从追捧STEM到青睐人文与技能：家长对孩子专业选择的反转

2025/7/16 2:21:41

曾经，家长们笃定科技领域是孩子的黄金赛道，STEM专业备受...

曾经，家长们笃定科技领域是孩子的黄金赛道，STEM专业备受追捧，计算机科学学位授予量激增。然而，随着AI兴起，会写代码、做手术的机器人引发就业焦虑，科技行业裁员潮更让 “科技泡沫” 担忧加剧。如今，风向悄然转变，许多曾投身科技领域的父母，开始建议下一代选择人文、艺术或技能型行业。职业学校不再被轻视，甚至一位科技公司高管也开始鼓励女儿追求艺术兴趣，究竟是什么让家长们对孩子的职业规划产生如此大的转变？

The Wall Street Journal (03/05/2025)Parents in Tech Want Their Kids to Go Into the Arts Instead科技行业的父母希望子女投身艺术领域Parents have been steering their children into science and technology fields for so long that some of those kids are grown with little ones of their own. Their advice? Careers in the humanities, arts or skilled trades might be safer bets for the next generation.长久以来，父母们一直引导子女进入科技领域，以至于其中一些孩子如今已长大成人，甚至有了自己的孩子。而他们的建议是：下一代选择人文、艺术或技能型行业可能更稳妥。Bots that write software and perform surgical tasks inspire fear that today"s glut of STEM majors are in a bubble, kind of like their predecessors who flooded finance programs in the roaring "80s. From 2009 to 2022, the number of bachelor"s degrees awarded in computer science nearly tripled, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.会编写软件和执行手术任务的机器人引发了人们的担忧：如今过多的STEM专业学生可能处于泡沫之中，有点像上世纪80年代经济繁荣时期涌入金融项目的前辈们。根据美国国家教育统计中心的数据，2009年至2022年，计算机科学学士学位的授予数量几乎增加了两倍。If the people who work on tech"s cutting edge think their children should reverse course, then maybe the rest of us ought to reconsider our parental guidance.如果从事尖端科技工作的人都认为他们的孩子应该反其道而行之，那么我们其他人或许也应该重新考虑对子女的引导。Dan Dumont recently did what any responsible engineering director would do: He asked his favorite artificial-intelligence assistant whether his children, ages 2 and 1, should follow in his footsteps.丹·杜蒙最近做了一个负责任的工程总监都会做的事：他询问了自己*喜欢的人工智能助手，他2岁和1岁的孩子是否应该追随他的脚步。Maybe not, the bot warned. It recommended fostering creativity and people skills, while stopping short of prescribing specific jobs for the toddlers.也许不是这样，机器人警告说。它建议培养创造力和人际交往能力，但没有具体建议适合幼儿的工作。The advice jolted Dumont, 38, who works at a software startup in Greater Boston. He thought back to his time at a vocational school in Massachusetts two decades ago, when he felt confident that enrolling in college and launching a tech career was more promising than the blue-collar paths of most classmates. His professional life has generally reinforced that belief.这一建议让38岁的大波士顿软件初创公司员工杜蒙特感到震惊。他回想起20年前在马萨诸塞州职业学校的日子，当时他确信，上大学并开启科技职业生涯比大多数同学的蓝领道路更有前途。他的职业生涯总体上强化了这一信念。Now, as he and his wife mull a home renovation with their third child due this summer, he suspects the odds could be different for his kids.现在，他和妻子正考虑在第三个孩子今年夏天出生前进行房屋翻新，他怀疑自己的孩子可能会有不同的机会。"Maybe they should be contractors or electricians," he says. "Maybe we shouldn"t push them into technology."他说：“也许他们应该成为承包商或电工。也许我们不应该把他们推向科技领域。”Hands-on hedge动手为上More parents are coming to the same conclusion, says David Ferreira, spokesman for the Massachusetts Association of Vocational Administrators, whose members include the leaders of Dumont"s alma mater and 70 other schools. He says vocational school was long looked-down-on in a state known as a science and tech hub.马萨诸塞州职业管理协会发言人戴维·费雷拉表示，越来越多的家长都得出了相同的结论。该协会的成员包括杜蒙母校和另外70所学校的领导。他说，长期以来，职业学校在以科技中心著称的马萨诸塞州一直被人看不起。"It was where other people"s kids went—kids who learned with their hands and who were not college material," he says of many white-collar parents" thinking.他说，许多白领家长认为，“那是别人家孩子去的地方，是那些动手学习、不是上大学材料的孩子去的地方。”Not anymore. Ferreira says 1 in 5 Massachusetts high-schoolers is in a vocational program, about 30% more than a decade ago. And trade schools that used to accept virtually everyone now have hundreds of teens on wait lists. Demand is so high that several mainstream public high schools in the state are reviving or expanding shop classes, part of a nationwide trend.现在情况不一样了。费雷拉说，马萨诸塞州五分之一的高中生都在接受职业教育，比十年前增加了约30%。而且，过去几乎招收所有学生的职业学校现在都有数百名青少年在等待名单上。需求如此之高，以至于该州几所主流公立高中正在恢复或扩大工艺课程，这是全国的趋势。Parents who pictured their children in desk jobs are drawn to vocational education because the schools have upped their academic standards and provide a hands-on hedge against AI, according to Ferreira.费雷拉称，那些原本希望孩子从事办公室工作的父母之所以被职业教育吸引，是因为这些学校提高了学术标准，并提供了防止被AI取代的实践技能。"They see a dual pathway where their kids can go to this kind of school and have options at the end," he says. "They"re qualified to go on to college or go directly into the workforce."他说：“他们看到了一条双轨道路，孩子可以上这类学校，毕业后有多种选择。他们既可以继续上大学，也可以直接进入职场。”The pendulum swings back教育风向再度回摆Jeannie Chung deals with constant anxiety about children"s career prospects—and she doesn"t even have kids yet.钟珍妮（音译）对孩子的职业前景一直感到焦虑，尽管她还没有孩子。She works in Washington state as an applied AI lead at a large tech company and has become an unofficial counselor to the many parents in her social circle who want inside advice.她在华盛顿州的一家大型科技公司担任应用人工智能主管，并已成为她社交圈中许多想要获得内部建议的父母的非官方顾问。"Jobs that require just logical thinking are on the chopping block, to put it bluntly," she says. "I think the pendulum is swinging back to the creative side of things."“坦白说，那些只需要逻辑思维的工作正面临淘汰，”她说，“我认为潮流正转向创意领域。”Chung, 32, initially wanted to major in English and become a fiction writer. Her parents worried there was little money in the liberal arts, so she studied biomedical engineering and electrical computer engineering instead.32岁的钟女士最初想主修英语，成为一名小说作家。她的父母担心文科赚不到什么钱，所以她改学了生物医学工程和电气计算机工程。There were 30 students in her introductory computer science class at Duke. The same course had more than 300 students by the time she graduated.她在杜克大学的第*堂计算机科学课上有30名学生。到她毕业时，同样的课程有300多名学生。She developed a genuine interest in technology. But Chung also says she and many peers "rode the wave" to careers that appeared lucrative and safe, instead of following their passions.她对技术产生了真正的兴趣。但钟女士也表示，她和许多同龄人“随波逐流”，选择了看似有利可图且安全的工作，而不是追随自己的热情。How ironic, 10 years later, to see the recent spate of tech-sector layoffs. Not that novel writing is a sure ticket to stability, but rapid labor-market changes show the potential folly of trying to predict hot jobs for your kids. If someday Chung has a daughter who wants to be a book author?多么讽刺啊，10年后，科技行业却掀起了裁员潮。虽然写小说也不是稳定的铁饭碗，但劳动力市场的快速变化表明，试图预测孩子未来热门职业的行为可能是愚蠢的。如果有一天钟女士的女儿想成为一名作家呢？"I"ll be like, "Work on your style and work on your voice,"" she says. ""Your creativity is your value.""她说：“我会说，‘好好磨练你的写作风格和表达方式’，‘你的创造力就是你的价值’。”Unexpected fallback plan意料之外的备选方案Technology training has seemed like a golden ticket to Rajeev Madumba since he came to the U.S. from India in the early aughts.自21世纪初从印度来到美国以来，技术培训对拉吉夫·马顿巴来说就像是一张黄金门票。"Coding was not my cup of tea, but it was evident that this was the next frontier, so I did an M.B.A. in information systems and e-commerce," he says.他说：“编程不是我的菜，但很明显这是下一个前沿领域，所以我攻读了信息系统和电子商务的工商管理硕士学位。”It served him well. Madumba, 52, leads the global healthcare practice at 22nd Century Technologies in McLean, Va.这对他很有帮助。52岁的马顿巴在弗吉尼亚州麦克莱恩市的22世纪技术公司领导全球医疗保健业务。Like a lot of parents who watched tech companies hit trillion-dollar market values, he urged his two children to learn Python and other computer programming languages when they were young. He figured it would be a valuable skill in their back pockets even if they pursued other interests.像许多目睹科技公司市值突破万亿美元大关的家长一样，他敦促自己的两个孩子在年幼时就学习Python和其他计算机编程语言。他觉得，即便他们追求其他兴趣，这项技能也将成为他们的宝贵财富。Now he"s not sure whether an entry-level coding job is a reliable fallback plan—or if such a role will even exist in the future.如今，他不确定初级编程工作是否是一个可靠的备选方案——或者这种角色在未来是否还会存在。These days he"s encouraging his teenage daughter"s musical interests while she looks at colleges and considers majoring in biology. He"s noticed the woman who runs their local dance studio appears to earn a nice living—and her job looks relatively bot-proof.近来，他鼓励正在考虑申请大学并考虑主修生物学的十几岁女儿发展音乐兴趣。他注意到，经营当地舞蹈工作室的那位女士似乎过着不错的生活——而且她的工作看起来相对不易被机器人取代。"I keep telling my daughter, if nothing else works out, you could still help others learn to sing and dance and you should be OK," he says.他说：“我一直在告诉我的女儿，如果其他一切都行不通，你仍然可以教别人学习唱歌和跳舞，这样你应该也能过得不错。”内容来源：每日英语听力 | 双语精读