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Way more STEM degrees than STEM jobs


Frances
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Yes and yes. My older two kids are both in STEM. My oldest is a daughter with a Ph.D. in a STEM field from the #2 department in her field in the country. She was wined and dined. There were special programs to help women learn how to interview, how to navigate the job-hunt process. There were dinners where only female candidates were invited.

 

My son, also with impeccable STEM credentials, has never been offered any of those perks.

 

BTW, I was accepted to a top STEM school during a year many moons ago when diversity first became a thing. I've always wondered if I would have been accepted if I hadn't been female....

 

It's enough to make a cynic of me......

Understandable. I think we would all like to believe that jobs, admission to top schools, promotions within companies, etc., are based on merit and merit alone (though I do understand Regentrude's point about "fit"). That is what seems viscerally "fair" to us. But, we all know life does not work that way. Race and gender are both factors that are considered in these scenarios. I'd say the only even treatment one can expect is ageism! Being "old" universally works against you! But, that is my cynicism creeping in.

 

I do think one would have to be extremely dedicated to research and teaching to choose academia over industry because of pay. At ds's school, some facutly (idk what percentage) have to have their housing subsidized by the university because they can't afford to live in Silicon Valley. The location is probably an extreme example, however.

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Understandable. I think we would all like to believe that jobs, admission to top schools, promotions within companies, etc., are based on merit and merit alone (though I do understand Regentrude's point about "fit"). That is what seems viscerally "fair" to us. But, we all know life does not work that way. Race and gender are both factors that are considered in these scenarios. I'd say the only even treatment one can expect is ageism! Being "old" universally works against you! But, that is my cynicism creeping in.

 

As a society, I would like to see us move in this direction for school and jobs.  I do NOT want to see purely quantitative measures to determine "merit" but surely they are needed.

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Understandable. I think we would all like to believe that jobs, admission to top schools, promotions within companies, etc., are based on merit and merit alone (though I do understand Regentrude's point about "fit"). That is what seems viscerally "fair" to us. But, we all know life does not work that way. Race and gender are both factors that are considered in these scenarios. I'd say the only even treatment one can expect is ageism! Being "old" universally works against you! But, that is my cynicism creeping in.

 

I do think one would have to be extremely dedicated to research and teaching to choose academia over industry because of pay. At ds's school, some facutly (idk what percentage) have to have their housing subsidized by the university because they can't afford to live in Silicon Valley. The location is probably an extreme example, however.

 

There was an article recently I read, I think in The Guardian or New Yorker, about American academics and homelessness.  They weren't generally tenured, but they were working full time.  

 

If people can't manage to carry on long enough to get tenure, or you don't know if you'll be lucky enough to get one of those few jobs, they are going to look to do other things.

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They are scattered throughout. Layoffs disproportionally affect women and minorities (for ex. Kalav, Harvard Business Review) so if she's looking at a company that is post-massive layoff, she isnt going to find a lot of ladies.

Is this specific to engineering/STEM firms? Because my experience (not engineering/STEM and anecdotal only) is that layoffs disproportionately affect 50-year-old white guys.

 

Sorry. Not trying to derail. Just showing that there is cynicism on both sides.

Edited by Hoggirl
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Is this specific to engineering/STEM firms? Because my experience (not engineering/STEM and anecdotal only) is that layoffs disproportionately affect 50-year-old white guys.

Our experience was that during a layoff, the ladies were transferred to any available vacancies in other departments and the guys were layoff. That was regardless of age. They transfer some of the above 50 year olds guys to other departments if the other departments have nobody over 50 year olds.

 

In my husband’s current job, people hit the maximum pay scale in five to eight years so a thirty years old isn’t cheaper than a fifty years old. (ETA: That is for engineers technical track)

Edited by Arcadia
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Right now contract work is paying between $65-$95 an hour with $75 being typical with per diem for stress analysis in the aerospace industry.  I don't know what else is high paying right now but that one is.

 

I am an early retired Software Engineering Consultant. I was a Road Shopper. When you are out of town, paying all of your own expenses, the rates you quoted won't hack it. That's a little more than my hourly rate on my last  contract assignment, which was many years ago. 

 

A month or so ago, I was contacted by a Recruiter, for an assignment on the Gulf Coast of FL.  I would have liked the assignment. FMS (Flight Management Systems) for (I believe)  a Military version of the Boeing 737.  But the Recruiter told me they would only go to $65 an hour.  I studied it and responded that if I could do anything for them, Telecommuting from home, I would do it for $25 an hour.  Obviously, if there was a Security Clearance involved, it would not be possible to do anything for them from home.

 

If your DH can find a Local assignment, for the rates you mentioned, he will be fine, but to go on the road for that, especially in a High COL location, it wouldn't be profitable.  

 

There is a lot of stuff I am being contacted about where the Client is demanding an Active DoD SECRET Clearance, or one that has been active very recently. Some are requiring a T.S. or above and the hourly rates they are quoting are not fabulous.    I see a lot of that for a client in MO and OK. There is also a lot of stuff going on in FL.  Many of the positions I used to see that were in WA or CA have moved to lower cost areas, which is great for the workers and their families. 

 

BTW, I shared a cubicle with a guy in AL who was a Stress guy. He and his wife were there with their dog and I was there with my dog.

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OP what I suggested to my DD,. a week or 2 ago, is that when she decides upon a career, especially if she decides on a STEM career, the #1 thing is to try to do something she enjoys.  The #2 thing is to try to avoid something like Software Engineering (where yours truly comes from) which is very cyclical. The #3 thing is to try to do something where your job cannot be "outsourced" to another country, or done by someone who is not a U.S. Citizen. That probably implies working for the U.S. Government or a Contractor.

 

Really, I am seeing a ton of jobs out there and if I had any recent experience I wouldn't have any problem getting a position, either "permanent" or on a temporary contract assignment, which is the way I'd worked, for years, before early retirement. Even though I am old, they would hire me, for the experience...

 

There are a lot of people from overseas in U.S. Engineering schools and many if not most of them are extremely intelligent and hard working. I worked with a lot of Oriental people and with one exception, they were first-class professionals.

 

Probably a much higher percentage of foreigners continue to Grad school and then you see them in Teaching positions.

 

The H1B issue has been going on for many years and many U.S. Citizens have had to train their H1B replacements in how to do the job they were being terminated from.

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If your children are applying for a job or internships, please remind them to prep for their technical interviews. The recent technical interviews my husband did was very disappointing with the cheapest cost of acceptance state university having the most prepared applicants and the extremely selective and expensive private university’s postdoc applicant being the most disappointing. It’s a skew sample of the engineering population in each college but still disappointing. Math (applied) was bad. We have a vested interest since younger boy is interested in engineering.

Edited by Arcadia
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My degrees are in computer science, and I can tell you that locally the market remains tight at the entry level. If you've done a co-op or two, it's much better. I'm job hunting after twenty years of teaching at the college level, and it's pretty depressing if you are looking for an entry-level job. Unfortunately teaching what I've been teaching doesn't qualify me for a computer science job unless it's entry-level because of the type of courses I've been teaching. They want experience on certain development tools that we don't teach. I could probably pick up the tools quickly, but they want current experience. Just taking a course isn't enough either. I've talked with several recruiters and have pretty much given up on the entry-level market.

 

I do have additional work in instructional design and fifteen years of experience in online education, and I'm finding that to be a better market for me. Nothing yet, but I know that I am in the final pool for one job. Or I could get a help desk job in a heartbeat. Not the kind of work I'd like, and the pay isn't great, but it would do.

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My degrees are in computer science, and I can tell you that locally the market remains tight at the entry level. If you've done a co-op or two, it's much better. I'm job hunting after twenty years of teaching at the college level, and it's pretty depressing if you are looking for an entry-level job. Unfortunately teaching what I've been teaching doesn't qualify me for a computer science job unless it's entry-level because of the type of courses I've been teaching. They want experience on certain development tools that we don't teach. I could probably pick up the tools quickly, but they want current experience. Just taking a course isn't enough either. I've talked with several recruiters and have pretty much given up on the entry-level market.

 

I do have additional work in instructional design and fifteen years of experience in online education, and I'm finding that to be a better market for me. Nothing yet, but I know that I am in the final pool for one job. Or I could get a help desk job in a heartbeat. Not the kind of work I'd like, and the pay isn't great, but it would do.

Well I certainly hope none of those employers are complaining about not being able to find enough qualified people to fill their openings. I'm sure you would do an amazing job for them if they would give you a chance. Good luck with your job search!
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One of my son's top pick for a college is RIT, because it has 2 semesters and a summer of co-op. So it's 5 years to finish. It's an expensive school though, so he may not be able to go there. I'll check his other college choices to see which have co-ops.

Thanks everyone for the input.

 

I once worked with an intern from there.   We were all very impressed.   They'd had old versions of the very niche equipment in my industry for the students to learn on.  So, the learning curve wasn't a problem.  

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I am wondering about the predictions for future jobs, because I do not get the sentiment of gloom from our undergraduates. Most of them are engineering majors, and they seem to be very positive about their job prospects. Currently, the average starting salary for graduates from my university is $61k. Employers flock to the career fair. 

 

We just extended an offer to a gal has not even graduated yet in computer science. She turned it down after receiving another offer for $90k! That's pretty crazy. Someone asked me if it was in the Silicon Valley and I honestly didn't know. BTW, we hire other STEM majors for IT work as well including Physics majors. PhDs are especially in demand in this new field known as Data Science!

 

I have to wonder about the other STEM majors. I am somewhat suspicious of this as a data point.

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We just extended an offer to a gal has not even graduated yet in computer science. She turned it down after receiving another offer for $90k! That's pretty crazy. Someone asked me if it was in the Silicon Valley and I honestly didn't know.

Not surprising if it is $90k before tax as Silicon Valley is trying to up their numbers of lady employees. Actually if it is before tax, it would be similar to H1B pay. The rents here are crazy high and still going up.

 

ETA:

“Google made Singal an offer, and she's going to do the program this summer. Singal didn't tell us the figure, but according to reports, Google will pay her about $6,000 a month. Google will pay for her housing and a twice-weekly house-cleaning service. It will also make hair stylists available to her at the office twice a week.

 

If the internship goes well, Google will almost certainly make Singal an offer for a full-time job, one that will pay her about $125,000 a year and award her a stock grant of at least $100,000. Singal says money was not the reason she decided to work at Google. "Money is not the issue," she says. "What really drew me to Google is their mission and their culture. I think they are solving really cool problems and they really care about impact."†http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2015/04/02/stanford_graduates_get_fought_over_by_tech_companies_like_snapchat_and_have.html

Edited by Arcadia
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Well, if a child is interested in math, physics, Comp science.... it seems to me only one of those stand out in terms of employment opportunities.

There are maths and physics requirements in computer science. I can’t find Calpoly’s course list but UCLA has 4 math (Math 31, Math 32, Math 33, Math 61) and 2 physics (physics 1A,B,C and physics 4) classes for their Computer Science/Engineering degree core classes. http://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/seasoasa/Course-comparison-CS_CSE_CE_EE_2017_2018fall-1.pdf

 

In terms of employment opportunities, don’t fail the technical interview. It’s embarrassing and puts a negative impression on the college (whether justified or not, grade inflation comes to mind).

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There are maths and physics requirements in computer science. I can’t find Calpoly’s course list but UCLA has 4 math (Math 31, Math 32, Math 33, Math 61) and 2 physics (physics 1A,B,C and physics 4) classes for their Computer Science/Engineering degree core classes. http://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/seasoasa/Course-comparison-CS_CSE_CE_EE_2017_2018fall-1.pdf

 

In terms of employment opportunities, don’t fail the technical interview. It’s embarrassing and puts a negative impression on the college (whether justified or not, grade inflation comes to mind).

As a humanities girl, I don't even know what a technical interview is. :)

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As a humanities girl, I don't even know what a technical interview is. :)

It’s like a verbal proficiency test for math, physics, whatever your major is.

 

Let’s say you are applying for a job (internship, fresh graduate) in the materials testing department. Getting mean, mode, median, normal distribution, bell curve, skewed distribution mixed up would make the interviewer wonder if it is an aptitude and/or attitude problem.

 

The interviewer typically give a real (past) technical problem and ask the interviewee how they would go about solving it. For example if many customers return their mobile phones for repairs because the screens cracked easily under normal wear and tear, what material would you replace the phone’s screen with to reduce the failure rate. Someone from electrical engineering or material science (some mechanical engineering too) should be able to give a sensible answer especially when told to ignore material cost when answering.

 

ETA:

There is even a Udacity course on it https://www.udacity.com/course/technical-interview--ud513

Edited by Arcadia
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There are maths and physics requirements in computer science. I can’t find Calpoly’s course list but UCLA has 4 math (Math 31, Math 32, Math 33, Math 61) and 2 physics (physics 1A,B,C and physics 4) classes for their Computer Science/Engineering degree core classes. http://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/seasoasa/Course-comparison-CS_CSE_CE_EE_2017_2018fall-1.pdf

 

 

Dd found at the recent coop career fair at her school that the fact that she was double-majoring in Math (with CompSci) got an extremely favorable impression, so I think that has certainly solidified her decision to stick with it.  Also, the fact that she'd already had a lot of hands-on experience (research coop last summer, which has continued into a job in the same vein this semester).

 

In terms of employment opportunities, don’t fail the technical interview. It’s embarrassing and puts a negative impression on the college (whether justified or not, grade inflation comes to mind).

 

As a humanities girl, I don't even know what a technical interview is. :)

 

Yeah as another non-techie, I didn't realized this was so much of a thing.  Dd just had her first technical interview after that career fair.  She seems to have done very well.  She said they wanted her to talk out loud while she solved the problems so they could see what her thinking process was like.

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Dd just had her first technical interview after that career fair. She seems to have done very well. She said they wanted her to talk out loud while she solved the problems so they could see what her thinking process was like.

If there is a whiteboard in the interview room, she should feel free to use it while she solve :)

 

Math use logic. A candidate with a good math foundation would hopefully not write spaghetti codes (confusing/illogical programming/coding). One can hope.

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Dd found at the recent coop career fair at her school that the fact that she was double-majoring in Math (with CompSci) got an extremely favorable impression, so I think that has certainly solidified her decision to stick with it.  Also, the fact that she'd already had a lot of hands-on experience (research coop last summer, which has continued into a job in the same vein this semester).

 

 

Yeah as another non-techie, I didn't realized this was so much of a thing.  Dd just had her first technical interview after that career fair.  She seems to have done very well.  She said they wanted her to talk out loud while she solved the problems so they could see what her thinking process was like.

 

That was an excellent choice which opens up significantly more opportunities than strictly Math or ComSci.

 

A question for you since I am considering the same thing for my son. How did you decide to double major as opposed to major/minor? And how much additional time did it take? The reason I ask is that I also like the idea of an BS in one area, lets say CS and a masters in another like Math, Statistics, Physics, etc...

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If there is a whiteboard in the interview room, she should feel free to use it while she solve :)

 

Math use logic. A candidate with a good math foundation would hopefully not write spaghetti codes (confusing/illogical programming/coding). One can hope.

 

Yes, she actually called it a 'whiteboard interview'.  She's a very logical girl, which is why she's ended up in this field. :)

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That was an excellent choice which opens up significantly more opportunities than strictly Math or ComSci.

 

A question for you since I am considering the same thing for my son. How did you decide to double major as opposed to major/minor? And how much additional time did it take? The reason I ask is that I also like the idea of an BS in one area, lets say CS and a masters in another like Math, Statistics, Physics, etc...

 

CompSci (or most Engineering, or Physics) and Math are fairly easy to double-major in, as there's so much Math in the other major.  She would have only needed 3 more Math classes to minor in math, and I think it was 6 or so to double-major?

 

We did have to get some things out of the way to do this... She did do AP Calc and so started in Calc2.  She could have also gotten 1st semester CompSci and Physics out of the way based on her APs, but in the former they suggested not skipping because many don't do well since they do C not Java (but turns out she could have easily skipped it; she had 4 full years of programming in high school including Data Structures), and she thought her AP Physics class hadn't taught her well enough and she wanted to re-take.

 

She CLEP'd English, and that got her out of TWO English classes at that university (same as AP English would have done, but she hadn't wanted to take AP English to focus on the more techy APs).  That was a huge help.  She went to Cuba last Intersession and took two classes that the plan is to get count for two of her Social Science GenEds, but apparently they didn't automatically qualify.  But they were about Cuban history/politics so they totally should.  They will often make exceptions to some other not-quite-essential requirements for kids who double-major.

 

The original plan was for just a Math minor; it was her that decided she really wanted to double-major.  It's important to be very intentional about what classes to take and when in order to keep her on track and not have to take an extra semester.  As it is she'll be there 5 years, as she plans to do two 6-month coops before graduating (in addition to the research coop she did last summer).  She'd like to do the second coop abroad (instead of doing a study semester abroad).

Edited by Matryoshka
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Let me shed some light on this interesting topic from both an industry and hiring manager perspective. I work for a large tech fortune 500 company and we have a very diverse workforce in terms of academic backgrounds.  

 

First of all, one cannot make their final decision on majors based solely upon numbers like this which can be somewhat misleading. Why? Because it is not this black and white in the real world. I have worked with just about every STEM major including those with PhDs in their respective areas. There are folks with PhDs in Physics who write software or architect IT systems, for example. 

 

Another consideration which I believe there is some truth to is that in the 21st Century *every* company is an IT company whether they sell books, shoes, pharmaceuticals, automobiles or missiles. They typically rely on IT services to monitor customer satisfaction, maximize profits, determine long term strategies and market products online, among many other things.

 

Because of this, if one has a degree in CompSci, they can probably work with just about any company they want to. However, they will be generalists until they find a niche area. And that is where the other majors really shine and even surpass those with only CompSci backgrounds.

 

IMO, it is better for most STEM majors to have some training in programming. That should be a requirement, period. But like Matryoshka's dd, if CS is your major, combine another specialty area of interest. That will really help one stand out from the crowd once looking for those first jobs.

 

One of the hottest new fields is this area called Data Science or Data Analytics as some prefer to call it. Buzzwords like Big Data and Predictive Analytics are used often. Our company has recently made large investments in growing this skillset within the corporation. From our CEO down it has become a vital part of our mission. One of beauties of data science is that it is multidisciplinary by nature which spans a broad swath of skillsets. I've been fortunate to be involved with some of this and see its potential first hand.  Here is one visual which doesn't even fully span all the areas it covers:

 

4ZBBvb0.png

Edited by dereksurfs
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Another rapidly growing multidisciplinary area for non-STEM major includes the combining of Behavioral and Psychological research with data analytics. We have many folks working is this area looking for behavioral trends using modern methods and larger data sets in order to better predict outcomes. Here are a couple articles describing these opportunties:

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-psychological-state/201502/behavioural-science-meets-data-science

 

https://datasciencedegree.wisconsin.edu/blog/combining-psychology-research-methods-and-statistics/

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IMO, it is better for most STEM majors to have some training in programming. That should be a requirement, period. But like Matryoshka's dd, if CS is your major, combine another specialty area of interest. That will really help one stand out from the crowd once looking for those first jobs.

 

 

Absolutely!  There are no tech jobs where I work that don't use some programming. The minimum would be spreadsheet programming. 

We hire across many STEM majors except for Biology.

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One of my sons recently had a job interview that required him to design something and then offer three alternate designs, solve some diff eq problems, and fix some designs.  They also checked his communication skills.  This was on top of discussing what internships and projects he had done in school, asking him his strengths and weaknesses, and generally assessing how he presented himself.  This was for an engineering job requiring a bachelors degree.

 

Nan

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Well, if a child is interested in math, physics, Comp science.... it seems to me only one of those stand out in terms of employment opportunities.

 

I'd not really say so.  There are lots of careers that would use those aptitudes, or related ones.  

 

I think in the future we'll probably see quite a few people with some computer science related skills which they use in their main job, but I'm not actually convinced that most jobs in computer science will be especially good ones.

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My son's going to school for his PhD in Data Science. He was a math/biophysics major.

He loves it, tho he said the job offers are so tantalizing that many leave after getting their Masters.

 

Dotwithaperiod, that sounds fantastic regarding opportunities for your son. I can imagine it simply because its so hard to find folks trained in multiple disciplines like this. By the way, its very interesting that his undergraduate is also multidisciplinary. Some students really enjoy variety having many interests. My son is also considering a double major or finding a program which combines them like Data Science. Though it is so new in academia that many schools do not offer it yet while others are quickly trying to adjust to accommodate demand. Its also interesting to see which departments they are emerging from, sometimes it is the CS departments while other times it becomes more of a branch of applied mathematics. Then sometimes it will come more from business or the biomedical side if specializing in biomedical research.

 

Just out of curiosity where is he attending?

Edited by dereksurfs
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My son is also considering a double major or finding a program which combines them like Data Science. Though it is so new in academia that many schools do not offer it yet while others are quickly trying to adjust to accommodate demand.

UCB’s 2013 article on triple major was what started my oldest thinking about doing a triple major.

Triple majors make 27 at Cal noteworthy http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Triple-majors-make-27-at-Cal-noteworthy-4166314.php

 

UCB is going to offer a Data Science major. The link has lots more information on modules and course sequence https://data.berkeley.edu/education/faqs

“When will there be a Data Science major or minor?

 

Faculty are developing proposals for Data Science majors and minors. These have to be approved before they can be offered. Faculty are working intensively and hope the programs can be approved in 2017-18. Spring 2018 is our target date for the first majors and minors.

 

What are the aims of the Data Science major?

 

The major would equip students to draw sound conclusions from data in context, using knowledge of statistical inference, computational processes, data management strategies, domain knowledge, and theory. Students would learn to carry out analyses of data through the full cycle of the investigative process in scientific and practical contexts. They would gain understanding of the human and ethical implications of data analysis and integrate that knowledge in designing and carrying out their work.â€

 

ETA:

COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY DATA SCIENCE DEGREES

http://datascience.community/colleges

Edited by Arcadia
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