Anonymous
03/17/2023 17:40
Subject: Colleges removing useless majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I was an English major. Now I’m a lawyer and I write a lot. I don’t think my major was useless but I guess wtf do I know?
+1. Political science and philosophy double major. I am a practicing attorney. My undergrad degrees, more so than my law school experience, shaped me into the lawyer and human being I am today.
My DD wants to be an English major. She's also a singer. So Voice and English. You English majors are fantatically interesting people who can communicate well. Half the people I work with cannot communicate clearly..writing, speaking. And they are college graduates.
Also, my DD has friends going off to these fancy schools for engineering and computer science. When she works with them on group projects, they can't spell or write good sentences.
Hooray for English and other liberal arts majors!!
Those are actually the most well rounded of our employees, and fine writers, but perhaps it depends where you work. I am sorry for your contempt.
I agree---my Engineering major kid has to take a freshman writing course along with 2 engineering writing courses to graduate, along with 2 project courses. Add in the outside of class research they are doing and they have the opportunity to develop their writing/communication skills. Gone are the days when engineers do not take writing courses.
When was that? I graduated with an engineering degree in 1989, and had to take tons of writing (and other core humanities) classes.
Attended a T10 university around same time and got an engineering degree and an art degree. For engineering I took the basic English writing course taught by 1st year grad students---it was required to be P/F. I used my APUSH for credits and took two Econ courses and a freshman Speech course (P/F required). That was it. I knew how to write and learned it thru my research documentation. But my "freshman writing course" was a joke. I took it year 4 (of my 5) so the "teacher" was only 1 year older than me. Basically as long as you made some changes with each draft of your assignment you passed. I recall one essay, I got 2nd or 3rd draft back with tons of red ink/markups. The comments were making suggestions that had been in my draft 2 almost word for word, but I had changed because of the comments on draft 2. So I took both drafts into the Teacher/TA and ask them which they would like me to use, because I only made the changes based on their comments. They didn't know quite what to say----I had already learned how to write at college level, but would have enjoyed a course more targeted specifically for STEM/engineering writing, like my kid is getting.
Fortunately where I attended school the work for my freshman writing course was reviewed by a full professor.
Anonymous
03/17/2023 17:30
Subject: Re:Colleges removing useless majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:LOL these English majors think a few examples they know speak for the whole
They currently lack college level thinking and argument skills.
English major indeed seems useless.
What's your major hotshot?
Lol. I think this poster got dumped by an English major or something. Weirdly persistent and botter about English majors.
Anonymous
03/17/2023 16:35
Subject: Re:Colleges removing useless majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:College is becoming a modern-day vocational school.
It can't continue to remain like a country club after charging $200K $300K
Well I wouldn't recommend someone get an English Lit major and pay $300k+ unless the money is easy to pay. There are more affordable ways to get a degree.
But if you like English, major in it, develop critical thinking/analyzing and writing skills. And genuinely learn
A smart person can go far with an English degree
I think the real issue is that college didn't used to be for everyone. This college for all model is failing our society. Not everyone is suited to and has the goal of being on law review at duke. A higher education isn't a requirement to building a good life and academia being overrun with people who think in terms of education being a "return on investment" is ruinng both the higher education world and not serving those cost conscious worker bee types well. Al of teh women in my family had higher education degrees and practically 90% of them never held any sort of paid position- they deserved to be there just as much as anyone else bc they loved getting an education and scholarship for its own sake, not necessarily as a meal ticket since hey were independently wealthy. If you need a return on investment the state universities and community college and vocational schools are where you belong, and some places of higher learning can pivot to serving those communities but higher education was founded way back in order to serve a population that wanted to increase human knowledge and be preoccupied with scholarly pursuits. People who just want to learn how to code or whatever dont actually belong there. Industry has changed and many jobs require one to sit at a desk but the people who occupy themselves with such tasks aren't scholars or "gentlemen" and honesly- the flattening of the class divide that happened during the 20th century is an aberration, we have reverted to the mean of a highly unequal society and some people have the money to sit around studying crystals and some ppl will use the knowledge in industry- there has to be roofer both. I mean look at bill gates- he wasn't a great scholar, he's a businessman and so he left academia to pursue that, its preposterous to claim that he should have twiddled his thumbs at university getting a degree he neither wanted nor needed. people should get the sort of training they need in order to live the sort of life that they want to build and its silly for people who are primarily concerned wit learning CS to land a job at amazon to be gunning for pincer- they should be gunning for Carnegie-mellon. people should know wether they are aspiring to be the F Scott Fitzgeralds of the world or the Thomas Edisons and choose accordingly
Anonymous
03/17/2023 16:32
Subject: Colleges removing useless majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I was an English major. Now I’m a lawyer and I write a lot. I don’t think my major was useless but I guess wtf do I know?
+1. Political science and philosophy double major. I am a practicing attorney. My undergrad degrees, more so than my law school experience, shaped me into the lawyer and human being I am today.
My DD wants to be an English major. She's also a singer. So Voice and English. You English majors are fantatically interesting people who can communicate well. Half the people I work with cannot communicate clearly..writing, speaking. And they are college graduates.
Also, my DD has friends going off to these fancy schools for engineering and computer science. When she works with them on group projects, they can't spell or write good sentences.
Hooray for English and other liberal arts majors!!
yes, but the CS folks are the ones who created the machine your DD and you are using to post your drivel.
It’s almost like the economy is interdependent or something. There would be little use for the machines without the content.
AI will create contents as well. Essays, reports, research papers, poems, lyrics, blogs etc. etc.
And AI can teach classes one day, so we may as well fire all the professors.
Can AI spit out speeches? We could fire all the politicians, too!
Anonymous
03/17/2023 16:30
Subject: Re:Colleges removing useless majors
I earned an English degree and fundraised more than 80 million for a nonprofit. Communications got me the job.
Also helped to launch mobile apps for the US government.
So
to you, OP.
Also helped to launch mobile apps for the US government.
So
to you, OP.
Anonymous
03/17/2023 15:41
Subject: Colleges removing useless majors
Anonymous wrote:I was an English major. Now I’m a lawyer and I write a lot. I don’t think my major was useless but I guess wtf do I know?
Ask 2008 JD grads how they’re doing.
Anonymous
03/17/2023 15:33
Subject: Colleges removing useless majors
Anonymous wrote:Don't we all know by now that what leads to money isn't so much your major but your connections and your people skills?
If you have no connections and not great people skills, a hard major in a field that requires credentials is going to put you in a better position that a liberal arts major
Anonymous
03/17/2023 15:31
Subject: Colleges removing useless majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I was an English major. Now I’m a lawyer and I write a lot. I don’t think my major was useless but I guess wtf do I know?
+1. Political science and philosophy double major. I am a practicing attorney. My undergrad degrees, more so than my law school experience, shaped me into the lawyer and human being I am today.
My DD wants to be an English major. She's also a singer. So Voice and English. You English majors are fantatically interesting people who can communicate well. Half the people I work with cannot communicate clearly..writing, speaking. And they are college graduates.
Also, my DD has friends going off to these fancy schools for engineering and computer science. When she works with them on group projects, they can't spell or write good sentences.
Hooray for English and other liberal arts majors!!
Those are actually the most well rounded of our employees, and fine writers, but perhaps it depends where you work. I am sorry for your contempt.
I agree---my Engineering major kid has to take a freshman writing course along with 2 engineering writing courses to graduate, along with 2 project courses. Add in the outside of class research they are doing and they have the opportunity to develop their writing/communication skills. Gone are the days when engineers do not take writing courses.
When was that? I graduated with an engineering degree in 1989, and had to take tons of writing (and other core humanities) classes.
Attended a T10 university around same time and got an engineering degree and an art degree. For engineering I took the basic English writing course taught by 1st year grad students---it was required to be P/F. I used my APUSH for credits and took two Econ courses and a freshman Speech course (P/F required). That was it. I knew how to write and learned it thru my research documentation. But my "freshman writing course" was a joke. I took it year 4 (of my 5) so the "teacher" was only 1 year older than me. Basically as long as you made some changes with each draft of your assignment you passed. I recall one essay, I got 2nd or 3rd draft back with tons of red ink/markups. The comments were making suggestions that had been in my draft 2 almost word for word, but I had changed because of the comments on draft 2. So I took both drafts into the Teacher/TA and ask them which they would like me to use, because I only made the changes based on their comments. They didn't know quite what to say----I had already learned how to write at college level, but would have enjoyed a course more targeted specifically for STEM/engineering writing, like my kid is getting.
Anonymous
03/17/2023 14:55
Subject: Colleges removing useless majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I was an English major. Now I’m a lawyer and I write a lot. I don’t think my major was useless but I guess wtf do I know?
+1. Political science and philosophy double major. I am a practicing attorney. My undergrad degrees, more so than my law school experience, shaped me into the lawyer and human being I am today.
My DD wants to be an English major. She's also a singer. So Voice and English. You English majors are fantatically interesting people who can communicate well. Half the people I work with cannot communicate clearly..writing, speaking. And they are college graduates.
Also, my DD has friends going off to these fancy schools for engineering and computer science. When she works with them on group projects, they can't spell or write good sentences.
Hooray for English and other liberal arts majors!!
yes, but the CS folks are the ones who created the machine your DD and you are using to post your drivel.
It’s almost like the economy is interdependent or something. There would be little use for the machines without the content.
AI will create contents as well. Essays, reports, research papers, poems, lyrics, blogs etc. etc.
Anonymous
03/17/2023 14:00
Subject: Colleges removing useless majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I was an English major. Now I’m a lawyer and I write a lot. I don’t think my major was useless but I guess wtf do I know?
+1000
-1000 but you don't need to be an English major to go to law school. [/quote
You need any other particular major either.
Anonymous
03/17/2023 13:19
Subject: Colleges removing useless majors
I was an econ major, DH math. My mom English and secondary education. My sister and dad sociology. We all do very well. Liberal arts education helps you with writing, presentation skills, critical thinking. Shame on Marymount for getting rid of these majors!
Anonymous
03/17/2023 13:17
Subject: Colleges removing useless majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I was an English major. Now I’m a lawyer and I write a lot. I don’t think my major was useless but I guess wtf do I know?
+1000
-1000 but you don't need to be an English major to go to law school.
Anonymous
03/17/2023 13:16
Subject: Colleges removing useless majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I was an English major. Now I’m a lawyer and I write a lot. I don’t think my major was useless but I guess wtf do I know?
You don't need English major to go to a law school, and become a lawyer.
Law school is necessity to become a lawyer, English major is not.
Law school requires writing does it not?
Writing is key to many jobs.
DP.. indeed, but it doesn't requiring being an English major to write decently enough at work.
Anonymous
03/17/2023 13:12
Subject: Colleges removing useless majors
Anonymous wrote:They should get rid of some of the cakewalk courses that the student-athletes are always enrolled in... communications, sports education, exercise science, facilities management, etc.
That is a WHOLE different thread, but yes.
Anonymous
03/17/2023 13:11
Subject: Colleges removing useless majors
They are t “useless” majors -they are those with low enrollment. Read first link on Marymount