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I wasn't (am still not) concerned about financial return on investment in regard to my undergraduate degree. For graduate school, however, I look at it differently. In my field/particular situation, there is no reason to get a continued degree unless it is to increase earning power, and it really doesn't increase it appreciably, so it's really not worth the time or money. The knowledge is good, but can be obtained for free.
OP, maybe you just have the luxury to have this mentality and for your son to study art?
I would also say the OP has a mentality to make this country weak. Manufacturing, innovation, inventions, designs and technology advancements that create products that both help people, and result in products that can be sold internationally to help trade deficits, will make US companies strong.
I really don't need some weird piece of art (though the ultra-traditional classics are wonderful, and I appreciate talent in everyone). I literally have dozens of pieces of artwork on my walls, created by local (very good) artists, and custom made for me. But there is a reason why the artists are called 'starving' . My pet needs a new dog bowl, however, and if you can cut another one out of Bavarian crystal for me, it would be most appreciated. I'll give you $20 for 8 hours work.
Many people who do not have the luxury of almost automatic financial security must chose what they study wisely, these are the same people who perhaps 30 years ago wouldn't have went to college but because there is so much pressure on everyone now to attain at least a BA or BS they are studying in university. Many of these students are the first in their family to graduate from college.
I wasn't (am still not) concerned about financial return on investment in regard to my undergraduate degree. For graduate school, however, I look at it differently. In my field/particular situation, there is no reason to get a continued degree unless it is to increase earning power, and it really doesn't increase it appreciably, so it's really not worth the time or money. The knowledge is good, but can be obtained for free.
I wasn't (am still not) concerned about financial return on investment in regard to my undergraduate degree. For graduate school, however, I look at it differently. In my field/particular situation, there is no reason to get a continued degree unless it is to increase earning power, and it really doesn't increase it appreciably, so it's really not worth the time or money. The knowledge is good, but can be obtained for free.
Fully understood. My OP was directed at undergraduate students.
A Master's is a whole other topic.
I was writing about pitches that I have seen directed towards eighteen year olds and their parents. The pitch is flawed and misleading.
First of all, choosing a life long career as a teenager is a carp shoot. Amn institution of higher learning is remiss if they are promising anything of the sort.
When your "kid" is 28, and no longer likes that lucrative job that you pushed them into, are you or the university going to force him to stay in the field until he has worked off his "return" on your "investment"?
I would have to so say if you're going to college and spending money in getting a degree, then it needs to be a good investment that can help you. Much like when you buy a product from a store, you want it to perform well. When the product you bought doesn't function, you return it and either get your money back or get another product that is the same as the one you bought before. With a college degree, you can't return it and get the money back if it doesn't provide you with anything in return. A college degree is an education, but when the education doesn't provide anything of value other than knowledge and leaves one living from paycheck to paycheck, then that education is useless.
I'm not pushing people under a rug and saying a degree in this, that, and such is not worth it. But I would have to say if one is going to college, they need to think about what they want to do when they're deciding a major. Will this major help, or will that major give me a better return investment with skills that I can use to get a job and make money?
I myself have a degree in history I got in 2005. It's rather useless, and not one of the previous jobs I've had didn't care that I had a bachelors degree since the jobs I took were either part time or temporary and only required a high school diploma. As such, the places I was employed me a rather low wage.
The job I have now is a call center making 14 dollars an hour and only requires a high school diploma and a pharmacy technician certification, in which I have. I don't mind the job I have now. This is the highest wage I've had since I graduated college back in 2005, and previously my highest wage was 11.95 an hour.
The only reason people should go to college is to get a job down the road that requires a degree or several degrees. There's no need to go to college, spend thousands of dollars, get a degree, and go work at some retail store for 10 dollars an hour.
And yes, college is job training for some jobs as a matter of fact.
Calculus I in university? Geez, we did that in 11th grade. Not sure about what caliber of schools you are referencing.
I did not take calculus I in university...however, sheena was referring to the math problems that "liberal arts and social science students" are expected to perform with the incorrect implication that this is effectively different from the non-major oriented liberal arts classes taken by engineers. Calculus I is the most likely requirement in this area.
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Originally Posted by SuperSparkle928
I don't think the intent was to endorse 'broadening', it was the intent to state 'employability'.
I had a hard-core engineering and management education. Didn't really need to be able to even spell. Now, in my early 40's, I can now have a massively broadening experience. Why look at pictures of famous artwork, sculptures, architectures, documents, etc, when you can go see them in person? I can read, constantly about everything that they would every teach you in liberal arts classes (and even take them, if I choose to do so). I haven't attempted the Harvard Classics yet, but they are on a bookshelf. Yeah, I learned all the types of sentences, and their decompositions, and all the declensions in latin, and the famous artists... but that is purely for fun, as no one would ever give me a job just knowing that. Grammar, rhetoric and logic can all be learned outside the classroom, more easily than some of the sciences that need complex, expensive equipment and access to labs. Music is wonderful... I have a sound studio here.... but I don't play, and would never be able to support myself if I did. Theater... don't even get me started.
Don't get me wrong, there are many, many good jobs available for LA grads. I just was taught, make the money first with your marketable passion, then you can go do whatever is your ultimate passion.
I don't see how this is relevant to my post.
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Originally Posted by sheena12
It implies nothing of the sort. EE is a fine major if that is your talent and what you love.
However, I am getting a bit sick of hearing that my major, my husbands and now my son's are "silly" "stupid" "worthless" and "unnecessary" No change a "bit sick" to "furious".
I don't suffer fools lightly, and when people make sweeping statements about a major that they are more than likely bad at, it sounds foolish.
When people make sweeping statements about the purpose of higher education and exhibit intolerance towards any other interpretation, it sounds foolish.
Your intent is good, but as with most reactionary posts you have cast too wide of a net. It is one thing to say that others should not judge your family's educational decisions, but you've done far more than that in this thread.
I don't really see much of the bias that you're inferring here. Admittedly, I probably don't read into that many threads where it would happen on this sub-forum.
Kudos to anyone who can create a career out of their passion regardless of subject. I think that the people who are encouraging younger people to go into something more profitable do so because of their own experiences. With the cost to get a degree almost tripling in a few decades, the time spent to degree edging towards 6 years, and low graduation rates I would advise anyone who wanted to go to college to do so with some foresight. And what is wrong with a student to be interested in pursuing something that is going to be worth their time, energy and money?
For what it's worth, I don't think that anyone should be going to college in order to find themselves or just to please their parents.
I do have to disagree with you on the following areas in particular.
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Originally Posted by sheena12
Certainly, Engineering students might need to take a Survey of Lit class, or an art history course but no one is going to force them to actually write a readable story, or produce a work of art. That would be silly now, wouldn't it?
Outside of a creative writing (possibly english or journalism?) major what other degrees would be asked to write a readable story? And how many sociologists, teachers, nurses, or philosophy majors are required to produce a work of art?
Those are some pretty random examples that only someone who is majoring in a specific subfield of a specific discipline would ever encounter.
I do actually enjoy writing and know a number of other engineers who do as well. You'd be surprised how often we actually have to write in our everyday lives. I actually carry a copy of Strunk & White in my laptop bag which goes everywhere with me. We don't spend all day with a slide rule talking down upon all the other humans who couldn't even solve a simple quadratic.
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Originally Posted by sheena12
However, liberal arts and social science students are not just asked to learn ABOUT SCIENCE and MATH, they are expected to perform mathematical problems! Not ones that will be needed for their field, but ones that they will be frustrated by. Things that will bore them to tears! Sure, all college educated students should want to know why their colleagues at university who are studying engineering are studying higher math forms. And not wanting to know is anti-intellectual. Not wanting to do, is not. But I have digressed.
On a base level I do think that anyone who can't pass college level algebra, trig, or stats should not be awarded a college degree. None of the concepts in any of those classes goes into much more detail than high school level math. If that is frustrating or boring than so be it. Life can be frustrating and often boring. My beliefs have nothing to do with intellectualism, but any college graduate should be able to do simple calculations just as well as they can write clearly and be able to interpret readings at a college level. Anyone who gets any degree and cannot do algebra, stats, trig is only doing themselves a disservice.
Anyone in a social science should be familiar with statistics at the very least. Most of the social science students take a watered down course in the field. Any "artist" should be familiar with the physical manifestation of colors, geometry, and how there canvasses are prepared. Why is taking entry level courses in math and science so daunting?
If anything I get more frustrated by the people who claim college is about learning new things but have this crazy math-phobia that has swept the nation in the last few generations.
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Originally Posted by sheena12
Can anyone concede the truth? The purpose of a university education is not the finding of gainful employment. I have seen SO MANY PEOPLE pushed into fields that do not excite or even interest them ...just so they can get a job. And spending money ten years later to re-educate them selves in a field that they actually love. Their true vocation.
In my experience I have meet the number of people who would fit this bill on one hand. I will concede that this is likely due to my own personal experiences/relationships and doesn't hold true universally. I do know a number of friends whose college experience was following their love, or finding themselves, and they have been the only people I know who have gone back to school for different fields or have married well enough to be a stay at home parent. Ten years after college now puts most people between 32-34. How many people go back to school to get re-educated at that point in their lifes? The people I know who are that age are worried about putting food on the table or making sure that their children are being taken care of. Now that I'm thinking about it the only people who I do know who have gone back to school at that age are doing grad level work in the field that they have their degree in. I honestly don't know a single person who has gone back to change their field at that point in their life.
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Originally Posted by sheena12
If that is all that truly interests you, attaining a job, perhaps you should check out a vocational program! If you do not want to read the sonnets of Shakespeare, the works of Conrad, Hardy or Elliot, the thoughts of Freud, Jung, or Maslow concerning human behavior, motivation, emotion and development. If you are just fine not knowing why I deplore Descartes, but love Schopenhauer or Kierkegaard, - or why someone else might feel the opposite, if you do not know the place John Maynard Keynes plays in Capitalism or want to be able to argue a point with alacrity against a historical revisionist,or a person who denies that the Holocaust ever took place, and furthermore you do not see the danger in such a line of thought. IF none of this maters or interests you, there is a good chance that a university education may not be right for you.
I am familiar with all but one of the people who you've listed, but many of the Philosophers and Keynes were avid students of mathematics. Any philosophy major worth their salt should be able to study basic math at least through a couple of semesters of Calculus. My most disappointing classes in college were the watered down Philosophy classes on logic, reason, and debate that had no grounding in the key foundations of Philosophy.
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Originally Posted by sheena12
Your university will teach you way more than you care to know, and it will all be wasted on you.
Perhaps THAT is the bad investment!
What a university teaches is largely independent of what their graduating classes know.
The reason its viewed that way is because higher education is so expensive. Not many people can go and drop 50k on college and not expect to get something in return.
The reason its viewed that way is because higher education is so expensive. Not many people can go and drop 50k on college and not expect to get something in return.
Exactly. The average student loan debt for a college grad these days is around $25K (which is just loans and doesn't include credit card debt, etc). If you graduate with a liberal arts degree that doesn't give you prospects of finding a well paying job, it could take quite a few years to pay off that amount.
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