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ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

economist.com

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Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#151

Post by vasilipupkin »

loco5niner wrote: post #139
goldbrick wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is way easier to go to college and get a formal education in science, math, or engineering, and pursue an ongoing adhoc self-directed education in the arts and humanities in your remaining decades of life, than the other way around. This isn't really true. You can't really have any kind of art career, for example, if you don't go to art school. Meanwhile, tons of companies will happily hire whatever chumps code…

> You can't really have any kind of art career, for example, if you don't go to art school. This can't possibly be true.

If you are a genius artist that happens to get lucky, sure. But if you want to have an actual art career, it will be tough without art school

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#152

Post by xiaoma »

emodendroket wrote: post #25
jerf wrote: post #4

In addition to the obvious 0 line, it's worth taking the article's observation that S&P has returned 7.8% and mentally drawing a line there too. Also, for anyone in the position of deciding which to do, I'd add the observation that it is way easier to go to college and get a formal education in science, math, or engineering, and pursue an ongoing adhoc self-directed education in the arts and humanities in your remain…

I studied Japanese in school and I think it would have been extremely difficult to learn on my own. So... I'd say it depends.

I studied Japanese in school too. Being young and having free time helped a lot, as did having a Japanese roommate who invited all his buddies over to drink in my room until 3am every weekend.

Nonetheless, I have achieved a level of fluency and especially literacy in Mandarin that puts my Japanese of that time to shame and I have no formal credential backing it up.

You don't need formal classes to become fluent in a language. If you'd like to learn how some very successful language learners have done it, check out http://lingsprout.com/experts

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#153

Post by emodendroket »

coryrc wrote: post #149
emodendroket wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I'm not going to get into a pissing match about what discipline is harder. The point is that learning Japanese at a university is not an experience that could be easily duplicated somewhere else and that there are probably other "soft" disciplines of which the same could be said.

Learning Japanese is way easier if you just go to the country and live there. I'll guarantee if you go with the same amount of money invested in college you'll learn the language faster.

Part of my studies took place in Japan; being there certainly helps but it's not the same thing (and besides that, how do you get to Japan? It's almost impossible to get a long-term visa unless you are either a student or have a degree)

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#154

Post by tptacek »

existencebox wrote: post #93
rayiner wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that point of view to be a conceit. It's an emulation of the noble classes of yore, who learned things they didn't need to know as a way of signaling that they could afford to do so because they didn't need to work. Most people are no better off 10-years down the line for having learned about what native Americans used to live in Virginia or what covalent bonds are.

I could not disagree more thoroughly. The fact that I've had the opportunity to learn about a broad range of domains in addition to my technical focus has allowed me to not only have a better understanding, appreciation, and direction in my interactions with the broader world, it lets me draw parallels between similar scenarios in distinct fields, learn from the experiences of others, see novel solutions to entirely…

I don't know that we have to litigate whether general learning is worthwhile; I think we only have to deal with the question of whether it's worth tens of thousands of dollars that millions of incoming college students don't really have.

If you could cut a full year off the work needed for a professional degree by losing "which native Americans lived in Virginia", and thus spare millions of students the expense of a full year in college, you would be materially helping not only current college students but also people who are forced to debate whether or not to attend because of the expense.

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#155

Post by School-Cotton »

criddell wrote: post #142
School-Cotton wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did IB. It's the best you are going to get in the US. What are your reservations?

Time demands. It sounds like the program is a lot of work and I don't think having school crowd out everything else is necessarily healthy.

I'm a slacker and I did fine in IB. She will have to work more than the average high school student (that is to say, more than basically zero) but it's completely possible to have other hobbies and activities.

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#156

Post by xiaoma »

ethanbond wrote: post #146
neap24 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree slightly. Mostly because you can find dozens of commentaries and critical analyses of great works of fiction to complement your reading. These are essentially transmitting the same info a knowledgeable teacher/group of classmates would. The resources for math and science are also vast, but often require access to specialized laborites/equipment at the upper levels.

Uhh... no they're not "essentially the same." The value of being in the same room as knowledgeable people is interacting with them. If there's something that is unclear or that you want to delve into, you have an interactive way to do so. This whole "self-learning is just as good!" is ridiculous. If it was, it would already rule the world. People trust accreditation for a reason.

It already does rule the world. The greatest writers, actors, musicians, engineers, salespeople, marketers and entrepreneurs nearly all mastered their craft outside of brick an mortar institutions

You have a PHD in drama? Good for you. I'd rather watch a high school drop out like Leonardo DiCaprio.

You have a PHD in computer graphics? That's nice, but once again a dropout beat you to it. He currently leads Oculus Rift.

Marketers? Salespeople? Businesspeople? Authors? Seriously... try to name even one at the very top of the game who became that way through formal schooling. It's not easy.

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#157

Post by treehau5 »

emodendroket wrote: post #85
treehau5 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you embark on the quest to learn japanese, you begin to look for other avenues to hone in on those skills -- whether its finding other people who speak it, or in some people's cases, play on japanese gaming servers, or skyping/hangouts and converse with japanese people in full immersion. After that you want to start reading more literature, so you do what anyone would do and search for japanese books on Amazon.…

Maybe they would, but I've attended Japanese courses intended mostly for businesspeople before college and they were almost universally focused on conversational Japanese -- which is fine but nothing like studying Japanese literature with a professor who is an expert in it. We're getting away from the claim that it would be "easy" to learn this on your own, to be sure. I've been learning some Korean in my spare time…

I see. I think maybe the difference is enthusiasm? If someone is going into it thinking "It would be really helpful for my work or business to learn Japanese" versus "Japanese is cool. I would really like to immerse myself in this language and learn how to talk to Japanese people" would merit different results. The business-focused person would be more inclined to trod those traditional routes of instructorship and classes, etc, but being a student of languages myself, as well as knowing 3 of them (sorry if this sounds like I am trying to argue by authority), I can say the latter is the only way you really ever learn a language.

My good friend has a PhD in Chinese, (yes that is actually a thing), and he attests to the fact that he didn't grok the language until his travels and studies there, being immersed.

Now typing this I realize we may be debating across each other, because even if you believe you can learn on your own better, or having structured courses is better, the real answer is none of it sticks unless you fully immerse yourself in it, self-taught or not.

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#159

Post by kamaal »

This is true not just in US, but in India as well.

Most people who studied Computer Science, Electronics, Electrical engineering are taking way better salaries than other courses. Most of my friends in Civil/Mechanical/Other engineering branches barely have a good full time paying job. I remember friends who opt to study Mechanical/Civil engineering courses in better colleges instead of Electrical/Electronics/CS are now worse. A few made a shift to a programming career, Most regret the decision to chose college over courses.

MBBS is a torture, if you don't make it to being a MD and then to work at a corporate controlled hospital. Dentistry is the absolute worst. Only people who could afford to study 1.5 decades and gather a specialization seemed to have done well on the longer run.

Finally people who for 'passion', 'interest' and such stuff went into studying history, literature, law, commerce etc. A few of those people went into teaching, a few are now desk clerks, but a good part doing small time jobs or running small shops.

The absolute worst I have seen is my friend who did architecture from a reputed college in Bangalore, went on to do his MS from a college in sydney in architecture, he now competes with local masons for projects, people who have never been to school or at best have high school education.

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#160

Post by emodendroket »

treehau5 wrote: post #157
emodendroket wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they would, but I've attended Japanese courses intended mostly for businesspeople before college and they were almost universally focused on conversational Japanese -- which is fine but nothing like studying Japanese literature with a professor who is an expert in it. We're getting away from the claim that it would be "easy" to learn this on your own, to be sure. I've been learning some Korean in my spare time…

I see. I think maybe the difference is enthusiasm? If someone is going into it thinking "It would be really helpful for my work or business to learn Japanese" versus "Japanese is cool. I would really like to immerse myself in this language and learn how to talk to Japanese people" would merit different results. The business-focused person would be more inclined to trod those traditional routes of instructorship and c…

I too have studied several languages, both in high school and in college, as well as some dabbling on my own. The classes alone are not enough, no. But they are a tremendous resource and make it much easier to get where you want to go.

You might be able to reach similar levels of language proficiency without the courses but the biggest problems are 1) finding hours and hours a day to drill writing characters and other mundane aspects of learning 2) guidance from an instructor who can tell you whether things that look/sound right are. And also I think a university course also gives you a survey of the literature and culture of that language and insight into it that would be hard to acquire on your own.

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