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Jobs fight: Haves vs. the have-nots

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Re: Jobs fight: Haves vs. the have-nots

#11

Post by Game_Ender »

davidecarrion wrote: post #2

Why do people hate on arts students? I graduated at a college with many arts students. Admittedly, a top tier college (Merton, Oxford), but they were still doing these arts degrees which people hate on so much. I got a great job after I graduated, at Google, but it's nothing compared to what many of my arts student peers did after they graduated. My roommate studied classics. HN would laugh at that - what an idiot! H…

You can't argue this by analogy, to make a real case for something like this you have to analyze a large group of art/english majors across the US. Not just a group from a top school which benefits from networking and the advantages a degree (any degree) from one of schools can get you.

If you look at study from PayScale: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Degree...

You can see that Art History majors on average earn only 64% the top STEM graduates.

Re: Jobs fight: Haves vs. the have-nots

#12

Post by ilaksh »

I actually believe if you are thinking 20 or 30 years down the line your are actually going to need to have the AI merged into your own brain just to stay relevant, nevermind a job. The unaugmented humans will be, relatively speaking, mentally challenged.

Re: Jobs fight: Haves vs. the have-nots

#13

Post by rayiner »

davidecarrion wrote: post #2

Why do people hate on arts students? I graduated at a college with many arts students. Admittedly, a top tier college (Merton, Oxford), but they were still doing these arts degrees which people hate on so much. I got a great job after I graduated, at Google, but it's nothing compared to what many of my arts student peers did after they graduated. My roommate studied classics. HN would laugh at that - what an idiot! H…

You're highlighting a phenomenon that doesn't generalize. For graduates of places like Harvard or Oxford, a lot of employers really don't care what you majored in. They are looking for raw talent. That's why Barclays hires French literature majors. What they care about is the Oxford on the diploma, not the degree you got there.

Outside the top schools, however, the situation reverses. The employers that hire lots of arts majors (banks, consultancies, etc) aren't looking for people from lesser schools, while employers will happily hire engineering majors from a very wide range of schools.

Re: Jobs fight: Haves vs. the have-nots

#14

Post by bennyg »

nhangen wrote: post #10
bennyg wrote: post #8

Monetarily, the statistics pan out and STEM graduates earn more than liberal arts majors. But is that everything? There's a lot to be said for curiosity as a motivator for work - a lot of us here dive in to side-projects with zero care for monetary reward after. It's just to scratch an itch. Everybody has different itches to tend to. Personally, I am an Art graduate (with a minor in Advertising). I graduated in May 2…

I think you missed the point of the article. You are the exception, not the rule because you became an iOS developer. I inferred that the article was referencing art majors that don't teach themselves how to code.

I guess I thought that Andreessen made a correct abstraction, in that "superior creative talent or exceptional brain power will be essential" to succeed in the workplace (in 2042, and really every year before and after because nothing has changed). But his advice to only study STEM feels a tad biased - he's a STEM graduate. I'm saying that, from my perspective so far, STEM level education is entirely possible through the internet with self-motivation, and that had I done things entirely flipped (CS or equivalent Engineering degree) I wouldn't be happy from a creative perspective.

A lot of my art major friends may not be sitting with a fat check every month, but they're adding beautiful things to humanity and culture. To me that's a little more inspiring than a slightly bigger number in my bank account. But maybe I'm still young and naive.

Re: Jobs fight: Haves vs. the have-nots

#15

Post by monochromatic »

ilaksh wrote: post #12

I actually believe if you are thinking 20 or 30 years down the line your are actually going to need to have the AI merged into your own brain just to stay relevant, nevermind a job. The unaugmented humans will be, relatively speaking, mentally challenged.

20-30 years?? Ok, Mr. Kurzweil.

Re: Jobs fight: Haves vs. the have-nots

#16

Post by meaty »

monochromatic wrote: post #15
ilaksh wrote: post #12

I actually believe if you are thinking 20 or 30 years down the line your are actually going to need to have the AI merged into your own brain just to stay relevant, nevermind a job. The unaugmented humans will be, relatively speaking, mentally challenged.

20-30 years?? Ok, Mr. Kurzweil.

I think we'll still be being beaten up in French McDonald's in 20-30 years for wearing AR equipment.

Humanity can lose a lot more than it can gain if the singularity did occur.

Yes I've read kurzweils book: thoroughly regrettable waste of time.

Re: Jobs fight: Haves vs. the have-nots

#17

Post by gmkoliver »

I have a liberal arts degree, and I've been a residential carpenter for the last 13 years. I guess the money I earn puts me in the middle class. Looking back on that time it's fair to say I've left a lot of money on the table by not seeking a higher-paying job.

I don't think it's arguable that a Google engineer will not make more money than a carpenter on my crew. The thing that bothers me about articles like this is the sense that technocrats like Andreesen assume their needs are everyone else's.

Re: Jobs fight: Haves vs. the have-nots

#18

Post by halo »

rayiner wrote: post #13
davidecarrion wrote: post #2

Why do people hate on arts students? I graduated at a college with many arts students. Admittedly, a top tier college (Merton, Oxford), but they were still doing these arts degrees which people hate on so much. I got a great job after I graduated, at Google, but it's nothing compared to what many of my arts student peers did after they graduated. My roommate studied classics. HN would laugh at that - what an idiot! H…

You're highlighting a phenomenon that doesn't generalize. For graduates of places like Harvard or Oxford, a lot of employers really don't care what you majored in. They are looking for raw talent. That's why Barclays hires French literature majors. What they care about is the Oxford on the diploma, not the degree you got there. Outside the top schools, however, the situation reverses. The employers that hire lots of…

Oxford in particular is skewed by some deeply entrenched class issues.

Re: Jobs fight: Haves vs. the have-nots

#19

Post by willholloway »

It is really tiring when the answer to emergent large scale economic insecurity in developed nations is "be the best" or "be in one particular field". Not everyone is cut out to be an engineer, and there is a tipping point for economic insecurity where civil unrest threatens the established order. The best and the brightest can't exist in isolation, harvesting the rewards of a larger than ever economy while the middle and lower classes slide into destitution. At some point they will simply revolt and demand redistribution of the automated, capital intensive economy.

Re: Jobs fight: Haves vs. the have-nots

#20

Post by greghinch »

> Big companies are not going to take care of you

This is the best takeaway IMHO. I think the way he characterizes liberal arts isn't quite hitting the mark, however. My experience is that there's less wrong with liberal arts schools/degrees as there is with the legions of young people who wander into university with no real plan, and expect to get a job when they graduate with and English degree (which they decided on in their third year).

Gone are the days where everyone should try and go to college after high school, even if they don't know what they want from it. It's too expensive now, and a BA doesn't serve you well if you have no plan for how to use it. Many would be better just starting working and see where that takes them; college can come later. Many more would do better to just take up a trade, go to a school for that. We'll need plumbers, electricians, and other service-oriented specialists for a long time to come. But so many "office jobs" that required no real skill have been and are being replaced by computers; there isn't the previous cushion for the aimless recent BA graduate to fall on any more.

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