Got a call from my old Alma Mater

It was a young female student, a senior, getting in some work for the alumni office, calling to thank me for a contribution I made a few weeks ago.  We got to chatting, about majors and the job market and how things were back when I graduated better than 40 years ago.  She thought things must have been better back then, especially after I mentioned that I had a job offer before I graduated.  I asked here what shw was majoring in.  "International relations" she said.  I refrained from saying anything while I thought to myself, "A real dead end major unless you want to join the State Dept or the CIA."  So I asked her if she had taken a course in computer programming.  "No, but I wish I had" was the reply. 
   After the phone call was over, I thought to myself, "There goes a nice young woman who is graduating with a major that won't help her get a job.  Let's hope she can marry the right guy."
   Lesson: if you are a student, or a parent of a student, you need to do some serious thinking about your college major.   The right major will get you a job upon graduation.  The wrong major and you are out of luck.  Decide now what you want to do for a living when you graduate.  Pick your major to make you employable in your chosen field.   Engineering (real engineering, chemical, electrical, mechanical, or civil) worked for me,  is fun to do, plenty of jobs, and decent pay.  The sciences, computer programming, business administration, and mathematics are also good bets.   
   Avoid the talky-talk "sciences" (sociology, anthropology, psychology, ecology) and anything with "studies" in its name (ethic studies, gender studies and so on). 
   If you just cannot stomach a STEM major, learn to write.  There is a tremendous demand for good English writing in business, industry, and government.  An English major or a history major will teach you how to write. 

Times are changing

My college alumni magazine turned up in today's mail.  So I flip thru it looking for mention of any one I might still know.  It's been quite a few years.  So skimming the page of newly weds, all dressed in their best, we now have a gay couple smack in the middle of the page.  That did catch my eye.
   Times they are a'changing.

University of Delaware takes heat

Follow up. University of Delaware (my old Alma Mater) had been conducting an offensive and gross student indoctrination. White students were told they were racist just for being white and scheduled for mandatory sensitivity training. Students were asked "When did you discover your sexual identity?", which sounds more like a sexual proposition than a serious question. This caused a furore in the blogosphere and seems to have spread. My mother heard about it somewhere (she doesn't read blogs) and gave me Xerox of the F.I.R.E handout on the subject. This widespread bad publicity might have had something to do with the University's public back down on the program.
Even after canceling the program, you have to wonder how many of the wonderful left thinking folks who set it up are still in the U of D administration, planning a comeback when the heat lets up.