributions to creative economies (Keane 61). Some believe that without art and design being utilized with science and engineering some of the worlds most beautiful buildings and structures, such as the Eiffel Tower, would not exist today (Rossnagle). The buildings that would be built without a sense of art or design would be plain in comparison to the buildings we have now. Linda Keane states in her article that arts teach many valuable lessons including attention to detail use of imagination as a source of content, and the ability to view the world from a visual perspective (63). The goal of STEAM is to prepare for a better future by humanizing the use of widespread use of technology, responding to cultural change, and creating new spaces and systems. Teachers believe that by incorporating art and design into STEM education students will be provided with better skills to use in the real world. “Though STEM education is a good start for workforce preparation, the addition of art and the environment adds to that education,” said Mrs. Rossnagle in an interview. She goes on to add, “The environment is a highly debated topic and by giving students the proper education in school, they will

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Before I entered college, I never asked myself why I wanted to go on to higher education. I just assumed it was normal to go on to postsecondary education, just like my older brothers and my parents did. Not even once did my high school councilors talk to my class about alternative education, it was always college, college, college, from day one. So in turn, I never pondered the questions; where am I going?, why am I doing this?,or, what is the purpose of all this? As Alina Tugend, New York Times journalist, writes in her article “Vocation or Exploration: Pondering the Purpose of College,” she asks the question, what is the purpose of college education.…

    • 886 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Recently in the United States education has been based on Stem. Stem is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Yo-Yo Ma in his essay “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education” makes the claim that it should be STEAM, adding arts into the world arguing that artistic ideas are essential as well as the others. Yo-Yo Ma is a brilliant man, he is a cellist that graduated from Julliard School and Harvard both are top schools. He has won over seventeen Grammy awards; therefore, Yo-Yo Ma is a very creditable man.…

    • 583 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Should Students Go to College? Many students are faced with the demanding decision on whether or not to attend college. The entire concept of college can be overwhelming for some people because of the commitment; however, college degrees now seem essential for career development. When discussing college certain people have different opinions, causing confusion to some students. For example, in Bryan Caplan's article "The World Might Be Better Off Without College for Everyone," he provides his own views about college.…

    • 1209 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Compare and Contrast the views of Higher Education From a general point of view, higher education can be beneficial to some college students. As I compare and contrast the article, “Should Everyone Go To College” to Freeman A. Hrabowski’s “Colleges Prepare People for Life”, I realized Hrabowski’s article has primarily focused on how higher education leads to many opportunities, and does not go in depth on the negative aspects of why college cannot be suited for everyone. In contrast, the article, Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill’s “Should Everyone Go to College” contains both sides of the argument. This article explains how college may not be the ‘right’ choice for everyone because every career path or goal is different,…

    • 1392 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ma is a firm believer that (steam) should be introduced more, which is (stem) with the addition of art. Ma believes that skills such as collaboration, flexibility, imagination, and innovation are all needed in today’s world, and the most proficient way to teach the value is through the concept of art. Art can be used so many ways such as music, which then can introduce the factor of globalization. Ma states that “What I’ve found is that the interactions brought by globalization don’t just destroy culture; they can create new culture and invigorate and spread traditions” (pg.260). In this quote, Ma is pointing out that creating art will have more of an outcome that one would expect, particularly leading to a change in tradition.…

    • 896 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The value of a college degree is a dispute that is commonly contemplated, yet rarely answered. I will attempt to express my attitude towards college education, personally defined as an Associate’s Degree for returning adult students. In an effort to explain the greater benefits of a college degree despite the common rhetoric that it is not financially worthwhile, I have considered the positive and negative effects of doing so. I have examined the following articles, “Learning by Degrees and Live Chat With the Author,” “The Major and the Job Market, the dream and the reality,” and “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower,” to support my stance. When one maintains a desire to progress academically and an open-mindedness to educational demands in the…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Do I really need to go to college? That is the question many students ponder coming out of high school. In the essay, “Is College for Everyone”, Pharinet challenges the idea that perhaps college is only for a selected few. Whether you go to college because you genuinely want to, or because you want to appease your parents, college might not benefit you the way you think it does. Though Pharinet uses logical reasoning to support her claim such as the use of logos, ethos, pathos, and rhetorical questions, her argument is weaken because of her lack of credibility, failure to support her ideas, and bias opinions.…

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Is College Worth It Essay

    • 1083 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Is College Worth It? There are many reasons why a person may attend college. Some go for the opportunity to get employment; that through their hard work and money spent, they will end up in a high-paying field that will help repay their debts. In a different group, there are those who go to obtain a higher level knowledge, to better understand the world they live in and learn how to communicate with people that they would normally never would.…

    • 1083 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Do you think college is important to go to? Do you want to go to college? College is a good education to take. It`s a good idea because you can earn more and get a job at first place. College can inspire you or lead you to a new world that you have never seen.…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Everyone has heard about how you need to go to college to obtain a successful career. In today’s society, this is a true statement because of how we are advancing. Since our knowledge and understanding of things around us is constantly changing, we are continuously adjusting how we go about our daily lives and our jobs so we need to change the way we prepare to tackle these changes. Three writings that give different perspectives on the issue of the necessity of college are Should Everyone Go to College? by Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill, Measuring ‘Greatness’ of Grads: The Gallup-Purdue Index, funded in part by a $2 million grant, will be the largest national study of college graduates, measuring their material and work successes and well-being by Ronald Roach, and The Magical Elements of College Linked to Long-Term Success in Work and Life by Brandon Busteed. A college education is necessary to be successful today because jobs are becoming harder and are constantly changing with what knowledge is…

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout our adolescent years, many of us received constant bombardment about attending college after high school. Those with the willpower and motivation in most cases tend to go down the college path; others will see little to no value in the vast expense of college for their chosen trade. Over the years, thru various studies it has been proven that college graduates in most cases earn more over their lifetime compared to high school graduates. On the other hand, you have the occasional high school dropout with the perseverance to work their way up the industry chain eventually if the opportunity is present become paid equal or greater than their fellow classmate. This course of action continually raises one question; is going to college worth…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    College is Not for Everyone Today, more people than ever are attending community colleges and universities. Often, a collegiate degree is a prerequisite to meaningful employment (Pincus, 341). There is even social pressure pushing many to attend. I feel that the university education system has many structural shortcomings, and that institutions of higher learning often do not have students ' best interests at heart.…

    • 712 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Four Year College Degree

    • 364 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Almost all kids have lived through a day where they didn’t want to go to school. They probably wanted a day of amusement and entertainment instead of going to school to learn. The point is that even though they didn’t want to go to school, they still got themselves up and out of the house to go to school. Why?…

    • 364 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Diversity In STEM

    • 970 Words
    • 4 Pages

    By placing myself in a rural, underserved and underdeveloped county I could see firsthand how the stigma of STEM affects students firsthand and attempt to shed light on a misconstrued subject. Upon conducting further research, I used multiple sources to arrive at the conclusion that there are many reasons based on ethnicity and gender which hinder the increase of STEM students. I found that many government sites recognize that there is a lack of diversity and the sites offer ways to fix the problem. According to the U.S. Department of Education, “…few American students pursue expertise in STEM fields—and we have an inadequate pipeline of teachers skilled in those subjects.”…

    • 970 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I came to college both to further my education and my career goals. While furthering my education I will be gaining knowledge that is pertinent to my interests and my future career. In today’s society it is hard to get ahead with out any further education beyond high school, almost every field requires a degree now days. With out a degree a person would not have the needed skills or experience for most chosen careers. In order to be a competitive candidate in todays job market one needs marketable skills, which include a higher education.…

    • 841 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays