Anyone use Rate My Professors .com?

[sanantone]

Science and/or math are fundamental parts of nursing, engineering, and computer science. There is no way to make STEM optional. Philosophy you can get rid of even though many programs are trying to put in ethics requirements so that they can pretend grads are honest and won't cheat.

That doesn't mean that every student has to take those courses. Most licensed professions require an ethics course to be taken as a CEU, so they obviously see value in it. You don't need a whole philosophy department for ethics courses. Professors in any department with any degree can teach ethics. Ethics in CJ courses are not taught by professors in the philosophy department; they are taught by professors in the criminal justice department.

Since we're talking about fundamental parts of certain majors, you can't have licensed professional counselors, licensed mental health counselors, licensed marriage and family therapists, psychologists, licensed psychological technicians/associates, social workers, occupational therapists, or even psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners without behavioral science curriculum. The shortage of workers in these areas is so severe that some states and the federal government have special student loan repayment programs for them. Your state participates in a program to repay the student loans of mental health providers.

At the top public universities I care about in California, business administration (eg. Haas), nursing/pre-nursing, engineering, undeclared (this "major" is highly discouraged nowadays), and computer science are all oversubscribed with absurdly high GPA requirements due to demand wildly outpacing supply.

As I already said, business administration is the most popular major. However, it has a high underemployment rate due to oversaturation. A lot of business administration majors will end up in jobs that don't require a degree. Nationwide, engineering is not among the top 10 most popular majors. If you look at the GMAT, GRE, and LSAT scores of business administration majors, you will see that business administration is not a major that weeds out many mediocre students. On the other hand, philosophy and economics majors tend to score very well on these exams. Humanities majors, surprisingly, do better than biology majors on the MCAT.

Same as it ever was: Top 10 most popular college majors | Career Path News for College Students | USA TODAY College

I guess it's different in Texas. CJ is not a major at the Univ of California at all, especially since it's too vocational. At SJSU, CJ is a good bit below the most popular majors of CS, accounting, undeclared, and nursing. Law enforcement salaries and pensions are high in California, so it makes sense that CJ has some demand, but it's still way behind accounting, CS, and nursing. The only reason the other majors have students is because the rejects have to major in something or transfer out. Look at this link and use GPA as an indication of popularity.

Only 1% of police departments require a bachelor's degree, and when they do, they normally do not require a specific degree. Only 25% of police departments require an associate's degree. It is even rarer for corrections officer positions to require any kind of degree. Despite this, CJ is one of the most popular majors in the country. CJ majors are considered underemployed because they are largely employed in positions that do not require a degree.

If the resources wasted on excessive GE requirements are put into the popular majors, more people would be able to get degrees that employers actually want. The way it's been done, tradition, tenure, well-rounded grads, ethics, multicultural requirements, blah blah blah..... I don't care. It's a waste of time and money, and it's time for taxpayers to demand change and pull the subsidy on useless departments. Yes, layoff the philosophy professor and hire a CS, accounting, or nursing professor in his place.

You're forgetting that history, psychology, liberal arts/general studies, and English are among the most popular majors. No one is going to get rid of English departments since writing is essential to almost every decent job and every major. People aren't having trouble finding accounting and computer science programs to get into. If a school has a problem with staffing CS and accounting programs, it is due to the lack of people with doctoral degrees in those fields who want to work in academia; it is not due to the subsidizing of other departments. The salaries for CS and accounting professors are high because there aren't enough people wanting to teach those subjects.