Arguing with DS over major

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Not the PP, but no, philosophy doesn't "teach you how to think". There is no such thing. Philosophy teaches you about certain kinds of issues or problems (what it means to know, how we know what exists etc), and what various thoughtful people thought about these (I know because I was a philosophy major). But it's not something you can use in the workplace. There exists a 'general thinking skill' but that' is intelligence and it can not be taught - either you have it or you don't. Whatever can be taught does not transfer to other areas.

Wow, where did you study philosophy? Because part of a good philosophical education is to be able to frame an argument and support it with evidence. This is something that a good professor makes central to his/her course. You don't just memorize what various thoughtful people said. You're supposed to be able to work with the arguments yourself and make a convincing case for them and learn to articulate them effectively. These are important skills in the workplace. If you didn't get that in your philosophy education, you were robbed.

+1. Well-argued response.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: NP here. We are currently doing college tours, and I was interested in the response of DH, a successful and pragmatic businessman with a background in management consulting. To my surprise,he was totally turned off by the prestigious university where most of the undergrad tour guides introduced themselves as business majors. In his view, no one needs four years of business classes for an entry level business job. As he put it, if you don't spend your college years learning "why Beethoven matters," you likely will never know, and you and society as a whole will be poorer as a result. He described a med school for which he consults where the Dean told him he wants students with liberal arts backgrounds because they are more complete individuals and connect with others well. DH was most impressed with the SLAC we visited. According to their published lists of what recent grads have done, plenty have gotten jobs in the financial sector. To be sure, most went for grad degrees eventually. We will be happy if our DCs go that route, but admittedly it is very expensive and makes more sense if the SLAC is well regarded.

I don't want to come across as being rude about your husband but he really is clueless as to what companies are looking for today when it comes to new hires out of college ...... and, for that matter, what medical schools are looking for when they consider applicants. I work as a department head for a multi-national company - and hire college graduates - and although a liberal arts degree would not rule them out, we prefer those who have a major in a field that provides a foundation in business. I also have a son who completed medical school recently and the driving criteria for selection to medical school is the overall GPA as well as performance in certain courses as well as the MCAT score and recommendations.

And as for learning "why Beethoven matters", that will not come from going to college. It is an interest that is cultivated well before college and in the case of my children, one is acutely interested in classical music and the others have a minimal interest -and they all went to first rate schools.

Your husband may be a successful in business but the information your provided is outright misleading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In this economic climate, the days of doing 'hobby' majors r over!

Exactly. That's why Liberal Arts is the way to go. Technology is changing too fast to know what skills will be needed in 10 years. LeRning how to think will benefit you forever.

Wrong. I think the days of the SLACs are over too. And I went to a SLAC, majored in history and went to Yale law school. But nowadays I probably couldn't get back in my SLAC and Yale Law School. It's just too damn competitive. It's more important to get current with technology and move forward with it. Liberal arts doesn't teach you how to think (or spell, obviously). It's a creature of the past when people could easily get in and parents and loan programs made it affordable to spend fouryears study geology, history, philosophy or whatever. That's no longer the case. A relative of mine graduated from a SLAC with a puff major and over $200K in loans. He's bussing tables at an I-Hop. I am not making this up. At 26 he is going to have to file for bankruptcy (and yes I know the fed loans aren't discharged by bankruptcy).

Liberal arts don't teach you how to think? Philosophy doesn't teach you how to think? Conducting history research and writing it up doesn't teach you how to think? And by the way, geology is a science.

I'm sorry your relative is a slacker but thats hardly a scientific sample. Then again, you don't seem to understand what science is.

Not the PP, but no, philosophy doesn't "teach you how to think". There is no such thing. Philosophy teaches you about certain kinds of issues or problems (what it means to know, how we know what exists etc), and what various thoughtful people thought about these (I know because I was a philosophy major). But it's not something you can use in the workplace. There exists a 'general thinking skill' but that' is intelligence and it can not be taught - either you have it or you don't. Whatever can be taught does not transfer to other areas.

You obviously lack the ability to.think and it was definitely not learned in your case. You can't write, nor can you construct a clear and logical argument. How you earned a degree in philosophy, the discipline of logic and reason, is beyond me.

[Anonymous]

He's my take on this. Degrees have long been about class and separation. It didn't matter so much what the degree was in but that you had one signaled to your potential employer that that you were of a certain class (not so much class of origin because if you had the means and wherewithal to make it through 4 years of study, you belonged in the safe, middle to upper-middle, employable class, especially if your degree was from a recognizable place).

More people are going to college and BA/BS rates will go much higher than 25%, making a college degree not carry the same weight. What will separate out potential applicants - what the degree is in. If you get a vo-tech degree (business especially) then you will be sorted lower unless you went to the very best schools. Liberal arts degree will be the marker of a certain class that employers will look for - someone with the means to study the liberal arts. Add to that that liberal arts so teach critical analysis and writing skills (I promise that the graduates in history and English at my college do WAY more and WAY better writing than our business graduates), and liberal arts majors will be more employable and will make more money in the future. Even now salary studies show that while they start lower their life-time earnings rise above those with more practical degrees.

Education is about class and always has been.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He's my take on this. Degrees have long been about class and separation. It didn't matter so much what the degree was in but that you had one signaled to your potential employer that that you were of a certain class (not so much class of origin because if you had the means and wherewithal to make it through 4 years of study, you belonged in the safe, middle to upper-middle, employable class, especially if your degree was from a recognizable place).

More people are going to college and BA/BS rates will go much higher than 25%, making a college degree not carry the same weight. What will separate out potential applicants - what the degree is in. If you get a vo-tech degree (business especially) then you will be sorted lower unless you went to the very best schools. Liberal arts degree will be the marker of a certain class that employers will look for - someone with the means to study the liberal arts. Add to that that liberal arts so teach critical analysis and writing skills (I promise that the graduates in history and English at my college do WAY more and WAY better writing than our business graduates), and liberal arts majors will be more employable and will make more money in the future. Even now salary studies show that while they start lower their life-time earnings rise above those with more practical degrees.

Education is about class and always has been.

What nonsense.

Education is not about class. It's 2014.

Please explain why social sciences and liberal arts have shown to have the lowest starting salaries for the past couple of years.

I work for a major employer in finance. We hire business degrees way before liberal arts. In fact, a liberal arts degree won't even make it past the resume screening software.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He's my take on this. Degrees have long been about class and separation. It didn't matter so much what the degree was in but that you had one signaled to your potential employer that that you were of a certain class (not so much class of origin because if you had the means and wherewithal to make it through 4 years of study, you belonged in the safe, middle to upper-middle, employable class, especially if your degree was from a recognizable place).

More people are going to college and BA/BS rates will go much higher than 25%, making a college degree not carry the same weight. What will separate out potential applicants - what the degree is in. If you get a vo-tech degree (business especially) then you will be sorted lower unless you went to the very best schools. Liberal arts degree will be the marker of a certain class that employers will look for - someone with the means to study the liberal arts. Add to that that liberal arts so teach critical analysis and writing skills (I promise that the graduates in history and English at my college do WAY more and WAY better writing than our business graduates), and liberal arts majors will be more employable and will make more money in the future. Even now salary studies show that while they start lower their life-time earnings rise above those with more practical degrees.

Education is about class and always has been.

I am am sure graduates from YOUR college get those jobs through networking, not their critical thinking and writing skills. This process only holds true for top institutions and is slowly going away because the "prestige" is not what is use to be.

As for salary studies I am sure if you took out the liberal arts kids that ended up getting an advanced degrees, roughly 40%, the life-time earnings would be far lower. There earnings are often due to the graduate degree in a certain field, not an undergrad degree.

Here are decent stats, basically the differences are marginal. - http://www.aacu.org/leap/documents/nchems.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He's my take on this. Degrees have long been about class and separation. It didn't matter so much what the degree was in but that you had one signaled to your potential employer that that you were of a certain class (not so much class of origin because if you had the means and wherewithal to make it through 4 years of study, you belonged in the safe, middle to upper-middle, employable class, especially if your degree was from a recognizable place).

More people are going to college and BA/BS rates will go much higher than 25%, making a college degree not carry the same weight. What will separate out potential applicants - what the degree is in. If you get a vo-tech degree (business especially) then you will be sorted lower unless you went to the very best schools. Liberal arts degree will be the marker of a certain class that employers will look for - someone with the means to study the liberal arts. Add to that that liberal arts so teach critical analysis and writing skills (I promise that the graduates in history and English at my college do WAY more and WAY better writing than our business graduates), and liberal arts majors will be more employable and will make more money in the future. Even now salary studies show that while they start lower their life-time earnings rise above those with more practical degrees.

Education is about class and always has been.

What nonsense.

Education is not about class. It's 2014.

Please explain why social sciences and liberal arts have shown to have the lowest starting salaries for the past couple of years.

I work for a major employer in finance. We hire business degrees way before liberal arts. In fact, a liberal arts degree won't even make it past the resume screening software.

there is f-eye-nance and fennance. the latter hires lib art degrees more than business degrees for choice positions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He's my take on this. Degrees have long been about class and separation. It didn't matter so much what the degree was in but that you had one signaled to your potential employer that that you were of a certain class (not so much class of origin because if you had the means and wherewithal to make it through 4 years of study, you belonged in the safe, middle to upper-middle, employable class, especially if your degree was from a recognizable place).

More people are going to college and BA/BS rates will go much higher than 25%, making a college degree not carry the same weight. What will separate out potential applicants - what the degree is in. If you get a vo-tech degree (business especially) then you will be sorted lower unless you went to the very best schools. Liberal arts degree will be the marker of a certain class that employers will look for - someone with the means to study the liberal arts. Add to that that liberal arts so teach critical analysis and writing skills (I promise that the graduates in history and English at my college do WAY more and WAY better writing than our business graduates), and liberal arts majors will be more employable and will make more money in the future. Even now salary studies show that while they start lower their life-time earnings rise above those with more practical degrees.

Education is about class and always has been.

I am am sure graduates from YOUR college get those jobs through networking, not their critical thinking and writing skills. This process only holds true for top institutions and is slowly going away because the "prestige" is not what is use to be.


As for salary studies I am sure if you took out the liberal arts kids that ended up getting an advanced degrees, roughly 40%, the life-time earnings would be far lower. There earnings are often due to the graduate degree in a certain field, not an undergrad degree.

Here are decent stats, basically the differences are marginal. - http://www.aacu.org/leap/documents/nchems.pdf

pp here. I am not at a prestigious college. I am talking about the kind and quality of writing that our students in different majors do.

That study is interesting and still refutes the op's stance (though not as starkly as the studies I've seen).

Back to my theory. If you get a vo-tech college degree (except at an elite university) you are marking yourself as a certain class. Same with liberal arts.

So here's my take:
practical major at elite university and liberal arts major at second tier private schools and state schools = what a college degree was in prior to the last decade

Practical major at state school = what "some" college was prior to the last decade

There is probably some further gradiation for second tier state schools; again, liberal arts majors will sort higher

any degree from for-profit online school and any associates degree = what high school diploma was the prior to the last decade

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He's my take on this. Degrees have long been about class and separation. It didn't matter so much what the degree was in but that you had one signaled to your potential employer that that you were of a certain class (not so much class of origin because if you had the means and wherewithal to make it through 4 years of study, you belonged in the safe, middle to upper-middle, employable class, especially if your degree was from a recognizable place).

More people are going to college and BA/BS rates will go much higher than 25%, making a college degree not carry the same weight. What will separate out potential applicants - what the degree is in. If you get a vo-tech degree (business especially) then you will be sorted lower unless you went to the very best schools. Liberal arts degree will be the marker of a certain class that employers will look for - someone with the means to study the liberal arts. Add to that that liberal arts so teach critical analysis and writing skills (I promise that the graduates in history and English at my college do WAY more and WAY better writing than our business graduates), and liberal arts majors will be more employable and will make more money in the future. Even now salary studies show that while they start lower their life-time earnings rise above those with more practical degrees.

Education is about class and always has been.

I am am sure graduates from YOUR college get those jobs through networking, not their critical thinking and writing skills. This process only holds true for top institutions and is slowly going away because the "prestige" is not what is use to be.


As for salary studies I am sure if you took out the liberal arts kids that ended up getting an advanced degrees, roughly 40%, the life-time earnings would be far lower. There earnings are often due to the graduate degree in a certain field, not an undergrad degree.

Here are decent stats, basically the differences are marginal. - http://www.aacu.org/leap/documents/nchems.pdf

pp here. I am not at a prestigious college. I am talking about the kind and quality of writing that our students in different majors do.

That study is interesting and still refutes the op's stance (though not as starkly as the studies I've seen).

Back to my theory. If you get a vo-tech college degree (except at an elite university) you are marking yourself as a certain class. Same with liberal arts.

So here's my take:
practical major at elite university and liberal arts major at second tier private schools and state schools = what a college degree was in prior to the last decade

Practical major at state school = what "some" college was prior to the last decade

There is probably some further gradiation for second tier state schools; again, liberal arts majors will sort higher

any degree from for-profit online school and any associates degree = what high school diploma was the prior to the last decade

Who cares about class?

The so called "practical majors" that I graduated with from state school five years ago had no problems finding jobs. Many of my business undergrad friends now work at the big 4 accounting firms. The liberal arts guys are working retail jobs and some are still waiting tables. Some went on to law school because they had no other options and couldn't get a job.

It's nice to think that majoring in something like liberal arts makes you a certain class, but every single study proves that they have the most trouble finding work.

The whole class debate is nonsense. It's probably a way for people to feel better about dropping 200K for their kid to study history or English.

[Anonymous]

So how about supporting your sons strengths? My DD is an amazing writer and wants to act and write screenplays.. Talk about head in the clouds but she is passionate about it and quite talented. Most of her friends have no idea what they want to do or study( she is 17 and a jr). She is so focused researching college programs that will get her where she wants to go. No way I would force her to be a Business major and have her be miserable and drop out. I'd rather see her recognize her strengths and give it her all. Sparking a passion in something is half the battle in my opinion

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So how about supporting your sons strengths? My DD is an amazing writer and wants to act and write screenplays.. Talk about head in the clouds but she is passionate about it and quite talented. Most of her friends have no idea what they want to do or study( she is 17 and a jr). She is so focused researching college programs that will get her where she wants to go. No way I would force her to be a Business major and have her be miserable and drop out. I'd rather see her recognize her strengths and give it her all. Sparking a passion in something is half the battle in my opinion

+10,000. Hopefully, she is looking at schools like UCLA, USC, NYC, and others that have strong screenplay and media programs. Competitive? Yes. But NOTHING beats a miss but a try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So how about supporting your sons strengths? My DD is an amazing writer and wants to act and write screenplays.. Talk about head in the clouds but she is passionate about it and quite talented. Most of her friends have no idea what they want to do or study( she is 17 and a jr). She is so focused researching college programs that will get her where she wants to go. No way I would force her to be a Business major and have her be miserable and drop out. I'd rather see her recognize her strengths and give it her all. Sparking a passion in something is half the battle in my opinion

+10,000. Hopefully, she is looking at schools like UCLA, USC, NYC, and others that have strong screenplay and media programs. Competitive? Yes. But NOTHING beats a miss but a try.

*NYU*

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In this economic climate, the days of doing 'hobby' majors r over!

Exactly. That's why Liberal Arts is the way to go. Technology is changing too fast to know what skills will be needed in 10 years. LeRning how to think will benefit you forever.

Wrong. I think the days of the SLACs are over too. And I went to a SLAC, majored in history and went to Yale law school. But nowadays I probably couldn't get back in my SLAC and Yale Law School. It's just too damn competitive. It's more important to get current with technology and move forward with it. Liberal arts doesn't teach you how to think (or spell, obviously). It's a creature of the past when people could easily get in and parents and loan programs made it affordable to spend fouryears study geology, history, philosophy or whatever. That's no longer the case. A relative of mine graduated from a SLAC with a puff major and over $200K in loans. He's bussing tables at an I-Hop. I am not making this up. At 26 he is going to have to file for bankruptcy (and yes I know the fed loans aren't discharged by bankruptcy).

Liberal arts don't teach you how to think? Philosophy doesn't teach you how to think? Conducting history research and writing it up doesn't teach you how to think? And by the way, geology is a science.

I'm sorry your relative is a slacker but thats hardly a scientific sample. Then again, you don't seem to understand what science is.

Not the PP, but no, philosophy doesn't "teach you how to think". There is no such thing. Philosophy teaches you about certain kinds of issues or problems (what it means to know, how we know what exists etc), and what various thoughtful people thought about these (I know because I was a philosophy major). But it's not something you can use in the workplace. There exists a 'general thinking skill' but that' is intelligence and it can not be taught - either you have it or you don't. Whatever can be taught does not transfer to other areas.

You obviously lack the ability to.think and it was definitely not learned in your case. You can't write, nor can you construct a clear and logical argument. How you earned a degree in philosophy, the discipline of logic and reason, is beyond me.

right. i have an IQ of 170 and was an absolute superstar philosophy student, like, once in a lifetime student (according to at least 5-6 different people). my undergrad department (top 20 school) begged me to attend their highly competitive phd program (i did end up with a phd albeit in a different field). what you are espousing is a naive view, from which philosophical discussion on the purpose of philosophy could, perhaps, begin. that your consider the claptrap about constructing arguments etc. well written and interesting shows at the very least a serious lack of sophistication.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
So how about supporting your sons strengths? My DD is an amazing writer and wants to act and write screenplays.. Talk about head in the clouds but she is passionate about it and quite talented. Most of her friends have no idea what they want to do or study( she is 17 and a jr). She is so focused researching college programs that will get her where she wants to go. No way I would force her to be a Business major and have her be miserable and drop out. I'd rather see her recognize her strengths and give it her all. Sparking a passion in something is half the battle in my opinion
+10,000. Hopefully, she is looking at schools like UCLA, USC, NYC, and others that have strong screenplay and media programs. Competitive? Yes. But NOTHING beats a miss but a try.

Yes. Thanks PP here. These are all on her list!

[Anonymous]

Why on earth would you tell your kids to become MDs? Most of them are some of the most unhappy people I have ever known. And the way healthcare is going, their salaries aren't going to be great for long.

"How to think" can be taught. I was trained to assimilate and organize information in a particular way in order to come to proper conclusions. Raw intelligence can be harnessed towards certain patterns of thinking.