推荐一讨论贴：In These Times: Practical vs. Follow Your Heart

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/609809-these-times-practical-vs-follow-your-heart.html

这是主贴，后面的不少跟贴很有意思。

In These Times: Practical vs. Follow Your Heart

Dear CCers,

I am wondering if any other college applicants and their families are debating anything like this, in these tough economic times:

engineering vs. humanities.


Your general thoughts are welcomed, but here are our specifics, if you care to comment on them:

Daughter (applicant) is definitely a bwrk. She is happy doing many many things, which makes choosing a career, a major, a college, not so easy. (I don't expect her to have all the answers. She will likely learn and make adjustments as she goes along.)

With the help of cc'ers, she has a good list of colleges. She actually veered more toward the "life of the mind" type than I would have anticipated a couple years ago, but she has quite a varied list.
A couple of the schools are very techy. My hu*****and feels strongly that if she gets in and can afford it, she should go to one of these for engineering, or to our state school for engineering. She is interested in engineering but has also been considering the humanities and law. My hu*****and is opposed to funding anything impractical and wants her to first and foremost have skills and job prospects when she graduates from college. He thinks the tech schools--with a techy major-- are the only practical option.