Would you let your child study liberal arts?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The liberal arts crowd sure is worked up! So many of these anecdotal stories are pretty much meaningless. My college dropout neighbor makes over 500k in pharma sales. You should just get a GED and make big bucks in pharma sales!

When people goof on liberal arts degrees, they aren't talking about someone who uses their liberal arts degree to get into law school. They are talking about someone who majors in something useless like sociology.

Sociology isn’t useless. I work as an attorney for a federal agency and most days use my sociology degree more than my English degree or even my law degree.

You make decent money because you have a law degree and work as a lawyer. Majors like psychology or sociology are a joke, especially now that college can easily cost well over 100k. The classes are pretty much all the same. You have some nutty professor rambling on about stuff that is borderline insane and has no relevance to the real world.

DP here. You seem to have disdain for the inherent value of education and how it prepares one for varied success. You not only express that disdain, you demonstrate it.

That depends on your chosen career. A college degree absolutely makes you more marketable and will likely create opportunities that don't exist without a degree. But most majors don't even come close to giving you the skills you need to do a particular job. I probably learned more from working crappy jobs than I did reading books and writing papers. You are literally doing the exact same thing over and over again for four years. What a bore.

Your anti-intellectual position is consistent. But what you learned in college may not be the same as what others learn. And this is me responding kindly.

I'm anti-intellectual because I'm a realist and decided to study in a field with a relatively high starting salary?

What you learned doesn't matter because it doesn't mean that you have a marketable skill. And trust me, the market has determined that a 4 year degree in sociology or psychology is one step above burger flipper at McDonalds.

No, you are anti-intellectual because you literally disdain the benefit of “reading books and writing papers”.

Many liberal arts majors choose such majors since those majors have many courses that do not have any tests and the final grades are dependent on papers and essays that can be purchased on line. These papers are customized to ordering customers and are relatively inexpensive. These students can graduate without taking any tests or actually writing any of the required papers themselves. Such is not possible for STEM courses or majors.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The liberal arts crowd sure is worked up! So many of these anecdotal stories are pretty much meaningless. My college dropout neighbor makes over 500k in pharma sales. You should just get a GED and make big bucks in pharma sales!

When people goof on liberal arts degrees, they aren't talking about someone who uses their liberal arts degree to get into law school. They are talking about someone who majors in something useless like sociology.

Sociology isn’t useless. I work as an attorney for a federal agency and most days use my sociology degree more than my English degree or even my law degree.

You make decent money because you have a law degree and work as a lawyer. Majors like psychology or sociology are a joke, especially now that college can easily cost well over 100k. The classes are pretty much all the same. You have some nutty professor rambling on about stuff that is borderline insane and has no relevance to the real world.

DP here. You seem to have disdain for the inherent value of education and how it prepares one for varied success. You not only express that disdain, you demonstrate it.

That depends on your chosen career. A college degree absolutely makes you more marketable and will likely create opportunities that don't exist without a degree. But most majors don't even come close to giving you the skills you need to do a particular job. I probably learned more from working crappy jobs than I did reading books and writing papers. You are literally doing the exact same thing over and over again for four years. What a bore.

Your anti-intellectual position is consistent. But what you learned in college may not be the same as what others learn. And this is me responding kindly.

I'm anti-intellectual because I'm a realist and decided to study in a field with a relatively high starting salary?

What you learned doesn't matter because it doesn't mean that you have a marketable skill. And trust me, the market has determined that a 4 year degree in sociology or psychology is one step above burger flipper at McDonalds.

No, you are anti-intellectual because you literally disdain the benefit of “reading books and writing papers”.

Many liberal arts majors choose such majors since those majors have many courses that do not have any tests and the final grades are dependent on papers and essays that can be purchased on line. These papers are customized to ordering customers and are relatively inexpensive. These students can graduate without taking any tests or actually writing any of the required papers themselves. Such is not possible for STEM courses or majors.

Yup. Selling college papers is a huge industry.

[Anonymous]

There are too many extreme viewpoints on both sides here. If we’re looking at pure financial return on investment (which is really the only objective measure for comparing majors), it’s going to be a sliding scale in reality depending upon school ranking, type of major, whether grad school is required, etc. Whether someone is personally fulfilled by a particular field is totally subjective and up to the individual - I certainly wouldn’t advocate my own children to go into a field that they despise for financial reasons, but I also think there’s a middle ground between a whimsical “follow your heart at all costs” justification for chasing jobs with low pay and/or lottery-type odds of getting and being forced into a job someone hates purely because of money.

For instance, my ultimate dream job would be one where I get paid for watching sports all day, but those jobs are few and far between (and many don’t pay a living wage even if you got hired). However, I did find a job that I *like* as far as a job goes that also pays enough to provide a comfortable living and gives me enough time and resources to enjoy my hobbies in my free time (including watching sports and helping coach my kids’ teams). I like my job enough that I’m happy going to work and believe that I’m receiving fair compensation, but my work is also not my core identity and I’m not going to be one of those people that will hem and haw when I’m ready to retire - I work to live as opposed to live to work.

Bottom line: no one should do a job that they hate for money, but by the same token, “love” for a job can only go so far if it doesn’t pay the bills (or even worse, simply doesn’t exist due to scarcity). It’s almost as of though people forget to ask their kids what they *like* to do (which might not be a “love” or “passion”) and explore options on that front.

FWIW, I was a finance major in undergrad at a Big Ten state school that then went to law school. My fellow finance majors tended to do well financially and my fellow law school grads that had humanities majors (which is what we’re really talking about when we say “liberal arts majors”) also generally did well. I’ll be honest that the pure humanities majors that I knew that didn’t go onto law school or some other professional school have had a harder time financially overall in average than STEM or business majors. To deny that would be disingenuous - those are simply the odds (even if there are many individual anecdotes to the contrary).

Now, it’s likely very different if you’re a humanities major at an Ivy/Ivy-level elite school - there’s a lot more leeway because the brand of your school means more than your major in those instances. However, the same advice realistically wouldn’t apply to even my Big Ten state school (which always ranks fairy high in academic rankings) for the average student. I’d imagine that grass from lower-ranked schools would have an even harder time. Circumstances are simply going to be different depending upon the student, institution, etc.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The liberal arts crowd sure is worked up! So many of these anecdotal stories are pretty much meaningless. My college dropout neighbor makes over 500k in pharma sales. You should just get a GED and make big bucks in pharma sales!

When people goof on liberal arts degrees, they aren't talking about someone who uses their liberal arts degree to get into law school. They are talking about someone who majors in something useless like sociology.

Sociology isn’t useless. I work as an attorney for a federal agency and most days use my sociology degree more than my English degree or even my law degree.

You make decent money because you have a law degree and work as a lawyer. Majors like psychology or sociology are a joke, especially now that college can easily cost well over 100k. The classes are pretty much all the same. You have some nutty professor rambling on about stuff that is borderline insane and has no relevance to the real world.

DP here. You seem to have disdain for the inherent value of education and how it prepares one for varied success. You not only express that disdain, you demonstrate it.

That depends on your chosen career. A college degree absolutely makes you more marketable and will likely create opportunities that don't exist without a degree. But most majors don't even come close to giving you the skills you need to do a particular job. I probably learned more from working crappy jobs than I did reading books and writing papers. You are literally doing the exact same thing over and over again for four years. What a bore.

Your anti-intellectual position is consistent. But what you learned in college may not be the same as what others learn. And this is me responding kindly.

I'm anti-intellectual because I'm a realist and decided to study in a field with a relatively high starting salary?

What you learned doesn't matter because it doesn't mean that you have a marketable skill. And trust me, the market has determined that a 4 year degree in sociology or psychology is one step above burger flipper at McDonalds.

No, you are anti-intellectual because you literally disdain the benefit of “reading books and writing papers”.

Many liberal arts majors choose such majors since those majors have many courses that do not have any tests and the final grades are dependent on papers and essays that can be purchased on line. These papers are customized to ordering customers and are relatively inexpensive. These students can graduate without taking any tests or actually writing any of the required papers themselves. Such is not possible for STEM courses or majors.

Yup. Selling college papers is a huge industry.

Papers cost around $60-$120 each depending on the length of the paper and the turnaround time. Some people make good living doing this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am unsure if I want to finance a college education if he will come out with only a B.A. in some liberal arts discipline. I'd hate the thought of him suffering with unemployment and a low paid career.

What do you think?

Do you hate the thought of him studying a subject just to make you happy and then resenting you for it later?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Papers cost around $60-$120 each depending on the length of the paper and the turnaround time. Some people make good living doing this.

Wait, I thought humanities (which is really what you idiots mean when you say liberal arts) grads couldn't make any money?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Papers cost around $60-$120 each depending on the length of the paper and the turnaround time. Some people make good living doing this.

Wait, I thought humanities (which is really what you idiots mean when you say liberal arts) grads couldn't make any money?

They can do side gigs like doordash and make a few bucks writing wacky papers, but that's about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The liberal arts crowd sure is worked up! So many of these anecdotal stories are pretty much meaningless. My college dropout neighbor makes over 500k in pharma sales. You should just get a GED and make big bucks in pharma sales!

When people goof on liberal arts degrees, they aren't talking about someone who uses their liberal arts degree to get into law school. They are talking about someone who majors in something useless like sociology.

Sociology isn’t useless. I work as an attorney for a federal agency and most days use my sociology degree more than my English degree or even my law degree.

You make decent money because you have a law degree and work as a lawyer. Majors like psychology or sociology are a joke, especially now that college can easily cost well over 100k. The classes are pretty much all the same. You have some nutty professor rambling on about stuff that is borderline insane and has no relevance to the real world.

DP here. You seem to have disdain for the inherent value of education and how it prepares one for varied success. You not only express that disdain, you demonstrate it.

That depends on your chosen career. A college degree absolutely makes you more marketable and will likely create opportunities that don't exist without a degree. But most majors don't even come close to giving you the skills you need to do a particular job. I probably learned more from working crappy jobs than I did reading books and writing papers. You are literally doing the exact same thing over and over again for four years. What a bore.

Your anti-intellectual position is consistent. But what you learned in college may not be the same as what others learn. And this is me responding kindly.

I'm anti-intellectual because I'm a realist and decided to study in a field with a relatively high starting salary?

What you learned doesn't matter because it doesn't mean that you have a marketable skill. And trust me, the market has determined that a 4 year degree in sociology or psychology is one step above burger flipper at McDonalds.

No, you are anti-intellectual because you literally disdain the benefit of “reading books and writing papers”.

Many liberal arts majors choose such majors since those majors have many courses that do not have any tests and the final grades are dependent on papers and essays that can be purchased on line. These papers are customized to ordering customers and are relatively inexpensive. These students can graduate without taking any tests or actually writing any of the required papers themselves. Such is not possible for STEM courses or majors.

A good number of the paper-buyers are likely STEM majors (which include the liberal arts majors in sciences or mathematics) who buy them for their non-STEM courses. Business majors are the ones who are supposedly most likely to buy papers. Majors in the humanities or social sciences get into increasingly specialized courses where it is difficult to buy a paper, as you have to write development pieces throughout the semester, meet with the professor about your ideas, use the research databases or datasets they suggest etc. The papers work for the 101 style classes.

[Anonymous]

I have never understood this question. You cannot “ make” your child study what you think they should ( and for most I think that means stem- related.)

You can give them a budget for a 4- year degree that you have planned for and you can also discuss pros and cons or ease of entry to specific careers with certain degrees. Once they have that information they should get to choose.

Also, why all the hate wolf liberal arts! Both my undergrad and grad are liberal arts and I do extremely well. Not all dc are interested in stem subjects or careers. The world or work is quite varied.

[Anonymous]

12:55, well said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The liberal arts crowd sure is worked up! So many of these anecdotal stories are pretty much meaningless. My college dropout neighbor makes over 500k in pharma sales. You should just get a GED and make big bucks in pharma sales!

When people goof on liberal arts degrees, they aren't talking about someone who uses their liberal arts degree to get into law school. They are talking about someone who majors in something useless like sociology.

Sociology isn’t useless. I work as an attorney for a federal agency and most days use my sociology degree more than my English degree or even my law degree.

You make decent money because you have a law degree and work as a lawyer. Majors like psychology or sociology are a joke, especially now that college can easily cost well over 100k. The classes are pretty much all the same. You have some nutty professor rambling on about stuff that is borderline insane and has no relevance to the real world.

DP here. You seem to have disdain for the inherent value of education and how it prepares one for varied success. You not only express that disdain, you demonstrate it.

That depends on your chosen career. A college degree absolutely makes you more marketable and will likely create opportunities that don't exist without a degree. But most majors don't even come close to giving you the skills you need to do a particular job. I probably learned more from working crappy jobs than I did reading books and writing papers. You are literally doing the exact same thing over and over again for four years. What a bore.

Your anti-intellectual position is consistent. But what you learned in college may not be the same as what others learn. And this is me responding kindly.

I'm anti-intellectual because I'm a realist and decided to study in a field with a relatively high starting salary?

What you learned doesn't matter because it doesn't mean that you have a marketable skill. And trust me, the market has determined that a 4 year degree in sociology or psychology is one step above burger flipper at McDonalds.

No, you are anti-intellectual because you literally disdain the benefit of “reading books and writing papers”.

Many liberal arts majors choose such majors since those majors have many courses that do not have any tests and the final grades are dependent on papers and essays that can be purchased on line. These papers are customized to ordering customers and are relatively inexpensive. These students can graduate without taking any tests or actually writing any of the required papers themselves. Such is not possible for STEM courses or majors.

A good number of the paper-buyers are likely STEM majors (which include the liberal arts majors in sciences or mathematics) who buy them for their non-STEM courses. Business majors are the ones who are supposedly most likely to buy papers. Majors in the humanities or social sciences get into increasingly specialized courses where it is difficult to buy a paper, as you have to write development pieces throughout the semester, meet with the professor about your ideas, use the research databases or datasets they suggest etc. The papers work for the 101 style classes.

Except likely percentage of classes STEM majors can pass by buying papers would be 10-15% whereas likely percentage of classes liberal arts majors can pass by buying papers would be 80-100%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The liberal arts crowd sure is worked up! So many of these anecdotal stories are pretty much meaningless. My college dropout neighbor makes over 500k in pharma sales. You should just get a GED and make big bucks in pharma sales!

When people goof on liberal arts degrees, they aren't talking about someone who uses their liberal arts degree to get into law school. They are talking about someone who majors in something useless like sociology.

Sociology isn’t useless. I work as an attorney for a federal agency and most days use my sociology degree more than my English degree or even my law degree.

You make decent money because you have a law degree and work as a lawyer. Majors like psychology or sociology are a joke, especially now that college can easily cost well over 100k. The classes are pretty much all the same. You have some nutty professor rambling on about stuff that is borderline insane and has no relevance to the real world.

DP here. You seem to have disdain for the inherent value of education and how it prepares one for varied success. You not only express that disdain, you demonstrate it.

That depends on your chosen career. A college degree absolutely makes you more marketable and will likely create opportunities that don't exist without a degree. But most majors don't even come close to giving you the skills you need to do a particular job. I probably learned more from working crappy jobs than I did reading books and writing papers. You are literally doing the exact same thing over and over again for four years. What a bore.

Your anti-intellectual position is consistent. But what you learned in college may not be the same as what others learn. And this is me responding kindly.

I'm anti-intellectual because I'm a realist and decided to study in a field with a relatively high starting salary?

What you learned doesn't matter because it doesn't mean that you have a marketable skill. And trust me, the market has determined that a 4 year degree in sociology or psychology is one step above burger flipper at McDonalds.

No, you are anti-intellectual because you literally disdain the benefit of “reading books and writing papers”.

Many liberal arts majors choose such majors since those majors have many courses that do not have any tests and the final grades are dependent on papers and essays that can be purchased on line. These papers are customized to ordering customers and are relatively inexpensive. These students can graduate without taking any tests or actually writing any of the required papers themselves. Such is not possible for STEM courses or majors.

A good number of the paper-buyers are likely STEM majors (which include the liberal arts majors in sciences or mathematics) who buy them for their non-STEM courses. Business majors are the ones who are supposedly most likely to buy papers. Majors in the humanities or social sciences get into increasingly specialized courses where it is difficult to buy a paper, as you have to write development pieces throughout the semester, meet with the professor about your ideas, use the research databases or datasets they suggest etc. The papers work for the 101 style classes.

Except likely percentage of classes STEM majors can pass by buying papers would be 10-15% whereas likely percentage of classes liberal arts majors can pass by buying papers would be 80-100%.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are too many extreme viewpoints on both sides here. If we’re looking at pure financial return on investment (which is really the only objective measure for comparing majors), it’s going to be a sliding scale in reality depending upon school ranking, type of major, whether grad school is required, etc. Whether someone is personally fulfilled by a particular field is totally subjective and up to the individual - I certainly wouldn’t advocate my own children to go into a field that they despise for financial reasons, but I also think there’s a middle ground between a whimsical “follow your heart at all costs” justification for chasing jobs with low pay and/or lottery-type odds of getting and being forced into a job someone hates purely because of money.

For instance, my ultimate dream job would be one where I get paid for watching sports all day, but those jobs are few and far between (and many don’t pay a living wage even if you got hired). However, I did find a job that I *like* as far as a job goes that also pays enough to provide a comfortable living and gives me enough time and resources to enjoy my hobbies in my free time (including watching sports and helping coach my kids’ teams). I like my job enough that I’m happy going to work and believe that I’m receiving fair compensation, but my work is also not my core identity and I’m not going to be one of those people that will hem and haw when I’m ready to retire - I work to live as opposed to live to work.

Bottom line: no one should do a job that they hate for money, but by the same token, “love” for a job can only go so far if it doesn’t pay the bills (or even worse, simply doesn’t exist due to scarcity). It’s almost as of though people forget to ask their kids what they *like* to do (which might not be a “love” or “passion”) and explore options on that front.

FWIW, I was a finance major in undergrad at a Big Ten state school that then went to law school. My fellow finance majors tended to do well financially and my fellow law school grads that had humanities majors (which is what we’re really talking about when we say “liberal arts majors”) also generally did well. I’ll be honest that the pure humanities majors that I knew that didn’t go onto law school or some other professional school have had a harder time financially overall in average than STEM or business majors. To deny that would be disingenuous - those are simply the odds (even if there are many individual anecdotes to the contrary).


Now, it’s likely very different if you’re a humanities major at an Ivy/Ivy-level elite school - there’s a lot more leeway because the brand of your school means more than your major in those instances. However, the same advice realistically wouldn’t apply to even my Big Ten state school (which always ranks fairy high in academic rankings) for the average student. I’d imagine that grass from lower-ranked schools would have an even harder time. Circumstances are simply going to be different depending upon the student, institution, etc.

This is best and most accurate post here. I am a history major and have made a lot as a biglaw partner. For other jobs it matters what school you are talking about. Princeton history majors have a good shot at Wall Street or consulting or really anything else. Towson State a bit less so.

[Anonymous]

I would promote only liberal arts. College is for developing critical thinking and analysis, writing skills, and cognitive and social maturity. It is not vocational school. We've all forgotten what education is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are too many extreme viewpoints on both sides here. If we’re looking at pure financial return on investment (which is really the only objective measure for comparing majors), it’s going to be a sliding scale in reality depending upon school ranking, type of major, whether grad school is required, etc. Whether someone is personally fulfilled by a particular field is totally subjective and up to the individual - I certainly wouldn’t advocate my own children to go into a field that they despise for financial reasons, but I also think there’s a middle ground between a whimsical “follow your heart at all costs” justification for chasing jobs with low pay and/or lottery-type odds of getting and being forced into a job someone hates purely because of money.

For instance, my ultimate dream job would be one where I get paid for watching sports all day, but those jobs are few and far between (and many don’t pay a living wage even if you got hired). However, I did find a job that I *like* as far as a job goes that also pays enough to provide a comfortable living and gives me enough time and resources to enjoy my hobbies in my free time (including watching sports and helping coach my kids’ teams). I like my job enough that I’m happy going to work and believe that I’m receiving fair compensation, but my work is also not my core identity and I’m not going to be one of those people that will hem and haw when I’m ready to retire - I work to live as opposed to live to work.

Bottom line: no one should do a job that they hate for money, but by the same token, “love” for a job can only go so far if it doesn’t pay the bills (or even worse, simply doesn’t exist due to scarcity). It’s almost as of though people forget to ask their kids what they *like* to do (which might not be a “love” or “passion”) and explore options on that front.

FWIW, I was a finance major in undergrad at a Big Ten state school that then went to law school. My fellow finance majors tended to do well financially and my fellow law school grads that had humanities majors (which is what we’re really talking about when we say “liberal arts majors”) also generally did well. I’ll be honest that the pure humanities majors that I knew that didn’t go onto law school or some other professional school have had a harder time financially overall in average than STEM or business majors. To deny that would be disingenuous - those are simply the odds (even if there are many individual anecdotes to the contrary).

Now, it’s likely very different if you’re a humanities major at an Ivy/Ivy-level elite school - there’s a lot more leeway because the brand of your school means more than your major in those instances. However, the same advice realistically wouldn’t apply to even my Big Ten state school (which always ranks fairy high in academic rankings) for the average student. I’d imagine that grass from lower-ranked schools would have an even harder time. Circumstances are simply going to be different depending upon the student, institution, etc.

of course, the same could be said of finance grads from bottom tier state universities. I would not expect a finance major from Longwood to have great odds of landing an analyst position on Wall Street