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This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach
51–60 of 156 posts
Re: This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach
#52Overall I found this article disappointingly full of worthless generalisations. There is absolutely no way that anyone who reads The Economist can have concluded that Europe has surpassed America in anything not involving riots, in the way that no one who reads Maxim can conclude that acne is in vogue. I find this attitude deeply aggravating. Europe has simply chosen a different path to the US, and to pretend that th…
I think it's actually meant to be a comment on the editorial slant of The Economist, which is generally not in favor of the choices that are made by European states.
(They give reasons though, which makes it an interesting read even though I frequently disagree with them.)
Re: This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach
#53Overall I found this article disappointingly full of worthless generalisations. There is absolutely no way that anyone who reads The Economist can have concluded that Europe has surpassed America in anything not involving riots, in the way that no one who reads Maxim can conclude that acne is in vogue. I find this attitude deeply aggravating. Europe has simply chosen a different path to the US, and to pretend that th…
>I find this attitude deeply aggravating. Europe has simply chosen a different path to the US, and to pretend that the US is superior in every way is ridiculous.
I think you're misreading him. He's making fun of the reporting in the Economist which is alternately, "is Europe going to collapse?" "Is America going to become Europe and then collapse?" and "OMG scary Chinese." The Economist has a fairly particular world view, and he was skeptical that someone who reads it regularly can come out with a different one.
Re: This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm rather bothered by all the people knocking liberal arts degrees, in this and other threads. I did go to a school with a reputation for having a hard liberal arts core education, and it turned out to be a great decision. (In retrospect, I now wish I had gone to a different school, but the one I chose wasn't bad at all.) It's hard to explain why it's good to be able to think about these things, but it's hard to exp…
> Essentially, a good liberal arts education transforms your world-view of those subjects the same way a good engineering education does. I think most people agree with that, they just disagree that it's worth paying $50/hour to get. Go into any high end coffee place and you'll find someone you can have a good discussion with about liberal arts-related topics. I was talking about Jeffersonian vs. Hamiltonian democrac…
Isn't that like arguing that you can pick up programming knowledge on internet discussion boards cheaper than a degree program?
In theory, sure, you can. In your spare time you might run into someone who really knows his shit and enlightens you.
But, just as with the coffee shop, more times than not you run into people whose facade of knowledge would shatter the first time you ask a question. Trick being, if you barely understand the topic yourself, you'll only stumble onto a question that exposes their ignorance by chance. You're as likely to be led completely astray and have your time wasted as not.
Further, the chance that a given discussion board or coffee shop will contain someone interested and educated in the particular concepts you care to discuss when you care to discuss them gets pretty damn small beyond trivial depth.
The reasonable component in the price of higher education is about the quality of the interpretation and dialogue between yourself, the professor and the other students.
In short, you're paying to have some assurance that the discussion and/or lecture will be of a higher quality than you would find elsewhere and some assurance the discussion will occur and be relevant at a given time.
Re: This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach
#55My understanding of the American Dream is that everyone has the opportunity to build themselves up from humble beginnings. This kid in the article thinks he is entitled to make more than 40k, instead of accepting reality and working hard to change his earning potential
Re: This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach
#56Sigh, another blogger trotting out the tired, false cliche that college is useless. From the article: "Were you smarter at 21 post college than your Dad was at 21? And whatever the difference, was it worth the $50k-$200k he paid to get you it?" Yes. Yes I was smarter. And I didn't pay 200k because I went to a state school. I graduated a wholly different person with a completely different world-view and a ton of appli…
Whenever I read these articles debating the value of a college degree (which I think this article isn't about, but that seems to be the way everyone is interpreting it), the argument is always treated as a black and white issue and it's not.
There are a few types of people that go through college in different ways. You have intelligent people that have learned how to "excel" well, who fit the bill of the subject of the NY Times article. They get through with a decent GPA, party hard, and get a corporate job. You have intelligent people that thrive in the learning environment that college affords, and they gain a lot out of it. Their work ethic takes them places, and some develop that work ethic in college. I'm one of the latter, so call me biased towards it. Then there are the hard working, intelligent people who feel caged from the curriculum. These are the people who question the value.
The problem with the people that already have the strong work ethic and intelligence is that they assume that everyone is like those peers in the first group that simply go through the motions, and its not a question of whether they should have went to school but how they approached it. These are the loudest voices against the higher ed system.
It's undoubtedly a broken system, but inherent value exists for some. I think we'll see a revolution in higher education, hopefully sooner than later and ideally these issues are rectified.
Re: This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach
#57I propose an alternate question: Even if he got the "package" job he was looking for. Should he take it? I'm currently in an argument with my parents about attempting a startup after I graduate vs getting a job and trying to start something on the side. Obviously the parents think it's too much risk, I think I've tried to "follow the rules" for too long and have nothing to lose. Anyone else been in a similar situatio…
I was in a similar situation a year ago. Had the same "follow the rules" arguments with my parents. For the first few months after school I found contract jobs, which payed well enough, and left me plenty of time for my own thing and reflection. I highly recommend this path if you can stand living on the cheap and not knowing when your next job will surface.
After a few contracts I wound up joining a cool startup as lead developer since I wanted to pay off student debt fast and get some experience before starting my own. In a year or two, I'll likely be finishing up with this startup I'm at now and will have saved enough money to pursue my own thing full time for a while. Who knows what will happen then ...
This all from someone who had some student loans to pay off and not much money saved.
Both contract jobs and longer term employment with a startup have been hugely valuable experiences that I am grateful to have had before starting my own. There is a huge continuum between working for a fortune 500 company and as an entrepreneur.
Re: This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was my thought, too. No matter how I feel about rejecting the insurance job, I can't deny that he's showing sufficient dedication to job hunting. The trouble is he doesn't seem to be showing any dedication to anything else. Why is he not tutoring or coaching little league? Why is he not learning something or building something?
Those things are indistinguishable from making himself more hireable.
Yes, but he can't see it. He thinks only the degree makes him hireable.
Re: This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach
#59Sigh, another blogger trotting out the tired, false cliche that college is useless. From the article: "Were you smarter at 21 post college than your Dad was at 21? And whatever the difference, was it worth the $50k-$200k he paid to get you it?" Yes. Yes I was smarter. And I didn't pay 200k because I went to a state school. I graduated a wholly different person with a completely different world-view and a ton of appli…
I'm rather bothered by all the people knocking liberal arts degrees, in this and other threads. I did go to a school with a reputation for having a hard liberal arts core education, and it turned out to be a great decision. (In retrospect, I now wish I had gone to a different school, but the one I chose wasn't bad at all.) It's hard to explain why it's good to be able to think about these things, but it's hard to exp…
Just a reminder but Hard Science degrees also make you take some general education requirements, for instance my Computer Science degree came with courses such as:
* 4 Semesters of Latin
* Chinese Mythology
* History
* Linguistics
* Entomology
* Sociology
* Macro Economics
Re: This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach
#60Overall I found this article disappointingly full of worthless generalisations. There is absolutely no way that anyone who reads The Economist can have concluded that Europe has surpassed America in anything not involving riots, in the way that no one who reads Maxim can conclude that acne is in vogue. I find this attitude deeply aggravating. Europe has simply chosen a different path to the US, and to pretend that th…
>I find this attitude deeply aggravating. Europe has simply chosen a different path to the US, and to pretend that the US is superior in every way is ridiculous. I think you're misreading him. He's making fun of the reporting in the Economist which is alternately, "is Europe going to collapse?" "Is America going to become Europe and then collapse?" and "OMG scary Chinese." The Economist has a fairly particular world…
Ahh, I see. Thank you for the correction :-)