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Access to any researchers in a particular field is better than just reading an encyclopedia. We mustn't underestimate the amount of tacit knowledge that is transferred during academic study. It isn't all just reading text.
Many of the biggest contributors to mankind's scientific advancement studied on their own. Really, there was no one around to teach them these things because they were truly new. Some of them learned from reading ancient writings because, again, there was no one around who could teach these things because those individuals had no one around to teach them. If humans had to always depend on someone teaching them in order to make new discoveries, we would progress rather slowly.
We could only wish that the world really worked this way. On the contrary, this is how things play out over and over again in the real world:
1. Pursue a college major that is your "life passion."
2. Get your degree and apply everywhere you possibly can.
3. Quickly learn the cold, hard truth: you only qualify for odd jobs.
4. Go back to square one and figure out an alternative career that is more lucrative.
5. Take some technical training or courses to get your foot in the door wherever you can.
6. Settle for a job that has absolutely nothing to do with your original choice for college major.
See, all your post does is betray a limited understanding of what an education is for. You seem to think that college is nothing more than a trade school. What is even more dumb about your post are items #4, #5, and #6. In actuality, those apply far as much to the career-driven major, for the world is filled with people who pursued a career-driven major and, a few months or years into the job, realized how badly they hated it. THOSE are the ones who wind up back in school or, even worse, a nighttime MBA program. The world is filled with know-nothing MBAs from C-level schools slaving away in cubicle land who couldn't be trusted with a box of kitchen matches.
I was a liberal arts major. There were plenty of guys like you who knocked my choice of a degree (What deep-seated insecurity of yours drives that, by the way?), stating how I'd be unemployed, how I'd never make a decent living, blah blah blahbity blah.
Guess what? Thirty years later, I'm the one who is semi-retired, making way more money 20 hours a week then they do in 40-50. What's more, I'm not exactly the exception. Of the eight people in my graduating class in my major, all of them are doing quite well. Some have done quite spectacularly.
That's because an education is supposed to teach you how to think, first, last, and always. The problem is that the career-driven majors simply teach you how to do a job.
3. Not looking at what your own gifts are and instead trying to figure out how to impress your relatives.
I think this is the single biggest mistake that many make in regard to higher ed (and in life, in general): Wasting time making life decisions based upon what other people prioritize, while ignoring one's own skill sets, interests, and talents in favor of the opinions of others, be they relatives, peers, whoever.
See, all your post does is betray a limited understanding of what an education is for. You seem to think that college is nothing more than a trade school. What is even more dumb about your post are items #4, #5, and #6. In actuality, those apply far as much to the career-driven major, for the world is filled with people who pursued a career-driven major and, a few months or years into the job, realized how badly they hated it. THOSE are the ones who wind up back in school or, even worse, a nighttime MBA program. The world is filled with know-nothing MBAs from C-level schools slaving away in cubicle land who couldn't be trusted with a box of kitchen matches.
I was a liberal arts major. There were plenty of guys like you who knocked my choice of a degree (What deep-seated insecurity of yours drives that, by the way?), stating how I'd be unemployed, how I'd never make a decent living, blah blah blahbity blah.
Guess what? Thirty years later, I'm the one who is semi-retired, making way more money 20 hours a week then they do in 40-50. What's more, I'm not exactly the exception. Of the eight people in my graduating class in my major, all of them are doing quite well. Some have done quite spectacularly.
That's because an education is supposed to teach you how to think, first, last, and always. The problem is that the career-driven majors simply teach you how to do a job.
Maybe you did well with a liberal arts degree but you are likely in the minority. How many people with liberal arts degrees are doing as well as you are? As far as what "deep-seated insecurity" a person has to knock a degree choice, they are stating that the degree is not lucrative and warning someone not to spend 4-5 years in school and spend thousands of dollars only to have trouble finding a job.
A college education is designed for you to get a job. I've said this before, you can be enlightened (or in your case "learn how to think") for free on your own.
If you want to spend 4-5 years and tens of thousands of dollars to "study" some thing you can learn by reading Wikipedia, or just because you "like it" then by all means go do it. Just don't complain about being in debt and having no job. You reap what you sow. No one in the real worlds gives a flying fart what you "like". No one owes you anything, and they definitely don't owe you a job.
I went to graduate school for educational psychology and this topic was covered extensively in my program.
Self-directed learning (as you describe in your Wiki reference) is certainly valuable, but the argument remains that if a person studied only what they wanted to study, they'd surely miss out on important aspects of a certain subject or field. Here is an example that comes to mind: Take the sociology/psychology majors. Many people claim that people "only" major in these subjects because they cannot excel in math. Ironically, these majors not only require the university general math courses, they also must take statistics and research methods. Imagine if a person wanted to self-direct their learning and only covered the topics about sociology that they found to be "fun" or "interesting." Let's say this person despises math, so they do not learn about statistics. They'd be missing out on one of the key tools that social scientists utilize to increase the body of knowledge in the discipline. This may or may not matter in this person's life, but the argument remains that the formal education is going to provide a more well-rounded, encompassing program of study. Statistics might be painful for this person, but we learn from pain.
Who are you to make such a broad assumption that every non-STEM major has excessive debt? My research focused on higher education and even I do not know these statistics off the top of my head.
I am not sure that anyone here is saying that the world should care about what they like or that they are owed jobs. Where did you read that? I don't think you could argue though that we are in a serious economic recession and jobs are difficult to obtain for even the most hard-working, experienced and educated people. Nobody says they are below Starbucks or ditch-digging, so please do not use that argument, either. I know plenty of people who have been unable to secure jobs in these types of industries unless they know someone in a company.
I would imagine that someone of your strong belief in individual responsibility would advocate for people supporting themselves rather than having to rely on government support for life support, no? So wouldn't you rather see a hardworking person have a job rather than see them on government programs? Can you fault them for working hard for a credential that is required for a job, then feeling a little bummed out that they cannot find a job? That is stressful, is it not? Wouldn't you rather they vent a little instead of going postal in some public facility? Let us not forget that up until fairly recently, a college education was typically a sure road to maintaining a decent living. The college students of today saw their parents (and maybe even grandparents) graduate and enjoy a relatively comfortable life. The game changed for these kids. Tuition skyrocketed, and jobs disappeared. Can't you see how they're scared? They should be. I am scared for them. We should be supporting them as a society, not chastising them for their hope to have an income. Their success will be our success.
I read so much anger in your posts. Perhaps it is emotional immaturity, inexperience, stress, resentment, or some other need to vent, but I think it would be wise to take a step back and breathe for a second. Maybe this thread, for some reason, is too sensitive for you. Do what you have to do, but bring that blood pressure down for your own health. It just isn't normal/healthy to get so worked up about this.
Last edited by AshleyAllen; 01-01-2014 at 11:38 PM..
Maybe you did well with a liberal arts degree but you are likely in the minority. How many people with liberal arts degrees are doing as well as you are? As far as what "deep-seated insecurity" a person has to knock a degree choice, they are stating that the degree is not lucrative and warning someone not to spend 4-5 years in school and spend thousands of dollars only to have trouble finding a job.
A college education is designed for you to get a job. I've said this before, you can be enlightened (or in your case "learn how to think") for free on your own.
WyoEagle,
Actually, a university degree is NOT designed to get you a job... well, not really.
The university was designed to produce knowledge from research, to enlighten and expand the human mind. The original universities were based around the social sciences and liberal arts. People who attended them did so because they wanted to become enlightened and add to the body of knowledge in a particular discipline.
Fast forward to today. I can sort of see your point. Universities are offering glorified certificates that they label as "master's degrees" that can be earned in under a year in disciplines such as computer science and business management. It is clear to me how someone with limited knowledge of university history can mistaken higher education as merely a training factory for industry/corporate America.
I teach at the university level and some of my undergraduate students will say things to me like, "I do not need psychology for my computer science degree! Why do I have to take this?" Well, first of all, I believe you need psychology in every aspect of human existence, but I will never convince some people of that. My reply is simply, "You are attending a university. Here, we are responsible for providing you with a well-rounded education. If you want to only study courses that are applicable to job training, then perhaps a technical college would be a better fit for you."
Again, I can see your point. Unfortunately, greedy administrators want to cash in on the vocational training wagon so it has given industry a sense of entitlement. They (industry) can now demand that students pay to play. They only want highly trained workers, and they are no longer willing to do the training. They want that cost to be heaped upon the backs of their employees rather than incurring it as a business expense as has been typically done throughout history. Sadly, this is forcing millions of students who do not belong in college to go, just so they can get a job because frankly, competing in the workforce where everyone and their dog is a college graduate is hard enough WITH a degree. The university-as-job-corpse mentality has also taught the public to believe that a college education should yield a return on investment.
In my opinion, the greed at the top needs to be forced to accept realistic salaries. Tuition needs to return to realistic levels. Allowed amounts of student loans should be either abolished or minimized. When the student can no longer pay the bill (assuming student loans are no longer available), the university will have no choice but to lower tuition to realistic levels and people may once again go to college because they want to learn and not because they're trying to make themselves more employable to a self-entitled corporate entity.
Maybe you did well with a liberal arts degree but you are likely in the minority. How many people with liberal arts degrees are doing as well as you are? As far as what "deep-seated insecurity" a person has to knock a degree choice, they are stating that the degree is not lucrative and warning someone not to spend 4-5 years in school and spend thousands of dollars only to have trouble finding a job.
A college education is designed for you to get a job. I've said this before, you can be enlightened (or in your case "learn how to think") for free on your own.
Actually, just about every classmate I graduated with has done quite well, thanks. To be sure, one or two have struggled, but that would be true in just about every degree program. I know plenty of biz majors, CPAs, and law school grads who flamed out in their 30s or 40s. And, no, a college education is not about just finding a job. There are trade schools for that. It's about becoming a critical thinker and becoming a lifelong learner. If you go to college to just learn a job, you get serious tunnel vision 99% of the time.
As an example, one of my clients is a very large manufacturing operation. My clients are all engineers, even the sales staff. Every time I'm in a meeting with these guys, it's me and twenty or so engineers, guys who have dedicated literally decades to this industry.
Yet every time I meet with them, it's as if I'm Moses bringing the tablets down from the mountain. I get to hear things such as "Wow. That's a great idea!" or "How did you learn our industry so quickly?" after every meeting. It's not because I'm particularly brilliant. It's because I learned how to learn, how to take in abstract information and turn it into a workable theme, how to analyze things beyond mere statistics, and a host of other disciplines that never get taught in the career path majors. And, despite what you think, it is the very rare individual who picks up this mentality on his or her own without some formal academic process.
As one example, I can thank my college philosophy class for showing me how to dissect an argument and weigh it on its relative merits. Philosophy is anything but an easy A, as I learned very quickly on the first day. It is a rigorous and demanding discipline that forces you to really use your noggin in unexpected ways. Yet I'm pretty sure a guy such as you succumbs to the notion that philosophy is a BS course that doesn't require a lot of reading. Same thing is true with English given its heavy writing emphasis. Day after day, I use what I learned in my college English and lit courses in order to examine that which is not concrete, interpret it, develop arguments, eschew that which is nonessential, and make a persuasive case. Funny how many times that comes in handy around a boardroom table. In fact, it is shocking how many of those majoring in 'useful' areas of study can't even write a grammatically-correct paragraph, let alone an effective one.
And it's not just engineers either. I work with IT clients, healthcare clients, and guys in the financial industry. I routinely tell MBAs how to do their jobs. And I am rewarded for this. Why? Because pretty much, as a rule, these guys are straitjacketed by what they were taught in school. All because these guys thought like you do. They looked as college as all about the job rather than learning to be an independent, sapient thinker.
Personally, I feel there are no worthless degrees. However, there are an abundant number of worthless graduates.
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