Some students regret their major

      An article by Andrew Van Dam in the Washington POST earlier this month (available at this link) asserts that nearly 2 in 5 American college graduates regret their choice of major . . .  many humanities majors wish they had focused more on STEM subjects while engineering majors were the group most fully satisfied.  The article has made me think back to my own college days when it was the availability of scholarships rather than love of the sciences that led me there.

From Washington POST "Department of Data" (at this link)

 

     My own view is that education in several fields is far more enriching than focus in a single field -- that the humanities or social science major who wishes she had studied calculus and non-Euclidean geometry and then goes on to do that brings better preparation to her later field of study.  She has knowledge and perspectives to enrich her study of mathematics!

     Consideration of study preferences has led my thoughts to an interesting pair of poems by Duke University Professor Henry Petroski -- poems found in the 1979 anthology of mathematical poetry, Against Infinity (Primary Press, 1979, Edited by Ernest Robson & Jet Wimp).