The Screwed Generation

[warpus]

"It's a huge shift in just a few years (in my random anecdotal data set)"

 

[metalhead]

You really think being able to dress yourself isn't even useful for those jobs? You think people without humanities degrees can't even communicate? You think being able to communicate is of paramount importance in dentistry and/or boiler maintenance?

Gosh, this is such a ridiculous response I don't even know where to begin. If you can't comprehend how communication skills are beneficial in most professional fields, than I don't think I'm going to be able to decipher it for you. This is simply absurd.

Well you're certainly not going to be able to work effectively in them without one. Or at all. Unless you count being the tea boy/office gopher as working in a STEM career.

This is astonishingly ignorant. Many of the most successful people in tech fields never got a degree. Like Bill Gates - was he able to work effectively without a degree or . . . ?

A degree is little more than a marker of status. In most fields, the specialized knowledge one needs to actually function in a profession is learned either on the job, or in a graduate program. An undergraduate degree has little to do with any of what one will encounter in a professional capacity. Nor should it, really.

Granted, there are some fundamental things one learns in a course of study that are relevant in many fields. But they sure as hell don't require 120 credit hours to pick up.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Gosh, this is such a ridiculous response I don't even know where to begin. If you can't comprehend how communication skills are beneficial in most professional fields, than I don't think I'm going to be able to decipher it for you. This is simply absurd.

I never said communication skills are not beneficial, just not of primary importance in skilled or technical jobs, nor of any use on their own. On the other hand, you literally said that being able to dress yourself is not even useful. And also seem to be implying that communication skills are posessed solely by humanities degree graduates. And that posession communications skills is enough to qualify you to go into dentistry or plumbing. I mean you literally just said all this, and yet you're calling my response ridiculous on the basis of a statement that it doesn't even contain!

 

[Manfred Belheim]

This is astonishingly ignorant. Many of the most successful people in tech fields never got a degree. Like Bill Gates - was he able to work effectively without a degree or . . . ?

Good luck working as a researcher/lecturer in physics or astrophysics without a related degree (and the knowledge and skills that come with it). You don't just walk into those jobs off the street. I mean yes, if you're an entrepreneaur you can start up a successful business in any field at all, if you hire the right people, but that's not really the same is it.

 

[Lexicus]

You think being able to communicate is of paramount importance in dentistry and/or boiler maintenance?

I don't know about boiler maintenance, but I would say that communication is absolutely of paramount importance for being a dentist.

 

[Cheetah]

Most dentists I visit do not honour my request to continually communicate what they're doing in my mouth at all times...

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I don't know about boiler maintenance, but I would say that communication is absolutely of paramount importance for being a dentist.

Above being able to perform dentistry? Seriously? Or is this some interesting new usage of the word "paramount"?

 

[Lexicus]

Or is this some interesting new usage of the word "paramount"?

'hyperbolic' usage, not new afaik

 

[rah]

You really think being able to dress yourself isn't even useful for those jobs? You think people without humanities degrees can't even communicate? You think being able to communicate is of paramount importance in dentistry and/or boiler maintenance?

While some people may not consider it critical, there is something to the socialization aspects of a humanities degree. You're at a party with your associates at work, trade workers will discuss sports and the likes (yes a broad generalization) the business man usually will be discussing something else. Many of those things are things you would have become familiar with while pursuing your humanities degree. Some would say it was the price of admission. (whether fair or not) The networking at those parties does contribute to how far one advances when ability is not the only criteria. JUST one aspect.

 

[warpus]

I was in computer science. We also had parties. People got together and discussed sports and the likes.

 

[rah]

Yeah before I tracked into the management side so did I. Once there it was like if you were unfamiliar with certain philosophers, people would stare at you. (i.e not good networking material) And I never said it was an absolute. I just implied I had experienced it.

 

[warpus]

Yeah before I tracked into the management side so did I. Once there it was like if you were unfamiliar with certain philosophers, people would stare at you. (i.e not good networking material) And I never said it was an absolute. I just implied I had experienced it.

Who cares about philosophers?

Much in the same vein, you would feel out of place if you showed up to a computer science party and did not know some obscure computer scientist from the 60s. But who cares?

 

[rah]

It was like a secret handshake. A way of weeding out those that hadn't paid the price of admission. I'm not passing any moral judgement on it. I'm just saying I experienced it climbing the corporate ladder. I wouldn't have made it as far as I did if it hadn't been for some of the socializing aspects of it.

 

[warpus]

It was like a secret handshake. A way of weeding out those that hadn't paid the price of admission. I'm not passing any moral judgement on it. I'm just saying I experienced it climbing the corporate ladder. I wouldn't have made it as far as I did if it hadn't been for some of the socializing aspects of it.

Networking is important, that's not in dispute.

However, those who fail at networking do not do so because they haven't memorized all the famous philosophers. You also don't need to spend $70,000 to learn how to network properly.

 

[rah]

I agree, I always promoted based on merit.
A degree has other minor impacts on things like that. You learned basic researching skills. Granted not critical but could be helpful.
Definitely not necessary, but some did use it to discriminate.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Recently came across a Georgetown study arguing this:

By educational attainment: 35 percent of the job openings will require at least a bachelor’s degree, 30 percent of the job openings will require some college or an associate’s degree and 36 percent of the job openings will not require education beyond high school.

At about the same time I came across the factoid that 2/3 of high school students go on to college.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Not really sure how degree choices fits in the big picture.

This is to say that all the arguments for and against particular degree fields is a moot point, it's not actually relevant to what's going on at the macro level. Sure, at the micro level (that of the individual), it matters a great deal. But if you zoom out then you see it's all just noise in the much louder signal.

Here's how I see it:

• Good paying jobs are very likely to require a degree
• The are much less likely to require a specific degree, just a degree
• Therefore you have to have a degree to have a good shot at entering the middle class
• Teenagers do not have the autonomy to make the choice to enter college or not, usually
  • Their autonomy being hindered of course, by the lack of jobs that pay living wages that don't also require degrees
• Social pressure to go to college has never been higher and the economy is reacting to those social pressures in addition to economic ones
• We have structured our educational system with perverse incentives that heavily distort the cost of an education

If you accept all of these facts, or even most of them, then how do you make a moral argument in favor of placing most of the cost burden on people who don't even have a choice to not participate in this?

And remember, the particular educational path these kids choose doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact that they chose higher educational at all due to credential inflation.

 

[metalhead]

Relevant.

The condensed version: renters are worse off than they have ever been. In 2017 dollars:

1930s: Median rent $383
1940s: Median rent $314
1950s: Median rent $377
1960s: Median rent $456, Median renter income $34,150
1970s: Median rent $559, Median renter income $41,100
1980s: Median rent $608, Median renter income $35,000
1990s: Median rent $691, Median renter income $38,800
2000s: Median rent: $720, Median renter income $39,150
2010s: Median rent $784, Median renter income $33,600
2016: Median rent $851, Median renter income $37,900

 

[innonimatu]

So it's been going downhill since the 70s, and you're still not convinced that the two parties rotating through power there are part of the problem?

 

[Lexicus]

So it's been going downhill since the 70s, and you're still not convinced that the two parties rotating through power there are part of the problem?

It's more complicated than that.