31–40 of 61 posts
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Your number 2 is silly and it makes it hard for me to take you seriously. If those are the jobs you think students should go towards, which exactly are the dead end jobs you speak of?
All the jobs I listed, apart from nursing, are well paid. Nursing is more for people who like to help/save other people, and it's a noble profession in my mind.
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> as so many of the graduates with "bullshit degrees" are incredibly competent A history graduate is competent in what exactly? They aren't even competent at teaching history, which generally requires Masters or PhD. > Counseling students of the trends of the market is stupid I never said the students should counseled on the trends. But the counselors must be aware of them.
A history graduate learns how to analyze disparate sources of variable quality for a specific purpose and argue a conclusion. They should be masters of long form report, able to select relevant information from a huge library and be able to defend a position cogently. I think its some of the most transferable skills there is. I'm not sure my comp sci degree was particularly useful. The vast majority of what I learnt…
If you think that's how history is written, I have some bad news....
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In this case the victim is often responsible for making poor career choices. The whole "I graduated, I'm entitled to a job" sentiment must go away, or we will end up with an army of hungry homeless history, women-study, art, philosophy graduates.
They should learn skills that are desirable in the current economy. Not just programming, but also nursing, chemical engineering etc.
[1] http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/chemical... [2] http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245494/What_STEM_sho...
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> as so many of the graduates with "bullshit degrees" are incredibly competent A history graduate is competent in what exactly? They aren't even competent at teaching history, which generally requires Masters or PhD. > Counseling students of the trends of the market is stupid I never said the students should counseled on the trends. But the counselors must be aware of them.
"A history graduate is competent in what exactly?" Studying/researching problems. Writing persuasive documents based on evidence. Working collaboratively in teams doing research. Or, at least, that's what I'd expect. I'd expect that almost anyone graduating with a 4 year degree in anything . Sadly, I know it's not the case. > 20 years ago, I was taking a college course on 'intro to china'. It was definitely a 'blow o…
I'm a faculty brat (professorial parents) at one of the top public universities in the nation. There are always students that will complain to professors that things are too hard, or that grading schemes are unfair, or etc. with very little cause. Possibly worse is that sometimes people's /parents/ will call or email their professor to appeal a grade.
It does seem to be somewhat major dependent: I have /never/ seen it occur in a math class, for instance, whereas it apparently routinely occurs in my mother's English classes. (She's known for grading more stringently than many other English professors. Complaints also don't usually work.) However, I think that it's a mark of an experienced teacher that they don't let bullshit like that faze them: the one time I've seen it really affect how a class was taught, it definitely made the class worse as a learning experience. (Some vocal computer science majors thought that an algorithms course was too difficult, and the professor made it easier, which definitely was a net loss for everyone. I'm very glad that I wasn't enrolled in it.)
I think it's disgusting. Sometimes professors make mistakes: in class structure, or assignment load, or grading something, or the like, and bringing that up politely is appropriate. But if they know they are assigning hard, long assignments, or the grading is fair, or the like, then it's usually for a good reason. The professors who don't care about teaching usually also don't teach hard courses or grade harshly, because it means more work for them.
I agree that generally the people who do things like this are less likely to do well post-college. Either because their parents are hovering over them (see parental phone calls) and they won't ever learn self-discipline and reliance, or because they expect that if they complain, the world will magically bend itself to their will. I think some of it happens when people are taking courses they don't want to take for a requirement, but I agree that there are a good number of people who get sold on the "college degree -> good job and happiness and money."
I know a lot who studied "just anything" in college, because, well, I've gotta go to college, don't I? They didn't have a career path or anything planned out, just picked something, took some classes and graduated.
Then they decided what they picked wasn't anything they wanted to do for the rest of their life.
I know someone who studied business but soon realized she hates the business world, because you have to be cut throat to get ahead.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6224982
I'd also invite you to read my comment on it:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6226836
The "studied the wrong subject" stuff has surprisingly come up in this thread, so I'll just sum up the answer to that one here:
'About the suggestions that these people studied useless subjects: true, many of them did. What, however, would happen if they all decided to go into STEM instead? Assuming they all did amazing, we'd wind up with a glut of people with degrees in "good" subjects, which does nothing to magically create jobs (having a STEM degree does NOT mean you're going to start a company!) - it only helps where there are shortages. Once those are filled, we're back where we started (and wages may get pushed down due to a talent glut.) That's the best case scenario, too. What would be worse? What would the reality likely be? If everyone did rush into STEM, a good portion would fail out (not everyone is cut out for it. Really, some people just do not have the attitude, mindset, demeanor, worldview, interest, etc.) and be left with no degree (or they'd switch to one of those useless ones) and still be debt - right back where we started again. For some real world examples, just look through some other discussions on HN about this subject about people in countries who DO exactly this and they're stuck with unemployed and underemployed STEM grads up the wazoo.'
Well, this isn't incompatible with the perception that a lot more college grads are stuck in dead-end jobs. Let's imagine three tiers of college grads: winners, middling, and losers, depending on how employable they were when they graduated. Before, the winners and middling grads got real jobs, and the losers went to Joe-jobs. Now, the winners are still getting real jobs, the middling folks are now in Joe-jobs, and t…
A slightly larger percent of graduates are working the "Joe-jobs".
College graduates have increased as a percent of the population.
Everything looks to be in order here.
We've had a few previous discussion on this and peripheral subjects. Here's a good one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6224982 I'd also invite you to read my comment on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6226836 The "studied the wrong subject" stuff has surprisingly come up in this thread, so I'll just sum up the answer to that one here: 'About the suggestions that these people studied useless subjects: t…
Having studied STEM subjects sufficiently to get a degree increases the probability of you being able to serve as technical (co-)founder for a company in a technology related field.
It doesn't do anything magically, but there is plenty of reason to expect that, ceteris paribus, more-STEM graduates => more and better innovative technology companies.
We've had a few previous discussion on this and peripheral subjects. Here's a good one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6224982 I'd also invite you to read my comment on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6226836 The "studied the wrong subject" stuff has surprisingly come up in this thread, so I'll just sum up the answer to that one here: 'About the suggestions that these people studied useless subjects: t…
My thought is that many of the people enrolling in college should actually be pursuing a career in skilled labor.
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There's also the problem across the aisle of employers looking for bullshit skills and experience that are almost completely irrelevant to the jobs they're offering. Graduating from college today and trying to move into the workforce feels like a lockout, like there's some sort of employer union to purposefully bar recent grads out of employment. It really has nothing to do with studying "bullshit degrees", as so man…
>One thing I might be in support of is more of a compromise: cut out more of the atrociously poor general education in exchange for a policy of something like 1 career degree (Business, Science, Engineering), 1 arts degree (Everyone must double major). But this would likely have the drawback of students having to grind through a subject they're not interested in and are never going to apply in practice. I would argue…
A friend of mine didn't know what to study while in school so his dad told him to study English. He said no matter what, knowing how to read and write properly is a good thing. At this point my friend has worked in IT for years, and is now the CTO of a decently sized company.