Liberal Arts Degree

[jessiecat]

I'm not really lazy myself, but what's wrong with it if someone else is? Whatever makes you happy, and for lazy people it's obviously not money...

And you really think that people whose first motivation isn't money are
all necessarily lazy? A good friend of mine spent 12 years of higher education
and apprenticeship to get the point of being a leading field archeologist
while earning less than an office cleaner. Now he appears regularly on
archeology programs on television. He probably still gets less than £35K
a year. Do you think that he was lazy or was he only after the money?

 

[DNK]

No, just that for lazy people it's obviously not money. If A -> B doesn't mean if B -> A.

 

[Irish Caesar]

I know I'm going to get shot down on this one... but considering the make-up of the average internet forum, I would guess that the ratio of science/tech degrees to liberal arts degrees is noticeably tilted towards the former. Therefore, bragging about a tough degree when compared to a liberal arts degree is no different from any other backslapping and whatnot: welcome to the science degree old boys' club, my friend.

Now, let me get back to the locker room where we can make fun of the losers in the chess club.

 

[mangxema]

Thank Allah I'm a business major.

That made my day. Nice to see EE's are the second highest on the list.

Slamming liberal arts degrees is popular on CFC because we have a lot of computer science, physics, engineering etc. students who like to stroke their egos. How could researching and writing papers possibly be as intelligent as doing long math problems? Clearly, only dumb people do the liberal arts!

It's not so much an intelligence thing as it is a lack of practical applications.

I'm almost finished with my Political Science degree, and I haven't had any problem at all with prospective employment. I've completed internships with state and local governments, and I'm about start one with the federal government. We have several international insurance companies, along with other huge companies, that hire people with liberal arts degrees all the time.

See... political science is actually useful. There is a sizable market that actually cares about that kind of knowledge. Unlike say... classics majors.

 

[GenMarshall]

Now, let me get back to the locker room where we can make fun of the losers in the chess club.

Makes us feel a little better being the anti-intelectualists

 

[mangxema]

Therefore, bragging about a tough degree when compared to a liberal arts degree is no different from any other backslapping and whatnot: welcome to the science degree old boys' club, my friend.

True, but you and I both know to which majors people bail at GT and to which they don't.

 

[Nylan]

Professionally, it seems liberal arts degrees are an all-or-nothing chance (generally speaking of course).

Personally, they're invaluable.

 

[The Yankee]

That and the one thing that the chart only takes into account is starting salary. I doubt some people with certain degrees go for a lot of cash, since there are a bunch of careers out there that don't give the moon and the stars in compensation. But I bet a lot of people have to hack it for peanuts for a few years before hitting the big time.

 

[Irish Caesar]

True, but you and I both know to which majors people bail at GT and to which they don't.

Well, yes...

I doubt you have many people switching into your classes. I don't think anyone ever switches into mine.

But then, a liberal arts degree from a liberal arts college probably appears more "honorable" than one from us.

 

[Verbose]

If money is the main motivation, no one in their right mind becomes a research scientist, regardless of what the field of study is.

There's also this old old observation that "If you rub unto money, some will rub off", which makes it kind of a no-brainer why economics degrees pay better than liberal arts degrees.

Finally all over the Western world there's this weird supply and demand situation. High demand for liberal arts education from prospective students, making for a good supply of education towards liberal arts degrees. But the the supply of people with liberal arts degrees overshoots the demand for such from the labour market by a fair margin.

As to what you learn, if done properly, a liberal arts degree should make you able to quickly digest and anlyse large amounts of information, to reinterpret it in ways to make it intelligible in some narrative form, and to see more points of view on a matter than readily apparent to everyone.

I know that's what successful liberal arts majors I know are doing, working as business analysts, the national intelligence service etc.

It does depend on how the stuff is taught, and most university professors teach on the assumption of only reproducing enough academic offspring to keep the department stocked. The rest have to fend for themselves as best they can.

 

[downtown]

See... political science is actually useful. There is a sizable market that actually cares about that kind of knowledge. Unlike say... classics majors.

Well, sort of. I've very rarely used anything I've learned in a political science classroom at work. I've been hired because I can think critically, I can write well, I can analyze data, and I have great personal skills. If I was a classics major, assuming I was on the poly sci mailing list, I think I could get the same jobs. Eventually, the experiences just build off of each other.

My major shows people that I'm interested in politics, and thats about it. Without grad school, my *skill set from the classroom* shouldn't be very different from other liberal arts majors from competitive programs.

 

[countrygrl]

despite all the aggressive ignorance here, there is a place for liberal arts. liberal arts fulfill a piece of life that skilled work doesn't. without musicians, or artists, how fulfilling would life really be? no television, no artistic movies, no good music, no beautiful pictures to look at. where does that leave magazines like national geographic without liberal arts? a lot of science can be tied to liberal arts. everyone says "oh, i am glad i'm in business, because i won't be a loser making 35g's a year." well, every good business needs an artist. every good marketer needs a good artist, or to be artistic.

then there is the whole aspect of how liberal arts impacts our abilities to learn in other subjects. most good private schools, and colleges require students to take liberal arts or fine arts. it's been shown in study after study that students who do art and music learn math and science much more efficiently.

i think i can find a great study if needed, but it says that students who spend some time in math, and some time in music, will learn, retain, understand, and test better than students who spend the whole time just doing math.

there is a place for liberal arts in the world. it's not a career for me i don't think. but without it, life would hardly be worth living.

 

[Fifty]

The way I see it, undergrad is to get an education, not a job. To that end, I'm doing philosophy and economics, and plan on going to law school for my "vocational education".

edit: I'll add that, in retrospect, I would have done things a bit differently if I could have started over 3 years ago. I'd drop economics, which has thus far struck me as variously boring, simplistic, bogus, useless, etc., and add math and a linguistics minor.

 

[Patroklos]

I make more than every tech major I graduated with. It all depends on the job you get, there are alot of CAD monkey engineers out there.

 

[Fifty]

I make more than every tech major I graduated with. It all depends on the job you get, there are alot of CAD monkey engineers out there.

whadidya major in and whadidya get for a job????

 

[Patroklos]

Political Science and History. I am a naval officer.

 

[Archbob]

The liberal arts classes I was required to have involved A LOT of bullcrapping to get a good grade. So I imagine by the time you do an entire major you are pretty good at the skill of bullcrapping, and since business management is mainly bullcrapping, you are prepared for that job.

I whileheartidely agree with this He is absolutely right. Business management is a whole lot of bullcrapping.
I have a degree in logistics management(A business degree) and it took a lot of bullcrapping to graduate with a 3.5 without doing much real substantial work. Got a job at $55,000/yr coming out of college a year and a half a go, thought it sucked so dropped out of the job, and started on the path to self-employed. I could really use some flash art skills right about now... but I'm managing to do ok being self-employed.

 

[Nylan]

I suppose one of the intangible, yet good things about a liberal arts degree is that it teaches people to teach themselves. It's a bit like the "give a man a fish/teach a man to fish" philosophy to some extent I suppose.

Then again, I don't suppose the world as a whole cares as much about lifelong learning as I do.

 

[LuckyAC]

First, to avoid confusion, there are a few places that actually offer a degree in something called "Liberal Arts", but generally the term just refers to any non-vocational, non scientific field.

College in the US is not generally considered to be vocational education nowadays. Future employment never even entered into my decision when choosing my major. Liberal arts degrees don't generally teach you practical skills, but in most fields your bachelor's isn't really about that, but more a proof of intellectual rigor and achievement. You can get a job in management consulting or investment banking from any major, and certainly most jobs in business don't require a business degree (although getting an MBA later may be required for advancement).

Engineering salaries start high, since you actually have valuable knowledge, but have a fairly low ceiling. A liberal arts major generally has to work their way up while learning on the job before they are worth paying a lot. I don't have the patience or inclination for that, which is why I am taking my liberal arts major to law school

 

[Mise]

I don't dislike most Arts degrees. Most of them are worth doing.

What I dislike is non-degrees -- airy fairy degrees with waffly titles, or "specialist" degrees, like "agricultural engineering" or "sports science". There's no point in them even existing.