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Look, if you're not confident you're going to do well in school, don't waste the money by going. I've done fine with my English Lit degree - I graduated *** laude from a top-notch school and I've been consistently employed for almost 20 years, through all of the economic upheaval. I've built up enough creds in my industry that I will probably always be able to get by ok just by freelancing.
I was never going to do well in investment banking, engineering, medicine, etc. I'm pretty darn smart, but my brain doesn't work like that. So why force myself into a field that is always going to be a struggle and where I will never be successful? I worked hard through my entire academic career and got a degree from a respected institution. If I'd just blown off grade school, gone to whatever podunk school would take me after that and then done "meh" while I was there, I would not have the career success I've had.
I went into a field where I'm good at what I do. Supposing they could even get through the education part, would you really want to drive over a bridge designed by someone who barely understood the material they learned in college?
Liberal arts degrees are great for people who are passionate about their major and put a lot of work into it. You can slack off and still get the degree (sciences, not so much maybe), but your transcript will reflect that when you apply for jobs.
The one thing I disagree with many left-wing politicians about is their emphasis on college. I really think we should emphasize education overall, including vo-tech. I also think we need to be more rigorous about preparing students for college in terms of organizational and budgeting skills. We also, as a society, need to learn to respect experience as much as degrees. I know a lot of competent people who never got a degree but are great at their jobs - but they get passed over for less qualified people who happen to have a piece of paper. We've fetishized college to some degree as a society.
Anyone who is wealthy today graduated "back in the day." When I went to school, people with English degrees could get jobs on Wall Street, and everyone was talking about these amazingly upwardly mobile Yuppies. That's irrelevant today.
And it doesn't count if you have to get a second degree after the first. Anyone who is smart enough to get into med school can major in what they want.
Who told you psych majors of any kind were in "huge" demand? They aren't.
I told me, personal experience with MANY companies/clinics desperate to hire Clinical Psychologists, Counselors, etc., social workers too!!
Yes, a second degree counts, that is the whole point!!!!!! Back in the day they were saying the SAME THING about certain majors, including English majors. Again, it is not the degree that matters, it's what you DO with that degree....and English Majors can still get jobs on Wall Street....
I see all the back and forth arguments ya'll are making and some of it holds water but this is not that complicated. I live in South Carolina and if you graduate with a BA from the U of South Carolina ,Clemson, Furman ,College of Charleston ect. and then take that degree and look for employment in the private sector in Greenville , Columbia or Charleston you can get a good job(this assumes you have done your part by having several internships over your college career).
Down here having a 4 year degree, any degree, still means something and the competition is not so fierce. That's not a knock against South Carolina ,that's just the lay of the land. Companies here are still relatively happy to take you with a 4 year degree and then mold you the way they want and they don't shudder if "GASP" you don't have an MBA! I think the percentage of people in South Carolina 25 and above with a 4 year degree is roughly 25 % but effectively it's lower than that because a large portion of that 25% are older Baby Boomers who have moved here the last 20 years and they are now retired or they are semi retired and are not in the workforce full time.
Companies here are happy to get and need younger employees with a decent 4 year education. Now I fully realize that if you have dreams of living in New York or LA the road ahead will be tougher and you're going to be facing a lot more competition but if you're willing to give South Carolina a shot(North Carolina as well) you can do well here (we have great beaches!) and our 3 major cities are getting more diverse all the time.
Last edited by senecaman; 12-28-2015 at 01:25 PM..
Knowledge of the humanities shouldn't be thought of as a luxury.
That's our culture and our history. We shouldn't throw it away just because doing so seems economically expedient.
There's a reason people who study STEM fields have to take a lot of humanities classes in order to graduate.
Of course, many fields these days, including science, require getting at least a master's degree, in part because the time it takes to get a bachelor's degree isn't really long enough to learn even the basics. Someone with an undergrad degree in math claiming to be a mathematician would make me laugh, because I know a lot of good mathematicians, because no real mathematicians feel as though they knew anything at all until they had at least a master's, and the honest ones don't pretend to know much until long after finishing a PhD. (Math is hard! I hear the same story again and again from actual top mathematicians with doctorates from places like Harvard.)
Then, yeah, there are people who want credit for finishing school but who don't want to do any work or learn anything. When I was in school, we called these people "pre-meds," but at least they went on to learn stuff in med school. Now, even here in this thread, we have people defensively claiming to have some STEM expertise because they took high school math. This forum gets regular threads from people asking how they can get degrees without knowing the kind of math I and virtually all of my colleagues and peers learned in, oh, ninth grade or so.
The humanities are great. I'd tell my kid to get a STEM major but to have a strong humanities background (possibly a dual major). Being cultured is important because it keeps you from becoming a simpleton geek with no appreciation for anything that doesn't come in comic book form.
You gotta eat, too, though. If you really want that English degree, then you'd better get ready to get an MBA, too, and by the way, the MBA isn't going to help if you don't know math.
I work with an MBA every day. 90% of our discussions are about solving optimization problems, doing regression analysis, implementing machine learning algorithms, and building mathematical models. That's basic stuff in business these days, along with dealing with how data can be organized and and cleaned and stored and summarized and analyzed.
The people who can't hold a conversation on these topics are the people making $35k per year fetching tea and donuts for those of us who can.
So, as a few people pointed out, get the best of both worlds. You have to learn skills that will allow you to pay your bills, and that will take work. Life is better if you're cultured, so get that while you have the opportunity to do so.
Both should be lifelong goals, though. When you finish college, you should have enough of a foundation in both humanities and sciences to continue to teach yourself for the rest of your life. Reading a few books in college isn't the important part -- the important part is learning how to keep reading so you can learn much more later on. Learn new technical skills or your job will leave you behind. Learn more about culture so you don't turn into a provicial bigot with a ridiculously myopic view of humanity and bumper sticker with a racist slogan on your car.
As someone with a psychology BA, I'll postulate a few reasons, some of which have been mentioned:
Easier - While some LA fields are easier than others, virtually all of them are easier than STEM fields. I have friends who majored in engineering and computer science. I looked at what they were studying a few times, and it much, much harder than anything I had to do. Ever.
Fun/interesting - Though largely subjective, LA fields are generally funner and more enjoyable than most STEM fields, largely because you don't have to work as hard. With many LA fields, there's lots of abstract pontificating, which is easier than dealing with the complex, tangible elements of the real world.
Grad school - Many get an LA with the intention of eventually going to grad school. Some persons do attend grad school, some don't. For those who don't a BA often winds up being a waste of time/money (me). For those who do, grad school sometimes winds up being a waste of time/money.
...I live in South Carolina and if you graduate with a BA from the U of South Carolina ,Clemson, Furman ,College of Charleston ect. and then take that degree and look for a for a job in the private sector in Greenville , Columbia or Charleston you can get a good job(this assumes you have done your part by having several internships over your college career).
Down here having a 4 year degree, any degree, still means something and the competition is not so fierce. That's not a knock against South Carolina ,that's just the lay of the land. ...
Companies here are happy to get and need younger employees with a decent 4 year education. Now I fully realize that if you have dreams of living in New York or LA the road ahead will be tougher and you're going to be facing a lot more competition but if you're willing to give South Carolina a shot(North Carolina as well) you can do well here (we have great beaches!) and our 3 major cities are getting more diverse all the time.
Just a couple of things to add. My career has taken me to multiple states and some major cities over the years and I've had the chance to work with people with a lot of institutions, including from SC. SC is blessed to have at least two major flagships in a relatively small state. The average graduate from either of those schools is easily competitive with graduates from other flagships and frankly ahead of a lot of schools. SC and the south in general gets overlooked for the quality of their higher education system because of pre conceptions held in much of the country. But I'd certainly have no problem hiring someone from USC, Clemson, UNC, NC State, Auburn, Florida just as quickly as Mich, Ohio, Wisconsin, MIT, UCLA, or that other USC on the left coast.
Only downside is, as people discover the south is neither the racist holdout, nor Hooterville, there're more people moving down here bringing all the problems with them. Don't want to let the secret out what a great place the south actually is.
Back in the Stone Age, before programs in computer programming existed, companies who needed computer programmers would hire linguists; people with a strong background in foreign languages (i.e. multiple languages) and linguistics. Because they found that those people had a facility for understanding computer "languages". They got those people the training they needed, and those people were set in solid and fairly lucrative careers for life.
Next question?
I forgot about that. There was a time IBM was snatching up all sorts of philosophy degreed people from my University.
I do a lot of work with systems - I don't think like a computer person so my problem solving is generally useful for fixes that are quick and easy that the computer ppl never think of - but sure try a lot of hard ways to get there.
...........I work with an MBA every day. 90% of our discussions are about solving optimization problems, doing regression analysis, implementing machine learning algorithms, and building mathematical models. That's basic stuff in business these days, along with dealing with how data can be organized and and cleaned and stored and summarized and analyzed....................
...............The people who can't hold a conversation on these topics are the people making $35k per year fetching tea and donuts for those of us who can.............
That is my problem when LA graduates tout their "critical thinking" skills. IF you do not even have the basic skills that a MBA has......what "critical thinking" can you do for an employer??
I am fine with the Liberal Arts as long as a taxpayer I do not have to pay for it. As others have mentioned I would rather have that money redirected towards vocational classes.
Here in Washington state, the Democrats proposed raising tuition for STEM programs since they cost more and STEM graduates made a lot more money than Liberal Arts graduates (that inequity thing). In a rare fit of common sense, the Republicans instead cut tuition by around 20% for everybody.
Now I would have kept the Liberal Arts tuition, and cut or made tuition free all the STEM classes. Poor students would be able to afford college by simply choosing a STEM major. Society would get employable, well educated members of society.
Liberal Art programs really do need to relook at what their doing. I liked my sociology class in lower division, but the one taught by a sociologist in the natural resources school is the one that really made a difference and I used a LOT in my 40 year career.
I suspect that is part of the solution. Move some of those liberal arts classes into the professional schools and focus on their needs.
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