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There are government jobs that require a 4 year degree, but they don't care what the degree is in.
I suppose a degree in a foreign language, if you came out of college fluent, could land you a translator's job.
A teaching degree is liberal arts, isn't it?
But most of the degrees, no, they make you nicely educated but not trained or qualified to do anything that earns money.
If you can learn Arabic and pass the bg check, you're guaranteed an intelligence job. They have so many taped calls but don't have enough translators.
I think the bigger problem is that students don't take advantage of the internships, mentoring, etc while they are in school. That's the best thing to do.
What constitutes liberal arts? In my definition things like math, statistics, economics, philosophy, and psychology fall under it. I had an undergrad in psych, not working in IT, but in tech, doing data science and big data stuff. I was actually in HR and my degree directly helped me get my job. I got contacted by an old co-worker who said someone they worked with were specifically looking to hire people with an Industrial Psychology background. So I came up, I interviewed and the rest was history.
But most of the degrees, no, they make you nicely educated but not trained or qualified to do anything that earns money.
Back in the 80s, a lot of companies hiring computer science and electrical engineering graduates were sending the new hires to remedial writing classes since many of them were not able to write a paragraph of text that communicated effectively. One computer science undergrad proudly told me circa 1979 that he managed to get out of his liberal arts requirement by taking an engineering class on science fiction taught by computer science faculty. Cubes in IT are full of these guys, and most of them can't compose an email to save their lives.
Give me a liberal arts grad who can communicate effectively, think logically, problem solve, and learn new things over a one-trick-pony grad with a computing degree who can't stand up in front of a group and present something that educates or convinces them any day. In ten years, the liberal arts graduate is more likely to be in management or a technical lead, and the computing graduate sitting in a cubicle somewhere cranking out code. Or worse, the computing graduate will be in management and doing a lousy job of it.
Again -- a college degree isn't a job training program.
Back in the 80s, a lot of companies hiring computer science and electrical engineering graduates were sending the new hires to remedial writing classes since many of them were not able to write a paragraph of text that communicated effectively. One computer science undergrad proudly told me circa 1979 that he managed to get out of his liberal arts requirement by taking an engineering class on science fiction taught by computer science faculty. Cubes in IT are full of these guys, and most of them can't compose an email to save their lives.
Give me a liberal arts grad who can communicate effectively, think logically, problem solve, and learn new things over a one-trick-pony grad with a computing degree who can't stand up in front of a group and present something that educates or convinces them any day. In ten years, the liberal arts graduate is more likely to be in management or a technical lead, and the computing graduate sitting in a cubicle somewhere cranking out code. Or worse, the computing graduate will be in management and doing a lousy job of it.
Again -- a college degree isn't a job training program.
It pretty much is treated as one anymore. Ask anyone why they're going to college, the typical answer is to "get a high paying job".
Give me a liberal arts grad who can communicate effectively, think logically, problem solve, and learn new things over a one-trick-pony grad with a computing degree who can't stand up in front of a group and present something that educates or convinces them any day. In ten years, the liberal arts graduate is more likely to be in management or a technical lead, and the computing graduate sitting in a cubicle somewhere cranking out code. Or worse, the computing graduate will be in management and doing a lousy job of it.
Again -- a college degree isn't a job training program.
I understand your point, but that's a false dichotomy. Quality engineers and scientists can indeed communicate effectively, think logically, solve problems, and learn new things. They graduate from top-tier engineering schools, and they usually got the best grades in lit, psych, etc in addition to doing well in theoretical mechanics.
But what is your degree in and how did you get into hr?
Bachelor of Art Political Science University of South Carolina. When I started it was a G'Int degree which was government and international studies which is also useless.
The restaurant company my husband works for promoted me into HR and I process all new employee paperwork and do orientation for two of their busiest restaurants. I work about 20 hours a week doing this and all other time in real estate. Fortunately, I have flexible hours with both.
I wanted to post this because I saw that there was a post about recent grads not being able to find jobs. The person I believe had majored in women studies. I thought about it, and I know several people that have liberal arts degrees and they have not done much better.
I remember that a while back, I made a list of every person that I knew with a four year degree. I wrote down their major and what job that they were currently working in. The majority were liberal arts degrees and a lot of them were either in one of three situations. They were either 1. Working temp jobs, 2. Underemployed or 3. working in a call center.
It is my belief that the recession really screwed things up and the economy retracted and therefore, companies have gotten really strict about who they hire and now everything has to have a "practical slant" to it. So if you are going to work in business, then you HAVE to have a business degree. If you are going to work in communications, then you MUST have a communications degree etc. It seems that companies no longer value liberal arts degrees.
So here it is, a place where liberal arts majors can sound off and let everyone know how the job market is. Please put your major and what job you got as a result of your studies, whether you did well, or if the degree didn't help you at all, well you can put that too. This is a thread where we can celebrate the success of some and empathize with others. Have a nice day!
Womens studies is NOT liberal arts education in the classic sense. But it's basically social science, which I know is modern liberal arts (but not really). It should be classified as critical theory under social sciences.
In its classic sense, liberal arts education provides an overview of the arts, humanities (the study of the human condition), social sciences, mathematics and natural sciences. These include many skills that are very much in demand, especially with the economic downturn globally. Some of the more modern "liberal arts" vocations are maybe not as much in demand.... but liberal arts is generally valuable.
Last edited by Led Zeppelin; 05-21-2017 at 12:35 PM..
If we define good job as : "job I am proud of, somewhat look forward to, exactly what I wanted to do, what I studied in school, my passion"-then NO, a LA degree has not helped me land a "good job" at least not yet.
However it has helped me land a somewhat okay job and for that I am grateful, though I am trying to do better than my "okay" job.
I think that unless you know someone or NBC, CBS, Sony etc... actually chose to interview you out of the hundreds of applications they get, then a Liberal Arts degree is little more than the "check this box if you have a degree" -I have accepted that, I have made peace with that.
Overall the LA degree will probably do very little in terms of landing a job better than data entry, customer service etc... Its the internships, the work experience that you did prior to graduating with the LA degree is what gets you the better work. Either that or starting at the data entry then working your way up.
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