So few liberal arts majors

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very few kids live in the DCUM bubble and can afford to major in something frivolous knowing that their school’s prestige and parental connections will ensure they do well anyway. Most kids are forced to be practical.

Yet many study the sciences...Not to be anti-intellectual, but many scientific pursuits are purely meaningless, require a PhD, and pay $30k-40k

Please give specific examples…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College has gotten too expensive to justify a liberal arts major. And I say that as someone with a liberal arts BA, MA, and PhD.

We told our kids that we will fully fund their college educations, but they had to pick a major that was going to be employable upon graduation and one that could provide them with financial stability.

My nephew is an English Language & Lit major at Harvard. There is very little chance that he'll find employment after graduation that will justify the $330k-$350k my sister & BIL are paying for his education.

Hmm. Someone with a phd in a liberal arts field who thinks college is trade school. Depressing.

that someone is a realistic and sees what's going on. -dp

Hmm.

Yep. Still depressing.

+1

[Anonymous]

It's sad. At my college, a NESCAC, the largest majors were History and English, followed by Econ and Environmental Studies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College has gotten too expensive to justify a liberal arts major. And I say that as someone with a liberal arts BA, MA, and PhD.

We told our kids that we will fully fund their college educations, but they had to pick a major that was going to be employable upon graduation and one that could provide them with financial stability.

My nephew is an English Language & Lit major at Harvard. There is very little chance that he'll find employment after graduation that will justify the $330k-$350k my sister & BIL are paying for his education.

I wouldn't be so sure. I know an English major from Harvard who is a MD at Goldman and another who retired at 45 from venture capital. Most places will hire a Harvard grad, regardless of the major.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very few kids live in the DCUM bubble and can afford to major in something frivolous knowing that their school’s prestige and parental connections will ensure they do well anyway. Most kids are forced to be practical.

Yet many study the sciences...Not to be anti-intellectual, but many scientific pursuits are purely meaningless, require a PhD, and pay $30k-40k

So friggin true it hurts. Studying physics was great but possibly one of the most useless things I have done in my life. It is mostly a field that generates no profit and has been consistently a mess for the pass 50 years with little progress to the fundamental questions still lurking. Overall, I would not recommend a science degree over a mathematics or engineering pursuit.

Even worse is when scientists need to fund their own labs. I know a few highly intelligent 'unemployed' ones right now. It's rough.

Not just funding their own labs but funding the institution via their labs. That is a very broken system.

You want someone should throw money at someone who fancies themselves the world's leading expert at whatever they do, to just do whatever they want, for decades?
Why aren't you funding a scientist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's sad. At my college, a NESCAC, the largest majors were History and English, followed by Econ and Environmental Studies.

What are the largest majors at that school now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While the liberal arts face a headwind because of STEM, they also hurt themselves by shifting from Shakespeare and Plato toward wokeness. It's a different kind of person who goes for what liberal arts are today and there aren't as many of them.

Anonymous wrote:I was looking up colleges on this government College Navigator site and it was somewhat eye-opening how few students are majoring in liberal arts disciplines, with the exceptions being science and psychology. I guess it shouldn't be surprising given the high cost of college and economic uncertainty, but as a former social science major it makes me a bit sad.

Site: https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/

Half of STEM is a liberal art.

I've been wondering why nobody has pointed this out...

Because they are too busy lamenting the death of liberals arts like Sociology and the populariry of liberal arts like early childhood music education, so they don't have time to open a dictionary to look up what "liberal arts" means

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College has gotten too expensive to justify a liberal arts major. And I say that as someone with a liberal arts BA, MA, and PhD.

We told our kids that we will fully fund their college educations, but they had to pick a major that was going to be employable upon graduation and one that could provide them with financial stability.

My nephew is an English Language & Lit major at Harvard. There is very little chance that he'll find employment after graduation that will justify the $330k-$350k my sister & BIL are paying for his education.

Hmm. Someone with a phd in a liberal arts field who thinks college is trade school. Depressing.

Someone illiterate making inane comments. Depressing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College isn't college anymore; it's expensive and (somewhat) intellectually-advanced trade school. This has been driven by both culture and the economy. Lots of stuff touching on this in that extremely long and annoying Atlantic article someone posted about a week ago -- I think it was "How the Ivy League Broke America."

College is primarily a country club. The education is very small part of the price.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College has gotten too expensive to justify a liberal arts major. And I say that as someone with a liberal arts BA, MA, and PhD.

We told our kids that we will fully fund their college educations, but they had to pick a major that was going to be employable upon graduation and one that could provide them with financial stability.

My nephew is an English Language & Lit major at Harvard. There is very little chance that he'll find employment after graduation that will justify the $330k-$350k my sister & BIL are paying for his education.

Hmm. Someone with a phd in a liberal arts field who thinks college is trade school. Depressing.

Possibly this is why the liberal arts are actually doing pretty well at community colleges. Can study the same topics for a lot less, making it worth it. And no matter what people think, the liberal arts are absolutely worth studying. But yeah, maybe they aren't worth $350K. $11K for NVCC, though? Sure.

And if you don't go to a community college, it should be because you did your AA work in high school and need to jump into upper level coursework at an expensive college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was looking up colleges on this government College Navigator site and it was somewhat eye-opening how few students are majoring in liberal arts disciplines, with the exceptions being science and psychology. I guess it shouldn't be surprising given the high cost of college and economic uncertainty, but as a former social science major it makes me a bit sad.

Site: https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/

What it's basically saying is that our modern world is advanced and complex so people need to go to college in the new arts and sciences.
"Liberal arts and science" refers to old subjects that were invented before modernity. They aren't better. It's just a taxonomy based on birth date.

[Anonymous]

Liberal arts is completely useless in the modern times. One can paint anywhere.

[Anonymous]

English is one of the most popular majors for pre-meds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:English is one of the most popular majors for pre-meds.

This is not true

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very few kids live in the DCUM bubble and can afford to major in something frivolous knowing that their school’s prestige and parental connections will ensure they do well anyway. Most kids are forced to be practical.

False dichotomy. You can have a rigorous liberal arts education AND major in something “practical”.

+100

I don’t understand why people think they can’t get a good job or meaningful career with a liberal arts education. I would hire a liberal arts graduate over a business degree undergrad any day.