Hi
I’m not sure what is meant by “instrumental major” . I don’t think it’s a music major. Does it have something to do with training in a skill?
I look forward to your feedback.
“higher-earning families can afford to choose less vocational or instrumental majors, because they have more of a buffer against the risk of un- or under-employment”
In this context it’s not about music. The previous sentence(s) might make it more clear, but it appears to be referring to technical skills, i.e., science vs. the arts.
“Instrument” is used in the sense of “tool” in this case. So for “instrumental” you can substitute “useful” or “assistive” or “beneficial”, or any number of words which connote the benefit that comes from having a useful tool added to your personal arsenal.
Overall I think the sentence is mostly bunk. Folks are high earning because of what they *already *learned. They’re not high earning before they’re making choices about majors. And if there’s one thing the last 40 years have taught us, the success of the parents is not reliably heritable to the child. IOW, picking the right parents certainly helps, but is no guarantee.
To be sure, if someone is a trust fund baby with an high un-earned income they could choose an essentially recreational major for whatever fun or self-actualization benefits it offered them. But those folks are pretty rare.
An alternative supporting case for the whole sentence is something like this: Many children of the medium-wealthy intend their main earning power to come from marrying well. Those people can choose non-occupational majors as long as they work assiduously on their real career plan: finding a spouse with the right size of wallet.
Was there a sudden time warp and the SDMB got projected back a century into the past?
I thought instrumental majors were in things like Philosophy, in that they were instrumental in your remaining unemployed.
I assume the wording, as previously mentioned, is about the concept that rich people’s kids are already provided for - so they can choose as a major say, archeology or Russian literature or history, rather than a more useful field of study that would be instrumental in training for a good career - like doctor, lawyer, engineer, business admin, or assorted STEM fields.
I think its not bunk. Well perhaps they do have inside knowledge, not the knowledge one gets from educational institutions, but that is simply not what is meant by “learned” in the paragraph or piece… its what you want it to mean, but that meaning is not to be included…
Many people get jobs because of their name, their zip code… where they live… what expensive school they went to ,even if they barely passed when standardised…
Here’s the article
"Those whose parents make more money flock to history, English, and performing arts…
The explanation is fairly intuitive. “It’s … consistent with the claim that kids from higher-earning families can afford to choose less vocational or instrumental majors, because they have more of a buffer against the risk of un- or under-employment,” Weeden says.
I thought “instrumental major” might mean a major in the making of implements or perhaps a trade like watchmaking. I have no idea.
Here’s the first-listed definition of “instrumental” from a couple of online dictionary sites:
[QUOTE=dictionary.com]
serving or acting as an instrument or means; useful; helpful.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Merriam-Webster]
serving as a crucial means, agent, or tool
[/QUOTE]
I think this is the sense in which the word “instrumental” is being used here. These “less vocational or instrumental majors” would be majors that are not seen as means to a particular end, or training for a particular career.
I agree with what you said. I didn’t make my point very well. What I meant was …
Absent a trust fund a 17 yo can’t be a high earner yet. So he/she can’t be someone who chooses a non-instrumental major due to *already *being a high earner. And just because Mom & Dad are high earners does NOT mean the kid is guaranteed to be one. Which is what it seemed to me the OP’s sentence was trying to defectively say.
I agree completely that many people who become high earners in intellectually undemanding fields are people sheparded there by parental connections and personal salesmanship. Not academic achievement.
So what is the difference between “instrumental” and “vocational”? Are these terms synonymous here, or approximately so?
I think this definition of instrumental fits the context: “serving or acting as an instrument or means; useful; helpful.” One synonym would be practical. It has a sense of general utility, whereas vocational is more specifically applicable to a certain trade or field.
I’m not sure how well it fits the context here, but “vocational” carries the connotation of specific job training, often for blue-collar trades (as in “vocational school”), as opposed to academic studies.
That makes sense. So “vocational” study would be “Motor Mechanic”, and “Instrumental” would be “Teacher”
‘Vocational’ doesn’t have to be associated with manual skills, a teaching degree could be considered vocational because it’s intended for a specific job instead of a general job skill such as management or mathematics.
The article is clearly referring to children of high earning parents, not high-earning people currently choosing college majors.
Having high-earning parents provides a lot of benefits to kids. They can take unpaid internships after college. They can take a lower-paying job in the hopes that it will lead to something better down the road. They don’t have student loans to worry about. Best of all, high-earning parents tend to have great social networks to hit up for job opportunities.
The bottom line is that students without all of those resources have to care more about studying something that will allow them to make a living that is good enough to pay their student loans shortly after graduating. The kids of higher income parents can putz around chasing their dreams for a while and still end up in a pretty good place by the time they’re 30, because they have solid supports from their parents.
Anecdote time: my dad and his two BFFs were all first generation college students and studied engineering. The 7 kids in the next generation majored in art (3), psychology (2), music (1), and sociology (1), I think - not a single vocational/instrumental major. Currently, everyone is self-supporting and on track to achieve similar earnings as their parents, but there was some extended parental support in a couple of cases.
There’s a pretty extensive body of research about the lack of social mobility in the US. This article is pretty clearly in that vein.
To get into law, you need an undergraduate degree, which can be in any topic. I’ve met plenty of good lawyers who had degrees in languages and history, because those can be very good preparatory degrees for law. More generally, a good BA/BSc teaches critical thinking, which is invaluable in law.
Yes, and most doctors need 2 to 3 years of undergraduate science in relevant courses, such as biology and chemistry.
When I went to college (mid 70’s) my contemporaries who were not up to the challenges of science or law typically ended up with history and English majors, then went on to get a B.Ed. degree and teach school, thus assuring a reasonable income (at least, in Canada).
I think it was Warren Buffet who said about kids and money, he gave his kids enough so they could do anything, but not enough that they could do nothing.