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A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

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

#401

Post by vaidhy »

29athrowaway wrote: post #368
vaidhy wrote: post #339

I have been reading through the comments and I am very curious about a few things - 1. What "bullshit" degrees people are talking about? Are they the liberal arts studies? If so, as a society do we not see value in the fine arts? Expertise in music, language, anthropology, history, etc do not necessarily lead to a well-paying job.. but they give intellectually satisfaction in and of itself. 2. IMHO, the pay you are l…

You do not need to go to a music conservatory to be a musician. And among the musicians with the highest net worth, few have formal training. Take for example, Metallica. To my knowledge, none of them have formal training, yet each member has a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Yes, but the vast majority of musicians do have formal coaching and training. A net worth is not an indication of musical talent and should not be used as one.

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

#402

Post by rayiner »

triceratops wrote: post #362
rayiner wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guilds are awful for immigrants and racial minorities, who are often the new entrants excluded by the guilds. Many “Jewish law firms” exist to this day because Jews were excluded from existing WASP law firms.

Guilds reflect the societies they are in. Society had more bigotry in the past, and so did the various institutions within it. Also, it's weird that you call out guilds for being discriminatory but then give an example of discrimination in employment. We have fair employment laws to prevent this type of behavior and arguably could have "fair guild membership" laws if it became a problem. It's fair to argue against gu…

You’re overlooking that the non-white population is much younger (the median white person is 42, the median Hispanic person is 28) and they are driving all population growth in the country. (The absolute number of non-hispanic whites started declining in 2010). Given those changing demographics, when guilds act to limit membership (as you acknowledge they do) the bulk of those excluded are going to be non-whites.

And employment discrimination laws won’t solve the problem because the discriminatory effect arises from the legal practice of protecting existing members at the expense of potential new entrants.

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

#403

Post by chobytes »

mindvirus wrote: post #289

There's so much potential in a better university/college. Imagine that in society we pooled our resources to make the best video/online courses for a variety of subjects. The best CS courses. The best history courses. The best biology courses. We could focus on making the courses accessible and translated. We could make the best assignments and projects, iterated and experimented on with a population of millions. Hec…

This is a recipe for a very poor education in my opinion. This sort of mass produced educational content, taught by professional educators rather than researchers, produces students who merely know facts and can perform basic algorithms.

Real understanding of a field comes from long hours engaging with the subject and playing with ideas, and from interacting with others in the field. Working through educational material (where it exist) is obviously helpful, but it's not enough.

tl;dr: Nobody becomes in expert in anything by working through a textbook.

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

#404

Post by weatherman2 »

pixelbash wrote: post #394
diebeforei485 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arts (orchestra/symphony, opera/musicals, etc) are a luxury good. There is a small, niche market for these things, mostly centered around certain cities - so we can only have so many artists. The mass arts that the masses can afford to consume (TV, streaming music, and movies) are by definition based on popularity, so we can only have so many artists. I don't know why we fund so many people's arts degrees. We nee…

This is a viewpoint centered around seeing art as a commodity. To me that's like saying we only need so many scientists. Is perceived value the best metric?

There's a lot of art out there in the world. A whole, whole lot.

If you want to make something artistically creative for people to watch, listen to, or read, you are competing with Mozart, the Beatles, Edgar Allen Poe, Tolkien, and countless other prodigies. Artistic creations made by individuals are a winner-takes-all market where a small fraction of the creators enjoy the majority of the revenue. Artistic creations made by large groups are somewhat fairer (but still often on the low end) in their compensation, if you manage to out compete other job applicants and get the job.

Regardless of whether you as an individual treat art as a commodity, you have to square your viewpoint as a artist with the fact that you have to put bread on the table. Society will very likely reward you very poorly for your artistic contributions.

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

#405

Post by renewiltord »

vaidhy wrote: post #339

I have been reading through the comments and I am very curious about a few things - 1. What "bullshit" degrees people are talking about? Are they the liberal arts studies? If so, as a society do we not see value in the fine arts? Expertise in music, language, anthropology, history, etc do not necessarily lead to a well-paying job.. but they give intellectually satisfaction in and of itself. 2. IMHO, the pay you are l…

The market already takes care of all of these things:

1. Society does see value in arts and rewards them commensurately. But democratic access to the arts means that those who are regarded good by the many are rewarded by many and those who are regarded good by the few are rewarded by few. Nothing seems wrong about this to me. Free people give Kanye more money than Killswitch Engage. And as for the liberal arts, if you're Karl Popper you'll live a productive life. If you're Joe Schmoe the Philosopher-Barista then maybe you're not going to reach his heady heights but that's because you're not as useful to me.

2. Each person has a concept of what you value. If you would go into lifelong debt to know about Kierkegaard, then so be it. Good for you! You have that option.

3. You shouldn't expect anything but the same fair shot anyone should be given at life. If we have surplus money and we wish to spend money on people who want to paint, then we will. If we don't, we won't. And we will be fickle. Adapt or die. Your business model is not my problem.

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

#406

Post by onion2k »

29athrowaway wrote: post #368
vaidhy wrote: post #339

I have been reading through the comments and I am very curious about a few things - 1. What "bullshit" degrees people are talking about? Are they the liberal arts studies? If so, as a society do we not see value in the fine arts? Expertise in music, language, anthropology, history, etc do not necessarily lead to a well-paying job.. but they give intellectually satisfaction in and of itself. 2. IMHO, the pay you are l…

You do not need to go to a music conservatory to be a musician. And among the musicians with the highest net worth, few have formal training. Take for example, Metallica. To my knowledge, none of them have formal training, yet each member has a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars.

For every Metallica there are 100,000 other bands that didn't make it. They're an anomoly rather than an example.

It'd be more interesting to look at the number of people who make a living from music, and whether or not the majority have formal training. I suspect they do so off you want a career doing what you live maybe training is a good idea. And if my assumption is wrong it'd be an interesting thing to research.

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

#407

Post by renewiltord »

vaidhy wrote: post #401
29athrowaway wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not need to go to a music conservatory to be a musician. And among the musicians with the highest net worth, few have formal training. Take for example, Metallica. To my knowledge, none of them have formal training, yet each member has a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Yes, but the vast majority of musicians do have formal coaching and training. A net worth is not an indication of musical talent and should not be used as one.

True, but musical talent doesn't mean I should give you anything. If you ask something of me (money? time?) I may demand something in response (entertainment). Should we fail to make a deal, you are out the money/time and I am out the entertainment and we both seek out others who may be agreeable. This is fair. This is free. This is the market. And it is today.

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

#408

Post by antasvara »

mcguire wrote: post #320
dumbfoundded wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real value of a university is the community. What you're describing is basically a new textbook. It doesn't replace the people you interact with. Going to a great college doesn't mean great classes with awesome course material. It's other classmates you study with, it's the TAs that hold office hours, the professors too, sometimes.

I strongly agree. When I was an undergraduate, the "lower division", more introductory, required courses were taught by specialists in "Computer Science Education", whatever the heck that is. I hated them. They were ... useful, as a basis for everything later, but they weren't taught well and if that is all there were, I would be very unhappy about the time and money wasted. Then I reached the "upper division", mostl…

So what I'm hearing is that introductory classes could be replicated in a primarily online environment? I'd be a huge fan of moving the first year or so of college online (or at least having the option to do so) for a reduced rate.

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

#410

Post by opportune »

jimbokun wrote: post #399
mcguire wrote: post #315

" Higher education is often described as an investment. But it’s still unclear if it pays off in happiness. " Nothing, nothing will guarantee happiness. Or a good life. Make the best decisions you can, by which I mean try to make decisions that you will not regret later. (Have I made a crap-ton of mistakes in my life? Sure 'nuff. Would I make different decisions if I could, even knowing what I know now? Probably not.…

In high school, I had a part time job planting trees, but knew I was going to a university that I was proud to get accepted to and excited to have that opportunity. But kind of thinking maybe I shouldn't brag about that to the other kids who were doing this same job, but wouldn't have the same opportunities for higher education as myself. Then one day, the subject came up, and the other guys were like "Thank god I'm…

The best job I ever had was life guarding a pool barely anybody used. 70% of the time it was empty and I just browsed my phone. It paid $9.25/hr. Some of the other lifeguards were in their 60s or 30s and as a college student, at first I was judging them a little that they were doing such a menial job in their prime earning years.

Then I realized that if they were happy with their current standard of living their life probably had no work related stress whatsoever and they kinda had it figured out. Now I make over 10x more and am constantly stressed out and anxious taking my work home with me everywhere, and I envy those people quite a bit.

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