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College has been oversold

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Re: College has been oversold

#141

Post by philwelch »

[deleted] wrote: post #135
philwelch wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case in point, Andrew Mason, CEO of Groupon, what did he study? Oh yeah, he studied Music at Northwestern... I'm curious: where did Mr. Ponzi get his degree? Yes, it's pretty obvious that if you get into a name-brand university and manage to teach yourself marketable skills on the side, you can be pretty successful. What if you don't get into a name-brand university? You're screwed for life and your best shot at succ…

[deleted]

No, I meant the actual Mr. Ponzi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ponzi

It was a rhetorical question. The point was, Andrew Mason's accomplishments don't seem quite so respectable anymore.

The article is about the growing number of Liberal Arts graduate s. My point is that if you are going to study liberal arts in this economy, you'd be better off studying somewhere good and have more opportunities later.

I submit that if you get into a name brand university, you probably already have the upper-middle-class/upper-class background, connections, and upbringing necessary to do well in the job market regardless of what you actually study. And either way, now that you're in the elite social category of "people who got into a name brand university". That's all status, and no one ever argued that status didn't get you places in the world.

Re: College has been oversold

#142

Post by joshklein »

cageface wrote: post #89
joshklein wrote: post #27

I have a similar conclusion but slightly different reasoning. And I want to defend liberal arts majors a bit, since I'm one of them. To me, the problem is that most people don't view college as an investment in their future, but rather as a temporary place to delay choices. Certainly, it is positioned as an investment by educators, and it is probably true for science & engineering degrees, but do students approach it…

A degree in Philosophy or English, let's say, is a luxury that would be incomprehensible to many in the developing world. If I were to suggest to the Vietnamese I know here, for example, that they spend their tuition on something that doesn't directly correlate with a roof over their head or food on their table they'd worry about my mental health. Thanks to globalization that luxury is going to start to seem just as…

A lot of things we do here would make them question our mental health. Say, pretending like you really need more than that $40,000 job the English major can get that lets him live in a small but safe apartment in a fine neighborhood (that has plumbing, electricity, and sanitation) in a non-center-of-the-world American city, and shop for all the groceries he needs in the market 10 minutes away.

Anyway, for a community that loves Steve Jobs so dearly - a man who claims the Mac wouldn't have been so successful if not for that calligraphy class he took at Reed College - there's an awful lot of derision in these comments for non-engineering around here. Of course, this is also a guy that dropped out of school and taught himself technical skills. Just enough to be dangerous... and convince someone like Woz to help him out. Or maybe that was the LSD and Buddhism talking.

Re: College has been oversold

#143

Post by edderly »

[deleted] wrote: post #137
edderly wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree and disagree. If you take a historical perspective of the role of universities with respect to corporate employment a university education was just needed to validate whether someone was of 'high calibre'. In the past anecdotally at least in the City of London 'well rounded' individuals were preferred for high finance i.e. you might be better off studying Classics at Oxbridge than pure math. Today this is pro…

[deleted]

I don't think I'm twisting the argument. You said that you believe you gathered these skills as a result of your curriculum choice.

Although I think plenty of other comments defending Liberal Arts make this point more explicitly about the relative benefits.

Re: College has been oversold

#144

Post by cdcarter »

A lot of the discussion here has broken down to arguing the merits of a liberal arts vs. STEM education. I think that that line is a purely personal decision, and the real argument here is career driven vs. "pursuit of knowledge" driven education.

I attend a liberal arts school, but we are a career driven school, almost to the point of being conservatory style. I take significantly more credits in my degree program than I even have the option of in general ed requirements. I spend more of my day in meetings for co-curricular and outside paid work than I do in class, by design. Yes, I do take classes called "The Artist and the Making of Meaning" that seem to have no...meaning, but I also already have enough connections in my field to secure me a job that I would be happy in out of college in at least three cities, if not more.

Re: College has been oversold

#145

Post by redthrowaway »

joshklein wrote: post #142
cageface wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A degree in Philosophy or English, let's say, is a luxury that would be incomprehensible to many in the developing world. If I were to suggest to the Vietnamese I know here, for example, that they spend their tuition on something that doesn't directly correlate with a roof over their head or food on their table they'd worry about my mental health. Thanks to globalization that luxury is going to start to seem just as…

A lot of things we do here would make them question our mental health. Say, pretending like you really need more than that $40,000 job the English major can get that lets him live in a small but safe apartment in a fine neighborhood (that has plumbing, electricity, and sanitation) in a non-center-of-the-world American city, and shop for all the groceries he needs in the market 10 minutes away. Anyway, for a community…

Except that the case of Jobs is a perfect illustration of the grandparent's point: he dropped out of Reed College because he couldn't justify the expense to himself. He audited the calligraphy class, and slept on floors and couches. So he didn't go $100k into debt to take those classes with the expectation it would land him a good job; he sat in on them because he was interested in them but recognized they were a bad investment.

Re: College has been oversold

#146

Post by [deleted] »

joshklein wrote: post #142
cageface wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A degree in Philosophy or English, let's say, is a luxury that would be incomprehensible to many in the developing world. If I were to suggest to the Vietnamese I know here, for example, that they spend their tuition on something that doesn't directly correlate with a roof over their head or food on their table they'd worry about my mental health. Thanks to globalization that luxury is going to start to seem just as…

A lot of things we do here would make them question our mental health. Say, pretending like you really need more than that $40,000 job the English major can get that lets him live in a small but safe apartment in a fine neighborhood (that has plumbing, electricity, and sanitation) in a non-center-of-the-world American city, and shop for all the groceries he needs in the market 10 minutes away. Anyway, for a community…

[deleted]

Re: College has been oversold

#147

Post by philwelch »

redthrowaway wrote: post #145
joshklein wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of things we do here would make them question our mental health. Say, pretending like you really need more than that $40,000 job the English major can get that lets him live in a small but safe apartment in a fine neighborhood (that has plumbing, electricity, and sanitation) in a non-center-of-the-world American city, and shop for all the groceries he needs in the market 10 minutes away. Anyway, for a community…

Except that the case of Jobs is a perfect illustration of the grandparent's point: he dropped out of Reed College because he couldn't justify the expense to himself. He audited the calligraphy class, and slept on floors and couches. So he didn't go $100k into debt to take those classes with the expectation it would land him a good job; he sat in on them because he was interested in them but recognized they were a bad…

And really, a strategy that relies on you being Steve Jobs isn't exactly a strategy that necessarily works for anyone else.

Re: College has been oversold

#148

Post by mahyarm »

maratd wrote: post #94
joshklein wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like we agree - my post was expressly derisive of the kid who sleeps through his poetry class. Regardless, it sounds like writing poetry suggests a romantic lark to you. To me, it was a lesson in how to convey powerfully complex ideas in concise, but meaningful, language. I didn't make a lot of money right out of school, but 3 years later I was making a boatload. Why? Because I can write the kind of email t…

> It sounds like we agree We agree in the sense that we both believe there is value in a good education. Especially a liberal arts one. I learned how to learn in college. By taking disparate subjects, I can absorb new information with ease. That is the most tangible and valuable skill I picked up. I got it by taking random subjects. The very definition of a liberal arts education. That said, the degree itself is wort…

Degrees are still useful for work visas! It can also help with start-a-business visas too.

Re: College has been oversold

#149

Post by Fliko »

nekojima wrote: post #46
RoastBeats wrote: post #22

As a college-level instructor (with a PhD in those -- gasp -- liberal arts), might I suggest two things? First, the critical thinking I learned reading poetry better prepared me for business management, web development, and entrepreneurship than any of my Chemistry courses (I was also a Chemistry minor in Undergrad). I'd be happy to go into the details, but this doesn't seem like the forum for that explanation. And s…

I found that while my CS studies were useful in setting up new software/internet ventures, it has been the research skills I learned from studying history & economics and the strategy & analysis from business management, that has made a world of difference in my success or failure as an entrepreneur & business owner.

I don't know what school you went to, but the engineering school I went to put more of a focus on problem solving using relevant technology and as a result I know how to do very intense research, strategy building, and analysis from the constant nights of trying to build something after the teacher says "Here are x, y, and z components, now build this on Tuesday."

I would go as far to argue that the problem solving skills I've learned in my one year of studying at a technical institute far outweigh the problem solving skills you've learned in two years of study at your school.

I think the problem is bigger then liberal arts vs STEM, and has more to do with the kind of education students receive vs. what degree they are going with. I've switched to a community college very recently to pursue a math degree, but have found the education to be very dumb and drab, with the teachers giving you exact instructions on how to do everything, as opposed to my previous school's philosophy of learning the tools and then applying them by using your own brain.

Re: College has been oversold

#150

Post by mahyarm »

gaustin wrote: post #69
bretthoerner wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As opposed to "Oh you got a CS degree", well programmers get to sit in this cubicle and get paid $50k until we outsource the whole thing to India. If you're making $50k you're being screwed. Also, a small percent of people (business students, poetry majors) ever go down the VP track. As a CS major I'm much, much better off in pay, quality of life, career stability than my friends who got business degrees. Never min…

> If you're making $50k you're being screwed. I'm being screwed then. I have a CS degree and a business Masters degree. I'm a "senior" developer and make $55k. The primary employer in my area is the Montana State government. Programmer pay here tops out at about $60k/year. Low-end programmer salaries are about $35-$40k. In the private sector you'd be lucky to get $70k/year. My wife and I are thinking about moving, bu…

Move, work in the bay area, get that network and then move back. If you have a house in Montana, and family there, rent it out and get your family to help you manage it. Even if you have to pay $2000/month more in rent, which you won't, you'll still come out ahead. And you'll have better weather and cheaper airfare than Montana.
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