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If what passes for a history class is memorizing a few facts and then recalling them for a multiple choice test, yes.
They shouldn't be, though. Look at the notes section of any published history book by a professional historian and tell me if you could do it.
Math can also be taught easily. I remember having algebra instructors that wrote tests that basically answered themselves.
That's not what a college level history class is though. That's more like a highschool history class. n undergraduate history class will have you debating the research of multiple historians, taking a position, and writing and presenting about it using empirical research.
That's not what a college level history class is though. That's more like a highschool history class. n undergraduate history class will have you debating the research of multiple historians, taking a position, and writing and presenting about it using empirical research.
Just be sure whatever position you take, it agrees with the professor. Easy A. Disagrees with the professor, but is poorly written, C. Proves the professor wrong? Pray for a D.
To be honest, the best LA "professors" I had were all TAs. Actual professors in the LA fields all seemed a might touchy.
Our wealthiest family friends, wealth to the level that buildings on college campuses and in the major city are named after them wealthy, were English majors in college, started teaching high school English, moved on to buy a publishing company....having attended a Liberal Arts College that wasn't ranked anywhere....
Several of my doctors have English degrees in undergrad....having attended an unranked liberal arts college with 100% acceptance rate into Med school for the past many, many years....
Psych majors are in HUGE demand, contrary to popular belief, yes, they need a MS at least, but they have to get an BA/BS in something to get there and psychology seems to be a logical major
It's not the degree that matters as much as what you do with that degree.....can we get over the "Liberal Arts is worthless" mindset once and for all....please!!!!
But notice that except for the teachers, everyone had to go and get a masters. Not everyone had the time and the money to do all of that. A degree should be able to be used straight out of college, you shouldn't have to necessarily go back for more.
As for my post, this is not a post to bash liberal arts, on the contrary, I made it because I saw this young girls dreams and then saw how many people majored in these subjects and I just had the question, that if everyone is always saying, "You can't get a job with a English/History/Sociology degree" then why do people even bother nowadays? That's what I was curious about.
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Originally Posted by Linda_d
Exactly this. If you are thinking about going into academia with a history degree, it's probably not really practical unless you can get your degree from one of the very top programs. OTOH, in other fields, a history degree can be an asset for just the skills you cited, especially for people looking to move into administration or management. Coupling a BA in History with an MBA or MPA or even including coursework/internships in skill-specific areas like IT or accounting can work just fine.
Funny, I know a guy with a history degree and a Mpa and he still can't find a city or non profit job and he has been looking. Has a "great" job in customer service tho lol.
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Originally Posted by dazeddude8
I agree mainly with the above. Now that is not to say that if you go LA then its all "GLOOM and DOOM" and minimum wage until you die. There are successful people with LA degrees and I just don't mean people how graduated 10+ years ago. You certainly can be successful with the LA degree.
However the biggest challenge I find is the sheer number of people applying for the LA type job vastly outnumbers the actual # of job openings. So for instance, yes Norton, Penguin, Scholastic, Macmillian would certainly hire that LA grad for that publishing job opening, but I bet that publishing company probably have 60+ English, History, Sociology, etc... type grads applying for that 1-3 open publishing jobs, so what the heck does the 57 + people who applied for that job do?
So then you turn to the Customer service, admin assistant, sales assistant, marketing assistant etc...the very basic, bottom of the totem pole type office job that generally don't require a specific degree or years of experience. Well you with your history degree will be competing against every other LA grad for those limited # of customer service positions and again the number of applicants probably vastly outnumbers the amount of people they are looking to hire for that customer service, sales position-good luck, truly good luck.
Now compared to pharmacy or nursing or accounting, you are only competing against Nursing grads for that nursing job, pharmacy grads for that pharmacy job. You are not competing against the English grads, the history grads unless he/she went back to pharmacy, nursing school. Now let me be clear, that is not to say that pharmacy, nursing and accounting are "you will never be unemployed" proof but at the very least you are competing against a smaller pool of applicants than the generic "customer service job" that anyone regardless of major can apply to.
Perhaps then the problem is not so much "LA grads are useless" but rather the number of people applying for work severely out numbers the number of people an employer is actually looking to hire.
I think you are right, while my job does give you $1.50 more p/hr if you have a degree, I am still at the bottom of my company. I really regret not trying to go up higher but at the time, I could not afford to wait as I needed a job today. But I do think you are right, its too many people for fewer job positions.
Excellent post! A lot of the people who can't find jobs with their LA degrees likely wouldn't find jobs with STEM degrees or applied science degrees, either, because they're not trying very hard. Contrary to popular belief, unless daddy owns the business, nobody is just going to hand you a job. You've got to work at it. That's been true for decades, too, not just recently.
I don't believe that. A friend of mine and I have been looking but we do not have internships. I have put in a ton of apps and so has he and nothing. Try all you want, but you can't MAKE people hire you.
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Originally Posted by L210
Not only are science and math/statistics liberal arts, but many of the social sciences require a statistics course at the undergraduate level. A lot of business majors do not take a math course that is any more advanced than what social science majors take. Economics is actually more mathematically-challenging than the business fields. At the graduate level, psychology requires a firmer grasp of statistics than what MBA programs require. When you get to the PhD level, many psychology majors are also statisticians and teach statistics courses.
Yeah at my school, the liberal arts person takes at least 1-2 math classes, business takes 3, psych takes 2 and political science takes 1. but YMMV.
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Originally Posted by cpg35223
Shows what you know. You realize, of course, that we've entered an era where content is king, right? You know, the Information Age? The ability to write effectively and persuasively is valuable like never before. Study after study shows that those with liberal arts degrees wind up outperforming those with career-driven majors.
The ability to write effectively is important but...
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Originally Posted by Mnseca
What studies would these be? Sounds like you have the research skills of a liberal arts major.
Undergrads cannot write either persuasively or effectively, and that skill is NOT in demand by itself anyway.
she/he is right..its a good skill to have, but these days, employers want more than that. Its not about what you KNOW, but what you can DO
she/he is right..its a good skill to have, but these days, employers want more than that. Its not about what you KNOW, but what you can DO
It is actually worse than that.
I had a liberal arts graduate that had the skill set for a job I was advertising. Somewhere along the line he took and learned some GIS skills and worked on a project that complemented the project I was going to undertake.
I worked for the Forest Service at that time and his degree was in Religious Studies. I spent more than a day working with personnel on how I could "legally" hire him. There was NO WAY I could do it. He did not qualify for any entry position that I had hiring authority. He did not have the minimum number of classes in the sciences.
I ended up hiring a Forestry student from University of Arizona. I had a choice of hundreds of position descriptions that she qualified for just by having a STEM degree. After a couple of years, I was really glad that I ended up with her as the position changed and so did the skill set requirements.
Granted the Federal government is more science oriented than most employers. But this shows the "box" that a liberal arts degree puts many of its graduates.
I'm not going to respect the opinion of some humanities major just because he or she took one semester of "Rocks for Jocks" in college.
In something like math or physics, you don't know anything until you have at least a master's degree. Even then, you're just starting to take baby steps into the real world of the subject.
Undergrad level stuff, especially the lower level courses for non-majors, seems to be about giving students an appreciation for a subject rather than really teaching the subject. Just look at the fact that some schools actually offer courses in subjects like physics and statistics with no calculus prerequisite.
I keep my first statistics textbook with me at my desk, so I can check it right now, and, well, someone not comfortable with calculus wouldn't be able to get past the first chapter. The physics book I keep with me (introductory grad level) starts out with functional analysis on the first page, and you won't get past page five if you aren't comfortable dealing with things like the fiber of a cotangent bundle.
My point is that having any sort of deep understanding of science requires lots and lots of math. I'd characterize the level of sophistication shown by the average undergrad, especially the average non-STEM major, as akin to that of the cargo cults. Those students can parrot buzzwords, but they have absolutely no idea what they are talking about, and they don't even have the basic foundation (math) that would, with another five years of difficult education, enable them to acquire the tools they'd need to become somewhat competent with science.
Science is hard. Math is hard. Those who are good at either had to pay for that ability with years of blood, sweat, and tears. It's something to be proud of.
It's a bit of a problem that people can take one semester of "Rocks for Jocks" and then talk as though they're geologists who can "easily analyze the geologic forces that shaped the landscape." That's absolutely laughable.
This applies to most fields. Would you seek mental health services from someone with a physics degree who took an intro to psychology course? Not even a person with a bachelor's in psychology is qualified to be a psychologist or mental health counselor.
Some sciences are less quantitative than others. Environmental science and biology do not require the level of mathematics that physics does.
Been sitting here thinking on this. I've often wondered how those with college educations are so often pulled down pseudo scientific paths. Essentially you have stated the dilemma of LA education in science. It is a smattering of a lot of things, just enough to believe it's understood, but not enough to really understand.
Doesn't this apply to all degrees? You were just talking about how STEM majors have a well-rounded education because of their general education requirements. That applies to just about all baccalaureate programs. They have a smattering of everything. However, the non-science major is not going to be an expert in science. A non-history major is not going to be an expert in history. One of the posters here, who claims to have a STEM degree, definitely is not proficient in writing, so he's definitely not proficient in English as an academic subject. Also, just because you have a STEM degree does not mean you're generally proficient in STEM. Biology majors are not likely to be experts in computer science, engineering, or physics.
But notice that except for the teachers, everyone had to go and get a masters. Not everyone had the time and the money to do all of that. A degree should be able to be used straight out of college, you shouldn't have to necessarily go back for more.
As for my post, this is not a post to bash liberal arts, on the contrary, I made it because I saw this young girls dreams and then saw how many people majored in these subjects and I just had the question, that if everyone is always saying, "You can't get a job with a English/History/Sociology degree" then why do people even bother nowadays? That's what I was curious about.
Funny, I know a guy with a history degree and a Mpa and he still can't find a city or non profit job and he has been looking. Has a "great" job in customer service tho lol.
I think you are right, while my job does give you $1.50 more p/hr if you have a degree, I am still at the bottom of my company. I really regret not trying to go up higher but at the time, I could not afford to wait as I needed a job today. But I do think you are right, its too many people for fewer job positions.
The degree is used right out of school...to go to grad school. There are PLENTY of professions that require additional schooling beyond a BA/BS....doctor, lawyer, physical therapist, occupational therapist, etc, etc, etc. No one would think twice about needing more schooling in these professions. For someone that wants to go into clinical therapy, social work, etc., a BA/BS just isn't enough schooling.
Yes, you can get a job with "just" a degree in English/History/Sociology, etc. But again, you asked "why bother". well, you have been told why people bother, to go into something related to those majors but something that probably needs more schooling too.
I agree with you. The point I was making was in reply to a poster who was equating intro courses in the sciences to more knowledge than they actually provide.
Because an education is never useless and some people actually go to university to learn. University isn't a trade school, it's a place of higher learning. Anyone that would discount any education as useless isn't smart enough to hold an opinion on education - or much else.
I totally agree with you, but ever since the sky rocketing tuition that we have all had to face, a lot of people just don't feel that way anymore.
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Originally Posted by ZeusAV
The article states near the end that this only applies to those with advanced degrees in Liberal Arts.
"Among graduates with a baccalaureate degree only, those with humanities and social sciences degrees consistently earn less than anyone else, peaking at about $58,000 a year."
So that pretty much remains in line with the notion that Liberal Arts majors don't make that much money unless you're going for a graduate level degree. I don't think anyone has disputed that if one chooses to go beyond the undergraduate level, then a liberal arts degree isn't bad. It's at the undergraduate level (where most who go to college end up), where the somewhat true notion of being underemployed or difficulty find jobs for Liberal Arts majors comes into play.
Also of note is that the article did not mention the unemployment rates for recent graduates in the fields that it's comparing. It did mention that they were employed at similar rates by their late 50s but to a prospective college student, the employment rates of recent graduates is of far more importance. One has to also remember that those in their 50s likely finished college around 30 years ago when just having a degree in itself was a much bigger deal in the labor market that it is now.
This article would look good to me if I were in my 40s and working in a liberal arts related field already but if I were 18-21 trying to figure out what to do, I'd say it was misleading and inconclusive at best (unless I'm going for an advanced degree).
Ive never made more than 44,000 in any given year. I would like to make that much one day, ha!
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Originally Posted by aboveordinary
This poster clearly has a chip on their shoulder. I'm an English Major and I had to take algebra and statistics. Every major has to take some math in order to get their degree. I also took a Geology course as part of the required upper division general ed science requirement.
Yeah I had to take a few math clases too..not many, I took like 4.
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