21–30 of 95 posts
Personally I’m a little worried about ageism, something that doesn’t even enter the mind space of any of my friends with degrees in the humanities.
So maybe there is something to it. I mean, they had much harder times finding jobs than me, and aren’t rigoursly headhunted, but every one of them found jobs.
I have History and CS degrees. The CS experience (at a top engineering school) felt fairly vocational. But being rigorously taught how to research, construct arguments, and communicate ideas in my Liberal Arts degree has been what made me successful past my first hire. I definitely recommend double majoring in a Liberal Arts degree. Also perhaps there’s a lesson here about the CS curriculum being too vocational at mo…
I have friends from university with degrees in history, classics, theology, that make 3x what I do as a software engineer with a PhD. They work in things like corporate intelligence, risk analysis, planning and operations. Really high-powered serious stuff that makes what I do look rather trivial. They get hired as their companies want diversity of thought and the main job requirement is just being smart, switched-on…
I’m guessing they went to top schools. That’s the issue. Humanity degrees at lower tier schools don’t open doors, and a lot of people are borrowing a lot of money to get degrees with a poor ROI.
I majored in philosophy before moving to mathematics - it was phenomenally interesting, but I wouldn't be impressed by a candidate with a philosophy degree these days. A lot of people who hire humanities degrees from top schools talk about things like "diversity of thought", but I think if that was the real reason they might look for candidates outside the top schools.
The main problem with the humanities is that they have been consumed by the political far left. That's sad, because English, history, and philosphy could be great programs. I remember I was struggling to get decent grades on my history papers. I was running out of patience and decided I just wanted to pass. So I just wrote what I thought the professor wanted to hear (far left BS) and started getting B's and even an A…
The main problem with the humanities is that they have been consumed by the political far left. That's sad, because English, history, and philosphy could be great programs. I remember I was struggling to get decent grades on my history papers. I was running out of patience and decided I just wanted to pass. So I just wrote what I thought the professor wanted to hear (far left BS) and started getting B's and even an A…
The main problem with the humanities is that they have been consumed by the political far left. That's sad, because English, history, and philosphy could be great programs. I remember I was struggling to get decent grades on my history papers. I was running out of patience and decided I just wanted to pass. So I just wrote what I thought the professor wanted to hear (far left BS) and started getting B's and even an A…
I have friends from university with degrees in history, classics, theology, that make 3x what I do as a software engineer with a PhD. They work in things like corporate intelligence, risk analysis, planning and operations. Really high-powered serious stuff that makes what I do look rather trivial. They get hired as their companies want diversity of thought and the main job requirement is just being smart, switched-on…
I have a hard time believing this would be the norm at a sufficient number of companies that it would justify picking up one of these degrees. Knowing technical skills when applying to technical companies seems like a safer bet.
I have History and CS degrees. The CS experience (at a top engineering school) felt fairly vocational. But being rigorously taught how to research, construct arguments, and communicate ideas in my Liberal Arts degree has been what made me successful past my first hire. I definitely recommend double majoring in a Liberal Arts degree. Also perhaps there’s a lesson here about the CS curriculum being too vocational at mo…
> Or not needing a 4 year college if it aims to be vocational? US colleges could absolutely drop the fourth year tomorrow if they wanted to. Many excellent European universities get it done in three and get results just as good. The real waste of time is the US PhD - doing in seven years what could be done in two or three.
I have friends from university with degrees in history, classics, theology, that make 3x what I do as a software engineer with a PhD. They work in things like corporate intelligence, risk analysis, planning and operations. Really high-powered serious stuff that makes what I do look rather trivial. They get hired as their companies want diversity of thought and the main job requirement is just being smart, switched-on…
My next boss had a degree in English. His thought was that no matter what he did with his life, communication was always at the center. He had founded 2 different tech companies before I met him, and he's now the CTO of a large company.
One of the smartest people I've ever personally worked with went to seminary (I'm not sure if he was an atheist before or after, but talk about fun conversations over a beer). He was preoccupied with finding meaning in life, and did things like math and CS with what seemed like his spare cycles.
The point is that a persons degree really only matters for their first job, and often even then only if they want to work at a FAANG for that first job. Where people end up 5-10-15-20 years later in their career has little to do with their degree.
So many people decry taking any career path that isn't STEM-based, but surely one of the things the proliferation of technology and automation should one day enable is a world where someone could be a poet, or an artist, or an engineer, and not worry much about providing the material conditions of their life? I want to live in a world where anyone can be anything. I still think it's pragmatic advice to avoid (or at l…
“The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navig…
It isn't surprising that a generation who successfully fought a war of revolution against a royalty of "divine" right would have a millenarian bent, but that doesn't mean that we should believe them. In fact, it might be telling that this pithy narrative is found in a private letter to his wife rather than in his more intentionally public works. In every generation, there will be those who find poetry boring and politics exciting. The rest of us must maintain constant vigilance against those scourges on humanity.