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A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

theatlantic.com

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Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#231

Post by jlongr »

non-entity wrote: post #156
throwawaygh wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> particularly when humanities topics are far more amenable to self-study than STEM topics. Really? I feel exactly the opposite, especially for CS. How do you become a good writer without feedback from a good writer (or, at least, critical reader)?

CS is an outlier. I imagine mathematics could be a good outlier as well. Its probably easier to find someone to help criticize your writing as opposed to getting your hands on expensive scientific / engineering equipment (both because of cost and regulations) however.

Mathematics is a subject that may not be the easiest or most desirable to self-study.

In particular, the popular and effective Moore method of teaching math relies heavily on interaction with other students.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore_method

>[T]he content of the course is usually presented in whole or in part by the students themselves. Instead of using a textbook, the students are given a list of definitions and theorems which they are to prove and present in class, leading them through the subject material.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#232

Post by chasd00 »

francisofascii wrote: post #58
imgabe wrote: post #38

Nothing is a guarantee of a good life. It seems like people think you should be able to just check a few boxes, then slot into a 9-5 and have everything taken care of for you for the rest of your life. Well, it doesn't work like that. Even after college you're still going to have to plan and think and take action to make things happen for you. It's not just all going to fall into your lap because you took a few class…

To be fair, it used to work like that in America. Graduate high school, get a decent paying union job in your hometown with an okay house to raise a family. Drink beer and watch sports on the weekends with neighborhood buddies. Work 30-40 years and retire.

to the current generation that is not a good life, that is a terrible life. If you're life isn't follow-worthy then you're failing.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#233

Post by 9HZZRfNlpR »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #205
School-Cotton wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many developed countries in e.g. Europe don't actually have universal academic high school like the US does - they have perhaps 1/3 of people go to academic high school, where it is more difficult than in the US (perhaps comparable to the difficulty of AP classes). The rest go to vocational or semi-vocational school.

Not sure that is actually a good idea as kids with well of backgrounds tend to get the higher tracks. I remember a native German poster on hn commenting on the subject "funny how the its the brown skinned Germans, who end up in the lower tier schools"

You get there by merit not wallet, I thought usa has it the same to be honest. Sometimes I feel like Americans have very deranged view of Europe where half thinks it's some socialist equality utopia and the other half thinks a communist hellhole.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#234

Post by C1sc0cat »

rayiner wrote: post #101
ghostpepper wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m trying to think of why it would be worse. Is it because skills become less transferable, thus making it harder for an apprentice to move from one master to another? Perhaps that is by design - companies are wary of investing time and money training junior employees because they can just leave before the investment pays for itself? Not sure what the answer is here; just playing devil’s advocate.

It’s because it gives guilds the power to control the pipeline of skilled labor and exclude new entrants to limit supply. Guilds are generally run by their members, and the existing members are much more likely to be white and native born than potential new entrants. Their management structure also makes it more likely that prejudices will be acted upon. When public unions became a thing in the 1960s and 1970s, they…

I think you mean the very early years 1870's and 80' unfortunately the AFL did discriminate against Black and Female Workers.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#236

Post by AQuantized »

nikeshm wrote: post #217
omginternets wrote: post #30

I barely skimmed the article, but I don't find this surprising for a few reasons (some of which have been mentioned elsewhere in the comments): - "University degree" is a heterogeneous thing. While there is such thing as non-economic value, the strictly economic value of a college education tends to cluster around a small subset of degrees. - Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who g…

Would you mind elaborating on your experiences in France and England? I'm curious about the situation there. I was under the impression that there are many effective non-college options in those countries (England's pretty robust apprenticeship system comes to mind), and that university is generally both hard to get into and relatively cheap to complete. I also haven't lived in either France or England, so I speak fr…

It's not hard to get into a university in the UK. It is quite hard to get into a 'top' university, and Oxbridge typically requires a fair bit of luck in addition to being very hard.

There are pretty decent apprenticeships, but only so many people want to work trades regardless. It's not exactly a ticket to wealth or status like a degree might still be perceived.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#237

Post by csharptwdec19 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #94
omginternets wrote: post #30

I barely skimmed the article, but I don't find this surprising for a few reasons (some of which have been mentioned elsewhere in the comments): - "University degree" is a heterogeneous thing. While there is such thing as non-economic value, the strictly economic value of a college education tends to cluster around a small subset of degrees. - Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who g…

> Far from fixing inequality Was this the purpose? I thought it was to raise living standards by improving productivity. By and large, broader education has been successful at that. (It went off the deep end, in recent years, with the proliferation of bullshit degrees.)

I think you covered part of the problem in the second half of your statement.

In the US, part of the problem is that by making education debts non-dischargable in bankruptcy, and by the aforementioned proliferation of degrees that may qualify as 'nice to have' rather than 'increase earning potential'.

The end result is a lot of people who got a college degree that doesn't really pay for itself, and instead leads to 20+ years of debt, or 10 years of indentured servitude to a non-profit.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#238

Post by Apocryphon »

dgb23 wrote: post #167
spamizbad wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we? After a certain point more CS majors will just push salaries down. There is probably more valuable academic pursuits.

You can also increase the number by decreasing the gender studies majors instead of increasing the CS majors.

Are these even people solely majoring in gender studies? That seems to be the sort of degree that might work as a double-major with something more general and practical. Perhaps there may be even a handful of CS/gender studies double majors.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#239

Post by guitarbill »

chrisseaton wrote: post #223
nikeshm wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind elaborating on your experiences in France and England? I'm curious about the situation there. I was under the impression that there are many effective non-college options in those countries (England's pretty robust apprenticeship system comes to mind), and that university is generally both hard to get into and relatively cheap to complete. I also haven't lived in either France or England, so I speak fr…

Almost half of school-leavers go to university in the UK. If you look at a normal school in a middle-class area it’s going to be about 90%. Seems like that can’t be ‘hard to get into’.

I'm not sure for how much this accounts, but the UK allowed polytechnics to call themselves universities. Of course, this then increases the number of people going to uni... but this might've been a bad idea. While there was a prestige issue with the name, they now have to compete on a similar playing field.

Germany's interesting here, since they had/have Fachhochschulen (apparently translated to University of Applied Sciences). Some of which were very highly regarded, and offered a different focus that suited some people. Although after the Bologna Process, this difference is less clear, too.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#240

Post by fractionalhare »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #72
zajio1am wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To prove intelligence and conscientiousness? Probably PhD degree.

A PhD only signals that you have an unhealthy relationship with academia. I've interviewed and worked with so many PhD from top tier schools and it's astounding to me that someone can spend 6+ years studying a quantitative science, at a school like MIT or Harvard and still not have a basic understanding of statistics, and worse be incapable of genuinely understanding any of the quantitative tools they used for years.…

I'm surprised to read a comment like this. It seems like an incredibly harsh generalization. I know plenty of PhDs who have a good relationship with academia, or even no relationship.

I also think it's unrealistic to expect PhDs to have a "basic understanding of statistics" unless they specifically studied it. I would be shocked and dismayed to see a PhD statistician misunderstand basic statistics; I wouldn't blink if a PhD mathematician or physicist made basic statistical errors. It's hard enough to achieve research-level mastery of one domain in five years, and many mathematicians and physicists (most?) do not need stats.

If you're talking about fields like psychology or sociology, I personally disagree with the expectations they're held to. I believe we would have less of a reproducibility crisis if research projects had statistician coauthors and peer reviewers, rather than just PhDs for whom statistics is not a core competency. That would be fairer and more realistic.

Finally, to be blunt it's hard for me to take this comment seriously when you say something like this:

> The current generation of PhDs don't know how to do any kind of real research

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