College is not where you find a career. College is where you have fun and drink beer

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by glatt

This is a topic that is very important to me and I want to be as knowledgeable as possible about it. I need to figure out how much I should try to influence my kids' decisions about what they study and if they go to college.

My two cents would not to try to push your kids into a specific field (to certain extent) but to try to be top tier in whatever field they pick. I can't really back this up besides my limited personal perspective but that seems to be a better indicator of employment than fields of study. I would highly recommend this if your kids go into engineering. "Work hard, play hard" is the cool thing to do by senior year and looking back at my experience, I wish I had that mentality as a freshman.

Also, if your kids are good with their hands, going into the trades may not be a bad idea. Out of all my friends (many of them electrical/biomed/civil engineers), the guy making the most money right now just has a two year degree from a private technical college and fixes machines in the nuclear field. Keep in mind that he graduated 2nd or 3rd in his class and job placement after graduation is near 100% at that school.