I hope I don’t offend anyone; this is a sincere question and I am very interested in learning what y’all (you’se guys for Rich and Stosh, you’ins for Eric) have to say. I haven’t looked at the numbers but there is no question our nation graduates way, way, way too many people in certain majors. Now I’m glad we’re all free to choose our own courses of study, and I’m glad we have a great system of Colleges and Universities offering great courses that elevate young (and old) minds, but I fear there is some dishonesty going on. Or, at the very least, some insincerity.
Judging from what I’ve gathered in the comments there are more than a few folks here who may have studied some of the fields I’m going to touch on here, and please understand I’m not picking on anyone. My own course of study was not ideal and if I could go back and be 18 again I’d do things vastly differently. I’m not throwing stones. But let’s take Art History (or any type of History), or Film, or Political Science, or Business Administration, or Drama or Dance… When’s the last time you opened a newspaper and saw an ad, “Help Wanted Art Historian?” Now I know some people are employed in all of these fields and many of those jobs are wonderful. I imagine most of us would thoroughly enjoy being the head Art Historian at the National Museum of Art, or the Louvre. What a cool job! But how many spots open each year and how many new graduates do we churn out each year?
Now I appreciate folks who want to study any of these fields for the sheer joy of increasing their knowledge. If I ever get to a point where I am financially independent I almost definitely will go to College and study History and Art, Music, Film… What a joy! I also understand there are some young children whose parents have a lot of money and those children are free to follow their true passions. But do we need thousands of Colleges graduating hundreds of thousands of Film majors? Isn’t there some false advertising here? I don’t know anything about Film, but I think there are only about three Film schools that anyone cares about and one is in New York and two are in Southern California. If you get a film degree from the University of Iowa is anyone going to hire you? Sure, one out of ten thousand kids from some unknown film program may end up making it in Hollywood, but doesn’t that happen to kids without film degrees too? Quentin Tarantino didn’t go to film school, did he?
My point is, aren’t some of these schools doing a dis-service to young people by pretending that there is some merit in their degreed program when there is almost no likelihood any of their graduates will get a good job in that field? Again, if you’re a trust fund baby and you live in Des Moines and you want to study film technique, more power to you, or, if you’re a 55 year old retired housewife who always wanted to study ornamental horticulture it’s awesome you can drive to the University of Cincinnati three days a week and realize your dream. But isn’t there kind of a kabuki dance going on with the 90+% of 18 year olds entering these programs believing they will work in these fields? If so, what do we do about it?
Don’t get me wrong; I love school! If there is something you want to learn and you have the means, study it! There are few greater joys in life than devoting hours of study to something you are passionate about and mastering it. But let’s be honest about what your prospects are. My rant is intended towards young people and the Colleges peddling expensive, false hopes. If you are in your 20’s, or older, and have worked for awhile and return to school to get a degree you know what you’re doing. If you are not concerned with working, or cost, and studying for the sheer joy, you know what you’re doing, but there are hundreds of thousands of 18 year old kids spending millions of dollars studying fields they will never work in. Aren’t the Colleges complicit in that, and isn’t taking their money when you know that disingenuous?
If we only had 3 film schools in the country and there were only 300 spots each year the best would get in, and the other 5,000 kids would learn at the age of 18 that they need to be Accountants or Dental Hygenists. Wouldn’t they be better off learning that at 18 than 22? They’d certainly be a lot wealthier. Now 1 or 2 of those 5,000 would refuse to listen to the admissions boards, and they’d keep plugging away at their dream and that’s where the next Quentin Tarantinos would come from, and more power to ‘em, but the other 4,9998 would also be better off.
Do Colleges owe their students a cold, hard, honest evaluation of the return they are likely to get on their investment?
Again, before I offend anyone, and in the interest of full disclosure; my Undergraduate degree was just about worthless. I had good grades and a great ACT score and I went to a very well-respected school and had some really lousy advice. I studied something I liked and assumed getting a degree from a good school would be enough. I never bothered to research what percent of folks graduate with the Undergraduate degree I was pursuing as opposed to the demand for folks with that degree. Had my University had some basic facts on a brochure I would have never chosen that course of study.
My degree wasn’t a complete waste. With some additional study I was able to couple it with some other degrees and it now looks very good on my resume, and it’s a respected field of study, but I had no idea what I was signing up for when I chose it as a major at 18. I blame no one but myself. I got some lousy advice, but it was my choice to take it. Mea culpa. But, by the same token, a lot of schools are peddling false hopes, and they know it.
Rufus, I fell for the whole college thing. I have 2 degrees (one in music, the other a graduate degree in public admin/ political science), neither of which I use. I don’t regret my education at all, since I have one helluva well-rounded education.
okay, if I had wanted to teach in public school I could have but didn’t and still don’t…if I had wanted to get a PhD I still can, but the mountain of debt incurred by that is incredible.
I do though, regret the student loans I have. I listened to way too many people about this, that, and the other thing…didn’t know what to do and just went to school and followed my interests….I do have some lifetime friends from the experience and I tested myself and passed, so overall I am happy about it.
I am in Las Vegas and I can’t tell you how many people with JDs and/ or PhDs wait tables or manage Starbucks.
It amazes me what doesn’t happen at Universities, especially state Universities. The tax payers of the state are funding a lot of what goes on there but there seems to be no connection with how the schools receive their money and what they do.
Let’s pick on Wyoming. If I were a legislator in Wyoming and I was writing laws that took from the public purse to fund a University I’d write laws that ensured the needs of the public are being met. If Wyoming needs some Film Directors then let’s use the tax payers money to train some. If Wyoming doesn’t, why are we taking money from its citizens to pay for a Film department? Wyoming certainly needs some musicians and Wyoming wants local radio and TV, so there is a need, but let’s not waste tax money over-doing it.
And why don’t those legislators care enough about their 18 year old citizens to require some truth in advertising from their Colleges? If you go to the University of Wyoming and choose to study Dance show the kid a brochure that shows the number of graduates from the program in the past decade, their career paths and incomes. Why wouldn’t you want the kid to have that information? I love Dance and I hope people always study it, and I hope there are always places people can go to master it, but I think there is a lot of obfuscation going on at the University level and that bothers me. 18 – 22 year olds are being taken advantage of.
JJ,
Let’s take music for example. You obviously love it. I can relate. You’re also a bright guy. What if, when you applied to the school of music they gave you the cold, hard facts of what you’re life would be like after you graduated? Would you have chosen something more practical and minored in music? My major had nothing to do with music but I played music in Concert bands, Marching band and private rock bands during my Undergraduate years. 90+% of the kids I was in student bands with had non-music majors, but we loved music.
Rufus, you know, 99% of music majors at any Music School are turned into educators. You get a few of those idiots getting composition degrees or opera performances degrees. I think if I had really, REALLY thought about it…had I been fit enough, I probably should have gone into the Air Force (though weight was always an issue for me, since I’m a tall dude).
But I don’t know what practical means anymore. I guess in terms of college education, a marketing degree is the most practical since you can get a job anywhere with that. I specifically did “practical” with my master’s, since I was/ am interested in public policy and administration as well as music and music history (my REAL love — but how many musicologist openings do you know of?). Any openings for a policy analyst that can rip apart a Beethoven symphony with the best of ‘em, as well as make a nice manhattan?
Employers are looking for specific pieces of paper to tell them that you want to be in that field. in some instances it is right to do so. I guess you wouldn’t want to hire me to design your next Mars lander.
JJ, there’s always a place for someone who knows how to make a nice, neat Manhattan. I recently finished a biography of Beethoven and am writing a post on it. I’ll be interested to hear your take, since I know little about the man but that’s not stopping me from making wild, drastic assumptions in my post!
The folks that study these things and go on to be educators are doing it right, if that’s their intent. The world needs educators in the Arts and Humanities (and public policy). If the state of Wyoming graduates about the right amount of music teachers to replace the teachers retiring that year then they have it right.
I think there are two things most Universities are teaching; professions and pure wisdom. If one wants to study music composition what better place than a University? That’s what it’s all about, and that’s pure wisdom! But we probably don’t need 500 Universities in the U.S. accepting 50 music composition students a year. In the profession area are things like Engineering, Medicine, Accounting, Computer Science… Those fields have standards and the University is duty bound to ensure its graduates meet certain, minimum requirements.
When one of the Little Fireflies was about 10 years old he mentioned he liked to be an Author when he grows up, so he would study that in College. I mentioned J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, John Grisham, Scott Turow, Michael Crichton… Probably the top 5 living authors in terms of book sales (Crichton has since passed). I believe King was the only one who majored in English. You don’t need a degree in Literature or English to be an author. It’s great schools offer those classes to students, we need all students to know something about each, even if they are going to be Aeronautical Engineers, and we need well qualified people to teach them, but kids majoring in those fields need to know the statistics. Almost no English Lit. majors become successful authors and almost no successful authors were English Lit. majors.
Not to mention that the whole reason King majored in English was that he wanted to become a teacher in case he couldn’t hack it as a writer.
you know who’s interesting?
Carlo Gesualdo. look him up.
I wasn’t bagging on kids following their interests in composition, but I don’t find much usefulness in it either.
none of the ones I went to school with wrote anything close to listenable…but then, neither did the composition professor, a 60-yr old woman who wore men’s suits to work…no joke.
I remember my humanities teacher in high school, who really spurned my interests in the arts…I think that would be a cool gig to have, college or high school.
JJ,
Unfortunately, that is the other side of the coin. There are so few positions as instructors in some of these fields a rotten apple can really do a lot of harm. There were very few teachers at my High School who seemed to have any interest in shaping young minds for the better. Odd, when you consider what they chose for a profession, but hey, at least they did something. For what they were paid I shouldn’t expect anything too great.
Don’t Medical, Dental and Veterinary Colleges already do this? I’ve never heard of an out of work Doctor, Dentist or Veterinarian? Are their respective accredidating agencies insuring that supply meets demand?
Wait til Obama care passes Rufus.
Rufus, I’ve mentioned before that I have a degree in Sociology. Like you I learned a lot of useful things with my undergrad degree but I soon realized that I couldn’t find Sociologist in the help wanted ads. I suffered from the same immature thinking you mentioned along with an academic adviser eager to add another body to their department.
I’m not offended and you have some real insight in this post. Money isn’t everything but if one must use student loans to get an education like I did, be sure you can earn enough to make the payments!
TCW… the problem is in large part cultural. They were never meant for career training. They were designed for people who wanted to learn about God, man and nature and the larger questions in life. The quadrivium and trivium were designed to help shape a virtuous man — not to teach someone to become a bootblack or cobbler — that’s what apprenticeships were for.
Sending someone to college to learn to sell stocks is a waste of time. Anyone can pick that up after a year or two of basic training and some on the job training. We have armies of business grads and NO ONE knows basic economics. We have armies of lawyers and NO ONE knows justice? Armies of doctors, etc. and yet ethics and moral questions are shunted aside in the name of “science”. I’d be very wary of a world without philosophy, literature, history and where those things are not focused upon and celebrated and taught correctly of course. I don’t want to live in Sparta… give me Athens.
Floyd, very good points indeed. I agree with you regarding career training, etc. I’m not going the opposite extreme and saying no humanities or philosophy majors. I suspect that what was once thought of a ‘classical’ education in humanities is a rare thing today.
A good university education is a wonderful thing but it’s not what I received when my diploma was placed in my hand. It was ’sold’ to me (with the aid of student loans) as a guarantee of lifelong income doing great things and ‘making a difference.’ The institution I graduated from presently has an ad campaign that tells students if they get a degree from their university the grad will “do something great”. Something? What does that mean?
Perhaps I should emphasize that it’s my fault for choosing the degree. But had I a better academic adviser I might have received real guidance as to what one does with an undergrad degree in Sociology. I can’t exactly say that I regret the field of study. I still think it’s fascinating and I can honestly say that I’m a pro with interpersonal communications. I can breeze through an interview like it’s an ice cream sundae. I do have a very well-rounded education and that has helped me land many jobs since graduation.
I sure as heck regret the payments of the student loan. If you ask me, financial institutions that sell and service student loans are the real predatory lenders.
Frankly, I didn’t expect the reaction that this post has received. I’m glad to see I wasn’t the only incredibly naive 18 year old to walk onto a College campus. If we polled parents who are paying for College and their kids, and students who are paying their own way I’m pretty sure the vast majority are going for career enhancement. They are going to school to get a job. Floyd tells us almost no one at the University is focused on that mission. That’s fine, if that’s what Universities are, but let’s be up front about it. In one of my Undergraduate classes we did statistical analysis on different degrees, what they cost, and how long it took the recipients to recoup their investment. It was eye opening. The education majors never did! When you add on the cost of their education they never beat the kids who started working at 18. Now there is nothing wrong with that if you love education and want to teach, but I’m pretty sure nobody in the College of Education did the assigment we were doing across campus at the College of Commerce.
And no one has yet addressed my issue about public Universities. Why is it right to be indignant when our tax dollars are used to buy health insurance but we are to have no disregard for how the same tax dollars are used at Universities? It’s great that Floyd has his classical, German view of a University, but do the tax payers in his state know that’s where their money is going? Because I’m pretty sure the vast majority of them would say let’s get rid of the new, California 10% payroll tax and stop funding little Timmy’s exposure to renaissance painters. If you can churn out the Accountants, Engineers, Computer Programmers, etc., that California needs in two years rather than four, isn’t it more fair to the taxpayers to do that?
I went to film school, a small technical school in Orlando, FL. In short, no one ever got a job in the film business by showing their degree during the interview. But I still think it’s worth it for the people you meet, the connections you make, and the opportunity to use some cool toys. Five years later, I admit my degree is completely useless. I did some freelance work in LA and I learned on the job. Truthfully, I kinda wish I had something to fall back on, especially since I’ve kinda lost some of that filmmaking mojo I had five years ago.
Some classmates are pursuing jobs in other industries, some are doing film and video work in their home towns, some are in LA and NY, and one even won a regional Emmy for a no-smoking PSA.
(You know who studied film at the University of Iowa? Nicholas Meyer, writer/director of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.)
And no, Quentin didn’t go to film school. You watch enough movies and listen to enough audio commentaries (especially Criterion’s) and some of it just seeps in through osmosis.
Scott,
I’ve got $5 that says I’ve been on your campus. Small world!
It’s not that the degree was useless, the guys and gals you graduated with working in the field benefitted from their study, but, if you knew the statistics when you applied would you have gone that route, or done something else?
Music, Theater and Film are not meritocracies. The world’s greatest guitarists do not earn the most money. There are some very mediocre guitarists earning enormous sums of money just as there are some very mediocre actors and actresses earning princely sums while some extremely talented actors and actresses go hungry. I’m sure it helps to study drama, film and music but let the 18 year olds signing up know what their odds are. Universities cut kids from their football teams. They don’t let every budding Jay Cutler wear a uniform on the sidelines for four years, only to learn that nobody wants them on the day of the NFL draft. Why not do the same in other aspects of University education?
I was an English major for two years before realizing that the degree would be utterly useless to me (I had no desire to be a teacher, which is pretty much an English major’s only option) and switching to Business. Many of my college friends had majors in art, history, philosophy, etc (one girl in my graduating class actually got a degree in General Studies, whatever that means) and, of course, were unable to find jobs in those fields.
Our culture is obsessed with the notion that everyone needs to find some perfect, Shangri-La job that will be easy, fun, stress-free, and earn at least 50k a year. So we teach our kids to “do what you love” and “follow your passion” without teaching them any useful, marketable skills. Then we send them off to college to get a $100,000 liberal arts major and naively assume that everything will work out fine for them. But the sad fact is, they end up working in some retail job they hate and paying off student loans for the rest of their lives. If they’re lucky, they will stumble into something better, like Mike Rowe. He tried to make it as a professional Opera singer for years, before finding happiness and success in his current gig as the host of Dirty Jobs. Later he concluded that “follow your passion” was “probably the worst advice I ever got.”
In my opinion, we should convert almost all of our universities to trade schools. 75% of the curriculum should be devoted to teaching real-world skills (engineering, computer programming, etc.) and the other 25% should be English, philosophy, history, etc. being offered as electives, so that the kids still get a well-rounded education for their money.
Roger Ebert once wrote about an encounter he had with a college student. He encouraged the student to focus on his arts, philosophy etc. classes as much as possible, “to protect you from becoming a bore.” That’s a typical elitist response to the idea of learning an actual skill in college, and it’s that mindset that is keeping so many of us from reaching our potential.
Small world, indeed!
I knew the statistics but at the same time, I knew it didn’t matter. I know, it sounds weird but no one studies film for the degree itself. And of course, back then I was much more enthusiastic about filmmaking than I am now. When kids get to ask their favorite filmmakers, “What school should I go to?”, I guarantee half the time the answer is, “Don’t go to film school. You’ll learn more by making your own film.”
People ask me now, “Do you regret it?” and, try as I might, I can’t say no. However, knowing what I know now, I might have gone to a four-year university and majored in something just a little more useful. Or something a little esoteric like Library and Information Science. (Sadly, I’m not passionate about much of anything but that’s another story.)
Please note: the school I went to accepted anyone with a high school degree and a check. Other film schools are more selective. I applied to FSU’s film school and, at the time, they only took 15 freshmen and 15 transfers each year. I didn’t make it.
Perfect example…me! BA in History from the University of Iowa. Had to go get a paralegal cert after college to get a decent job and have since become a librarian! College is about keeping asses in the seats for the money. I work at a community college and it does a much better job with it’s mission.
Exactly. Universities can actually afford to not give a fuck about the actual education of the students. Community colleges don’t get research grants.
I think there is a larger de-emphasizing of college degrees in the work place going on and a lot of it stems from some degrees simply have no “real world value” as Rufus has outlined here.
Over the last ten years or so I have hired a great number of people and I have always weighed experience and initial impression far more than degrees which unless it’s an MBA I scarecly pay any attention to. In my personal experience as an employer the kids without degrees seem to have a much stronger work ethic and seem more willing to work harder to be promoted, whereas most of the college grads I have hired seem less motivated, certainly more prone to being late and calling out, and have a certain sense of entitlement as though their degree alone should be all they need to get promoted. At this point aside from the fields Rufus mentioned; medical, dental, veterinary, etc I don’t know that any degree could be seen as a proverbial “golden ticket” so the honesty from the college may not be that useful unless they actually steer the students to a more degree required field.
To me the far more concerning thing with not just college education but all levels of education is it seems to have no connection to actual life skills they will need as adults. Ask anyone who has been an employer for a number of years and I think they would agree that the difference between at 23 year old college grad today and a 23 year old college grad as recently as 10 years ago is pretty significant.
The problem with the modern university is that it’s based on the German “research institution” model where everything can be quantified — even people. It also presupposes that one goes to college to “get a job”. One should go to university to learn. If universities focused on the great books — from the Western Perspective — with a smidge of Eastern to round it out — including the great works in the maths and sciences that would be great and most people could do whatever job they wanted. Community colleges are places to go to just get a “job”.
Education Departments have been the bane of educational existence. People shouldn’t get history degrees to get a job. They should get history degrees (as but one example) because they are interested in the subject, they want to learn about the world and human nature, and enhance their critical thinking skills, communication skills, etc. Universities are supposed to be repositories of knowledge and wisdom where the great ideas are discussed and debated and students learn at the feet of the master the wisdom of the ages. In today’s post-Enlightenment microwave society where everything is quick and dirty and history is the bastion of racists dead white men wisdom is not being handed down, but being run down.
I’ll take an exception to one thing you said… Give me someone with an English Lit or History degree from a teaching institution and I can almost guarantee they will do a better job in the long run than anyone with a business degree. If done right they will know more about the world, different cultures, human nature, etc. I also hear a lot of talk about “self-taught”. very few of us are autodidacts. We’ve all got a friend of a friend of my grandfather who never went to college and did all manner of great things — brilliant! The truth of the matter is that most young minds need some guidance in their studies — starting with family, ministers/priests, teachers, and professors (ideally). Then they take that knowledge and wisdom live their lives and pass on what thye know to their kids, etc. etc. There’s also a lot of bullshit about the “school of hard knocks” being better than a university — in many modern instances that’s true, but if you look at the great men and women most if not all had some form of formal education and if they didn’t they had help. Even Bill Gates had parents who invested their money in him — so he didn’t need Harvard, but it’s not like he did all himself — and Gates is the exception — not the rule.
The private High School Gates’ parents sent him to cost more than his tuition at Harvard! He had a helluva High School education.
Education is a tool. It can be wasted or it can be used wisely. There are a lot of students in university that don’t belong there — they have no interest in intellectual pursuits. They should be in community colleges… I’d include Business, criminal Justice, Nursing, etc. Some degrees should be abolished altogether… Education. The Liberal Arts and the Natural sciences should be the core in any university.
Ah I see where you are going Floyd and I do not think it’s a bad idea at all. If I’m understanding you correctly you believe college in and of it’s self should not be about career advancement but intellectual advancement while trades, job skills, etc should be seperate institutions. Did I get that right?
If so I think that is a good idea. I’ve never understood the wisdom of trying to get your pre-med degree requiring you to sit through 15th century French literature and other non-related courses. Career training should be career specific. One of my friends at MTSU is working on his pre-med right now and had to have another elective so he is taking Bowling…not kidding.
V… mostly… I think doctors et al should be exposed to that stuff. The main problem with modern humanities is that they’ve made it difficult. While I think Shakespeare in Love should not have won Best Picture I love the scene at The Globe Theatre. It’s packed with the hoi polloi. Shakespeare wrote for the people — not the academics. He didn’t become “Shakespeare” until the 19th century Romantics turned him into a PhD’s domain as opposed to a rollicking good story-teller.
Floyd,
I agree with your model, but don’t you agree the vast majority of Universities and their students aren’t even close to that model? If we treated our Universities as you say, the Ivory Tower you go to to find wisdom, how many Universities would we really need in this country? Someone studying music theory and composition ought to go to a University. Engineering? Maybe not. Accounting? Definitely not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql-C7vdOGtI
What do you do with a B.A. in English,
What is my life going to be?
Four years of college and plenty of knowledge,
Have earned me this useless degree.
I can’t pay the bills yet,
‘Cause I have no skills yet,
The world is a big scary place.
But somehow I can’t shake,
The feeling I might make,
A difference,
To the human race.
If we homeschool all the way through and do it the way we really hope to, the Urban Kids will have a bundle of college credits before they hit 18 and the outside world. As far as pursuing education beyond that, Urban Dad & I have come up with the following:
If it’s a degree that can actually be useful (i.e., business, engineering, medicine), then we’ll foot the bill. But we won’t rule out using that money to help them start out in the world, supplement an apprenticeship of some kind or even get their own business started instead of heading straight into college. Now if they want to get some sort of “liberal arts” degree, then the purse strings are going to likely tighten significantly.
For example, Urban Kid 1 is only 6yo, but is completely wrapped up with decorating. The kid LOVES HGTV, draws up her own floorplans, and has all sorts of opinions about how to improve things around here. If she goes with this particular field, we’ll hope that she can work for her godmother in her teen years (an interior designer with her own firm). We’ll encourage her to *definitely* get some sort of business or accounting degree along with any art/design experience.
Urban Dad & I each have two BA’s, and neither of us are sold on the absolute necessity of a four-year degree, especially since too many universities are not even embarrassed about being ‘re-education camps’ for the left rather than actual places of learning.
For the record, my first BA was in Radio-Video-Photo. I worked no fewer than three part-time jobs at a time at various tv and radio stations before being hired for a paltry salary at a huge Chicago ad agency. The salary improved over the years, but I learned the actual useful stuff about production from working in the world, both at the stations and especially once I got to Chicago. As I look back, I think that I would have been served far better by at least minoring in Business instead. Even better, maybe I should have majored in Business and and minored in the Communications stuff.
All this bagging on the Liberal Arts is very short-sighted. Western Civilization was built on people studying philosophy, theology, natural sciences, etc. Business and Education degrees are the biggest waste of time and money and in large part what is wrong with much of modern society. The university has gotten away from trying to teach virtues — classical virtues — and turned into trade school. The humanities have been turned away from classical virtues by Marxists and deconstructions and their ilk.
Medicine is also a problem , but you can major in whatever you want and still be a doctor — obviously science helps with the MCAT, etc. The world is the way it is in large due to Business, Education, Sociology, and law schools…. not history majors and English and Philosophy majors. So it might be “useful” to get a Business degree, but that doesn’t make it better or even beneficial.
Floyd,
I am not bagging on the Liberal Arts. I’ve said several times on this thread that I’m glad that outlet is there for those who have the desire and means to pursue those interests. I just think Colleges should be more up front about what they are doing. You mentioned the German structure, well in Germany you take a test when you’re a teen-ager and based on the results you choose from a smorgasbord of options. The majority go into trades, and business, computer programming, accounting… are all trades. Those who score highest have more options. One can always voluntarily move down; for example a high scorer can choose landscaper if that’s what he loves. But, since tax money pays for all University education the Universities only teach the curricula you outline, and there are very few Universities and very few kids go.
Even though you believe that Universities ought to focus on Liberal Arts and the Humanities and the students should not be concerned with “careers” the sheer volume of Universities and students we have means that our system becomes a weeding out process for trades. If you want to work at a TV studio, like the Urban Mom did, High School is all you need to start your apprenticeship, but we’ve got a couple thousand Universities and they’ve got hundreds of thousands of students so they make up stuff like “Radio/TV” as a major. Now, if you’re the TV studio in Chicago and you can hire an 18 year old with a general High School diploma or a 22 year old with at least two years of classes in radio and television production under her belt, who are you going to hire? At the end of the day it’s still an entry level job for an 18 year old, but we’re churning out College grads by the boatload with degrees in “Radio/TV.”
I think we share the same concept of what University and College should be, and the same concept that the vast majority of what folks do after University are actually “trades.” So, if you agree with that then why don’t you agree that the vast majority of our Universities are participating in a sham? This is especially egregious when they are using tax dollars to fund their folly.
Liberal Arts… I’m not sure there’s anyway to put the toothpaste back into the tube vis a vis the University system. I think most students think they’re taking classes which they have no interest in, but that might be part of a larger cultural issue brought about by parents and high schools who also don’t know or care about history. If high schools were doing a decent job of aiding parents in building character then most fields — as Veruckt points out — would be great with a two-year apprenticeship. I would include lawyers in that too.
The Germans invented the modern university and couple with with Woodrow Wilson’s public administration and Herbert Spencer’s social Darwinism and there’s an unholy mess at our higher education institutions. My only problem with the way Germany does it now is it limits social mobility to a certain degree. Americans don’t track people — or at least we shouldn’t.
University is not and should not be for everyone. I taught at a community college for 5 years — love the premise and the mission. Somehow we need to get business and governments to get off the “gotta have a degree” bandwagon.
Floyd, I agree with what you say about the limitation on social mobility in the German system. It was downright odd to me, as an American, when I worked there. Folks never even thought about improving their station in life; “well, this is what the score on a test I took when I was 14 recommended…”
Floyd, I still think you’re missing the forest for the trees. The Universities may have it right, but the people paying the bills don’t understand what they are paying for. If my parents knew that 60+% of the courses I was taking were designed to “enlighten me,” and had no bearing on whether I would find work they would have never chipped in for tuition, and if I knew that I would have never signed up for the major. I love the idea of studying for the sake of self-improvement but my family did not have that luxury and had the University made their mission clear I almost definitely would have gone straight into Engineering. Would I be a “better” Engineer if I had two years of humanities and could translate Euclid and Newton from the original Greek and Latin? Maybe, but my family couldn’t afford the “better” option. We were investing in a career.
After my Undergrad I attended two Graduate programs. In both cases my annual salary immediately upon graduation increased by more than the tuition my degrees cost. That made sense to me. When I got my Undergraduate degree from State University, Inc. I earned less than my friends who did not go to College and entered the trades right out of High School. More power to ‘em, but why did I get all those good grades in High School and do well on the ACTs for the privelege of giving State University, Inc. a lot of money and end up behind my friends who slept through class in High School? I’m not bemoaning the nature of what happened, but I wish the University had informed me of their mission before I paid the tuition.
“Floyd, I still think you’re missing the forest for the trees. The Universities may have it right, but the people paying the bills don’t understand what they are paying for. If my parents knew that 60+% of the courses I was taking were designed to “enlighten me,” and had no bearing on whether I would find work they would have never chipped in for tuition, and if I knew that I would have never signed up for the major. I love the idea of studying for the sake of self-improvement but my family did not have that luxury and had the University made their mission clear I almost definitely would have gone straight into Engineering. Would I be a “better” Engineer if I had two years of humanities and could translate Euclid and Newton from the original Greek and Latin? Maybe, but my family couldn’t afford the “better” option. We were investing in a career.”
I agree with that. There’s a vast misunderstanding, miscommunication , and even disinformation as to what a University education can and should be for. Many higher education administrators don’t even understand the University as it should be — they barely understand it as it is.
I am a history major with an english minor and I can say that I
never used my degree for my career.
If art skool told us what the art world was REALLY like, CalArts would be closed by Fall.
If I knew what the animation field would offer, I would have gone with my second choice and became a history teacher.
Most of what I picked up in the art field was after skool. That is an industry that works better on the apprenticeship model that listening to gas bags pontificate on how they see through the shallow bourgeoisie.
So, Mr. Sideous, doesn’t it bother you that everyone of your instructors knew they were participating in a sham engineered to fleece you of your hard-earned money?
Oh hell yeah. Even in my senior year I was smelling a rat. I was wondering why there weren’t any seminars on finding work, how to put together a portfolio worth a damn, what the studios were REALLY looking for – y’know, real world stuff. I basically had a 1950s animation education in a growing computerized world, and knew next to nothing about how the field really worked. What I did know I got from older students were worked on smaller projects. Nothing from the teachers.
I found out within weeks what I was up against.
I think most…scratch that all industries function better off of apprenticeships. Nothing is more valuable than hands on experience.
I agree, Veruckt. I often battle HR over education. I am well educated but I don’t require it of those who work for me. HR keeps putting it as a pre-requisite on the positions under me and I keep taking it off.
O.K., all but Floyd appear to agree that they were sold a bill of goods when they got their Undergraduate degrees and even Floyd admits that we have far too many people going to College, based on his idyllic concept of what a College is; men sitting about in togas, debating the nature of phlogistan while plucking lyres.
So what do we do about it?
I think removing government handouts from colleges would go a long way to helping. The amount of funding they receive is completely out of line especially given their cost still increase at 500% the rate of inflation and are even outpacing healthcare in their cost escalation.
Here’s a start: college degrees have become a proxy for IQ tests. (I believe that those tests have been declared unconstitutional as a prerequisite for a job.) Bring those back. Next up, make it easier to fire people. Even in retail, where we had to sign performance reviews every month that included language to the effect that the employer could fire you at any time for any (or no) reason, the fear of lawsuits made firing anybody very problematic.
If firing people were easier, hiring people to “give them a shot” would make a lot more sense.
My IQ is 159…pretty sure that discredits IQ test as any sort of measurement of true intelligence
My IQ is 159.2.
Curse you Firefly!!
I’d be curious to see what David’s is. You know those super villain sorts always have unusually high IQs and a fondness of death rays and overly elaborate traps.
Actually, Veruckt, I don’t know what mine is. A friend of mine in High School who was on a Summer work program with the janitorial crew looked it up one day, along with a bunch of our friends. He said mine was very high. I remember two teachers in Grade School getting very mad and in their anger they blurted out that I had a very high IQ and one day the Varsity football coach said to me, “Do you have any idea how high your IQ is?” I replied, “No,” and then he walked away. I was a Sophomore and was getting some notice for my play and I guess he had looked it up.
I’ve always done well on standardized tests but don’t put much stock into them. I have always been a natural with systems, patterns, numbers… There is a lot of that on IQ tests. I’m also great at multiple choice. Even in subjects I know nothing about I can often rule out bad choices and choose correctly. I know plenty of people with lower ACT scores who are every bit as smart, or smarter. I put a lot of stock into cleverness. My wife is a genius at mimicking people and is very, very funny. It takes an extremely smart mind to be funny. I think comedians are some of the best brains we have. I have no doubt Cosby, Carlin and Pryor are/were geniuses. Julius (Groucho) Marx, W.C. Fields, Jackie Gleason, Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks… geniuses! I have a reasonably quick mind, and can go from a to b to c to d quickly, but folks like Carlin can go from a to q without even stopping along the way.
Oh yeah, the reason the teachers in Grade school were mad is my parents had been asked for permission to send me to High School early, since I had already worked ahead two years in mathematics’ texts and was not being challenged in my other classes. My parents apparently answered, “No. We don’t want him to be different.”
That’s funny, Rufus. The only people I know who actually know their IQ (I certainly don’t) are people who learned it when a teacher/principal was yelling at them!
For most jobs that currently require a college degree, I think an IQ of right around 100 would be fine, provided that the employee applied himself, which is where the ease of firing people comes in.
That is funny! Maybe we all had the same teacher.
Unless Floyd’s is higher, then mine is two tenths of a percent above his.
dr zoon’s IQ is in the genius area. I think if I had known that going in I might not have married him.
Oh who am I kidding? He was adorable.
I’m not surprised. I doubt there are very many really talented piano players who do not have genius abilities. Playing piano is like trying to carry on 5 simultaneous conversations in two or more languages.
My IQ = 2³ * sin-1[(1 + cos 85.756°)/π]
(But I don’t like to brag.)
—Mike!
What is the value of “n?”
3.14
Ugh. I tried three different codes to make a “Pi,” and that was the best.
next time do this:
http://zenwerx.com/pi.png
Rufus, you really brought ‘em out the woodwork this time. Well done!
My two cents worth: this nation would be much better served if high-school grads went to work for four years (minimum) before higher education. Cent number two: a minimum 20% down payment on any education loan, which would come from part of the wages earned during the four years of work.
Now, then, folks, please continue the discussion!
That gets my thumbs up Magnus. Children, which is what we are straight out of high school, have no idea what they want to be when they grow up. It takes some real life experience before we have any real direction on where we want to go. A person who has spent 4 years roofing homes or answering phones would not waste their money on an art degree (no offense) because they would know it was not going to get them out of working on roofs or answering phones. Also putting 20% down might make someone more mindful of making wise decisions rather than the current Monopoly money loan and grant system we have.
I agree with that. Even then most won’t need college. An education as it was originally intended was to help make a better man not training for vocation (seminary being a major exception).
A loof this could be handled from ages 14-18. 18-year old “Children” are a modern construct. For 99% of human history 14 years old = ADULT. We’ve extended childhood — via social science and public administration to 21. We’ve infantilized generations. Most of the character formation that a good solid classical education gives should be done early to mid teens. Then at 18 they can hit the ground running — off to med school or law school or apprenticeships, etc. Whatever. I’d compress our current system of education to where most are doen at 18. But that would take stricter standards and some moxie.
I like a man with moxie.
Great suggestions, Magnus. Another thing I think Germany gets right; mandatory military service for all male, High School grads. They all spend ages 18-20 going through boot camp, making their own beds and getting yelled at by drill instructors. Teen-aged boys need someone knocking some sense into them. I also like that it eliminates the privileges of wealth. The Bill Gates’ of the world can’t have mommy and daddy shelter them from the unwashed masses. Little Billy would be lying in a cot in a barracks with all manner of folk.
What you are talking about doesn’t just apply to liberal arts, business and so on. Nothing substitutes for real world experience or willingness to get your hands dirty. I’m amazed at the number of science undergraduates who don’t know basic lab bench techniques. They’ll have a laundry list of equipment or procedures they say they know but when I start to prod details I can watch the sweat form on their brow.
Even a science degree doesn’t guarantee that the person getting it knew what they wanted to do when they grew up. Unless you go to school with a clear focus of your future, or develop it during your time there so you can take advantage of the schooling opportunity, you end up with a lot of people getting degrees in things that in retrospect was not the best choice.
Part of the problem is societal. School administrators, teachers and staff in general… hell you probably know this well, are banned from telling a student not to go to college. Even though a lot of degrees are worth less than what an average plumber makes. Not that I’m disparaging plumbers or any trade skill. In fact the opposite, this insistence on going to college has completely drained the pool of people working in trade fields and has led to a serious lack of trade knowledge in the United States. After my experience, I would encourage my child to be an electrician but I would insist he/she still go to a college and get a 2 year degree or similar to have that exposure to liberal arts as Floyd talks about while they apprentice and train.
I did not know school administrators were banned from telling students to not go to college.
Well not banned in the strict sense but as an unwritten rule. I can only speak on my personal experiences in the matter, which equates to my mother who is a teacher and listening to her and the friends of hers who are also teachers. It basically boiled down to the the thought that, if you didn’t encourage someone to go to college you were calling them stupid ergo, you are a heartless monster and bad teacher.
Skip, in my High School I had two meetings with my counselor; one when I began as a Freshman and one shortly before graduation. In our meeting Freshman year he said, “Judging from your incoming test scores you’ll probably want to go to College. Typically only 17% of our graduates go to College of any kind, and the vast majority just get two year degrees, so that’s how this school is structured. You’re on your own.” Then he asked me if I had any questions and bid me good day.
Oh, and that 17% was based on what was left over after about 40% dropped out prior to graduation.
Good lord Rufus. Was Edward James Olmos your Algebra teacher? By the way +5 pop culture points if you get that joke.
“School administrators, teachers and staff in general… hell you probably know this well, are banned from telling a student not to go to college. Even though a lot of degrees are worth less than what an average plumber makes. Not that I’m disparaging plumbers or any trade skill. In fact the opposite, this insistence on going to college has completely drained the pool of people working in trade fields and has led to a serious lack of trade knowledge in the United States.”
Skip — I agree. I think the drive to a degree has also given people unrealistic expectations out of life. We’ve also lost a lot of jobs and become a service economy because everyone wants an office job — nto to get dirty. We’re the lesser for that.
I think this drive toward faux intellectualism that basically says “I have a degree and am therefore your better” has obviously had a lot to do with people not wanting to get their hands dirty, they feel it is beneath them. Even more so it has become an incubator for the mental illness of leftism and the flagship for intellectual elitism.
While I occasionally semi-wonder if I’d actually stuck with my broadcasting plans and NOT gone to college for it (before switching majors’ focus twice), instead jumping into the DJ pool out of high school, how much different my path would have been. Eh, while I don’t disagree one bit with your original thesis, Rufus, I wouldn’t change a thing besides applying myself even a little harder while at Penn State … and attempting to walk-on JoePa’s squad as a punter or kicker (much, much thinner then, but stronger-than-hell legs from soccer).
Eric,
I think most successful DJs started out young. I doubt many went to College first, but I could be wrong. You should have definitely walked on!
“National Museum of Art”? Are you sure? Are you thinking of the National Gallery of Art? Did you take Art Appreciation in college, Rufus?
That’s so funny you caught that, Karen! No, I did not take Art Appreciation. I have some (a very minor amount) musical ability but no artistic ability. I can identify four different colors and two are black and white. Mrs. Firefly is an incredible artist, and she’s never had a class. Our kids are all decent and one is a phenom. I just shake my head and stare, dumbstruck, when they do what they do.
Too many comments to go back and see if I’m just repeating what others have said, but:
I was an English major – biggest mistake of my life, aside from not going to the Naval Academy or joining up after college. I’m still paying for it – stuck in a bad job, with little idea how I’ll advance, working my way through grad school. My kids, if they go to college at all, are going to major in something real.
See Floyd? This is a real problem. What percent of us have jumped on this thread and griped about being sold a bill of goods as Undergrads? 90%? 99%? Like some of the rest, I don’t have major regrets. I have a lot of fond memories, but that’s almost guaranteed to happen when you throw a guy like me on a campus with over 18,000 women between the ages of 18 and 22. But if I could be 18 again and knew what the University was actually doing there is no way I would have done what I did. It was a tremendous waste of money. After graduation I scrambled and got things on track, but boy would I love to have a do-over!
It’s great to know my Professors and the Administrators all had a lofty dream of making me more well-rounded but my parents and I thought we were spending our money to get me a job. We were blue collar people with little extra cash.
Semi-related: I’m slowly formulating an education reform plan. Once it’s in the prototype phase, would everyone be interested if it was turned into a Threedonia post/discussion thread? Rufus, do you think that would be kosher?
I think it would be very interesting to see some possibilities of reform. We all know the education system is a cumbersome mess but outside of vouchers there are few suggestions as to how to repair. My first big one would be forbidding teachers from being in a union…that will never happen I know.
Veruckt, I think vouchers would do tremendous good. Most all the parents in my Burgh know which schools do a good job. If we were given vouchers those schools would be flooded with applicants. The schools that suck would quickly change their programs to mirror those in demand. There are always going to be parents who pay no attention to their kids, or their education, and I don’t know how you fix that. A good school with good teachers can make a difference for some of those kids, as Matt knows, but if the parents don’t even know or care that they are in a crappy school district it’s hard to expect miracles. Still, if we implement vouchers and the schools with the best methods are emulated, then, after a few years we’ve got statistics that show that those methods work. Then maybe you can use those statistics to change things at the schools led by corrupt or misguided administrators.
I’ve written this before many times on this site, but the Littlest Fireflies go to a Catholic school that receives much less money per student than the local, public school. It has nowhere near the science equipment, music equipment, art equipment or phys. ed. equipment. We pay our teachers less and, quite frankly, the teachers at the public school are better. They are young, idealistic women and men who work hard and want to change the world. They have tremendous energy. Most of the teachers at the Catholic school are old and a bit pessimistic.
Every year the kids at our Catholic school outscore the kids at the public school by significant margins. All the kids live in the same neighborhoods, have the same socio-economic backgrounds, have similar parents. I believe the difference is every one of us sending our kids to the Catholic school have skin in the game. We’re making a choice and writing a check every month. If my kid screws up I’m on him or her in a minute and if somebody else’s kid is screwing up it’s dealt with quickly. The parents are the Catholic school tend to be more engaged and that appears to result in smarter kids.
Your words are always welcome on this site, David.
As you know, though, I rarely think the world lacks for yet another plan. I think we lack for methods to implement them. In my own little Burgh there are a few wonderful schools, doing wonderful things. One of the Little Fireflies even goes to a school like Floyd describes. His Latin is quite good and he begins Ancient Greek next year. He can play DeBussy and Gershwin on piano and knows all the Kings and Queens of England by heart, as well as most of the world’s great wars and their outcomes. There are also some great magnet and trade schools in the area. I have a friend who teaches at a High School that trains at risk kids in jobs for the construction industry. It’s a great program.
I think we have great examples of what works. Look at all the home schooling families taking traditional methods and churning out brilliant kids. We even have Great Books Colleges just as Floyd describes. The problem is getting the vast majority of the garbage to transition to what works. But, if you’ve got a plan that does that I’m all ears.
I have to flesh out the details, but as always, I have transitions built into my plans.
Going to school for any art is a toss up as far as getting employed in the field you’re studying in. When I went to a four-year Art college, they made it seem as if every one of us would leave school and start working in our fields. I had a great illustration instructor who was on the level with us about the realities that faced us upon graduation. Our instructors were professionals in their fields who taught on the side and knew what the real world was like in our fields. This one was really disillusioned by the way the college promoted success, or rather, omitted reality, and I think her talk with us was leaked to the Dean because she vanished after that year. She was very blunt and in front of the class even named off the students who would be professional illustrators and anyone that wasn’t named (the majority) got the picture that they wouldn’t end up there. I really appreciated her candor, not only because I was the first one she named, but because I was oblivious to this reality about life and the way the school operated. We’re too idealistic at that age and don’t think of colleges as the businesses that they are. Which isn’t a bad thing at all, but someone needs to question these kids who sign up to major in Mythology if they know about the market for Mythologists.
Matt,
Some of the best instructors I had worked professionally outside of University. I also had some wonderful full time Prof’s who would not have been as good if they worked off campus, but there is some real benefit from getting it straight from the horse’s mouth.
Does it qualify as a “most commented post” award winner if more than 2/3 of the comments were written by the post author?
Only if said author(s) has/have multiple personalities.
I take the 5th.
Or a pint, but I prefer a 5th, it’s easier to conceal under my overcoat, or over my undercoat.
If you cannot manage a 5th it is wise to not discount a shot, especially on a dark night. I deeply regret failing to acquire (when the opportunity presented) a walking stick which boasted the ability to contain several shots in its hollow leg. At the time I had a narrow-minded antagonism towards inanimate objects that boasted. Wisdom, like the downtown bus, often arrives too late.
Oh dear, spend an afternoon off the computer and what happens…
Touching lightly on a few of my hot buttons:
College used to be for people whose economic futures were not in question. If your family had money enough to send you through four years a job was the least of your worries. College provided the connections and cultural training to enable proper use of your wealth.
IQ is meaningless outside a basic range for several reasons. One, it measures your performance on standardized tests but truly high (and low) intelligences tend to perform outside those parameters. Classic example is the young lady who, when asked the difference between a sub and a fish advised that one had oil & vinegar while the other took mayo. Two, IQ tests are a measure of expected performance in school and are calibrated against how well the test takers did in school – thus they are inherently circular in their reasoning. But they are not attempting to measure “intelligence.” Third, high IQ may be a terrible quality in certain kinds of jobs, e.g., data entry.
College & HR departments. Used to be that a college degree was taken as evidence of the recipient’s ability to practice deferred gratification. Now it is largely a method by which HR winnows the probable chaff from the potentially worthwhile. It is CYA for HR, enabling them to protest due diligence if a new hire doesn’t work out.
School reform: simplest, easiest to implement form of school reform is to have teachers for each grade determine not who graduates from that grade but who is admitted. Thus 4th grade teachers set 3rd grade advancement criteria, 5th grade teachers determine what 4th graders should have learned, etc. Set too fine a screen and some teachers will get laid off, too coarse a screen and they will have a hard time getting them into the next grade level.
I agree with your statements about IQ. Intelligence is a complex thing to measure and just because someone like me has a talent for recognizing patterns and series… Well, that and a dollar will get you a loaf of bread. Some of the smartest folks I know were not good at school. School often measures one’s aptitude for sitting in a desk and following orders. I’m not sure that’s intelligence.
Rufus,
I think it would be easier to make the argument that “sitting in a desk and following orders” is NOT intelligence than that it is.
Worth remembering is that IQ in youth typically measures something different than it does in adults. In the first instance it tends to measure performance above age group. In the latter it measures pattern recognition and general knowledge base. Neither is actually a synonym for intelligence, any more than an affinity for polysyllabic vocabulary (necessarily) represents anything more than a penchant for crossword puzzles.
I suspect that a working definition of intelligence exceeds the parameters of this discussion.
I wish to revise and extend the preceding remark to read:
Because I too rarely get to employ the word “antithesis” or the phrase “revise and extend”.
Okay, forget IQ. How about the fact that when I interviewed prospective employees at a bookstore I wasn’t allowed to administer any kind of test of spelling or ability to alphabetize? I’m sure there are examples others could give here more relevant to a discussion about the merits of a college education.
The bottom line is that when you prevent employers from using objective measures of relevant skills when assessing job candidates, they necessrilly have to fall back on some kind of proxy, and a college degree is a good one.
That was me!
Anon,
Good point: the banning of employment related testing (because such tests were often used to improperly exclude otherwise qualified applicants) has resulted (surprise surprise surprise) in the unintended consequences of substituting a college degree for those criteria — and reduced the value of that degree as a substitute when you consider how many college graduates appear dumbfounded by the alphabet.
Does it qualify as a “most commented post” award winner if more than 2/3 of the comments were written by the post author?
If the post has the most comments after eliminating the post author’s contributions, yes.
When it comes to commercial illustration, you need the professionals teaching you. In just about any profession that you major in, once you leave school you find out that school isn’t that up to date in the real world currently going on in that field. It’s usually behind. So the professionals will give you the most up to date information. The head of the illustration dpt. at my school wasn’t a professional illustrator, he was just a fine artist wannabe. He gave the worst advice and tips, and favored the worst students who didn’t even belong there. He had no knowledge of the field at all.
The school was a business, which is great, but they made it seem like you had to have a certain amount of talent to be even considered to enroll there. You had to show your portfolio at a meeting with the Dean. And they then said that they would let you know if you were accepted. When that instructor gave us the skinny on the business, I had an epiphany and finally realized why there was a bunch of no talent kids surrounding me. That’s not ego, it’s just these kids couldn’t draw to save their lives. Not everyone can, which is why they hire artists. But the school took their money just the same after their false interview process and nonexistent standards. However, I did get an Ivy League academic education through them, because they hired professors from Harvard, Boston College, Boston University,and even one from Oxford who was in town, to teach the brainy stuff. I can only appreciate that while looking back, because the art was the main thing back then.
Bottom line though, you need talent at something to succeed. Whether you greet people at the door at Walmart or you’re a doctor, you need the talent to be good at it. A passion for your major coupled with talent is also a must to succeed. I never went to school to be a teacher, I just switched careers because I wanted to teach. I got hired because of the talent that they witnessed while I was a long term sub there. A friend of mine took the high school English teaching certification exam after cramming for it for months. She read all these novels that I’ve devoured over the years to get ready for it, and I helped her study for it. I took it not too long after her without studying it and aced it. Because it was about the books that I love. So, it’s really all about talent, passion, and the self-education of lifelong reading, and not really about the formal education.
It is useful to keep in mind that in America it was long the case that personal education was pursued outside of college and outside of work. During Mark Twain’s era it was quite common for writers to make their big bucks on the lecture circuit and many attendees of those lectures were no matriculating students. Today most Liberal Arts institutions maintain concert/lecture programs although outreach to the general public is not as aggressive as it might be.
BTW, some interesting challenges to the modern pedagogy are offered by John Taylor Gatto at this web site [http://www.spinninglobe.net/gattopage.htm] such as:
Gatto is amusingly cited by such disparate folk as Neal Boortz and Harpers Magazine.
I’m majoring in political science – one of Rufus’ chosen worthless degree choices, and for the most part I couldn’t agree more. I started out majoring in journalism at a time when it was still a viable way to a job. Now I’m stuck shifting to a degree that will accept most of my hard-earned credit hours, so political science it was. Granted, I don’t know of places hiring “political scientists” for 100K a year, but there are some administrative applications and it will help in my writing career.
I would love – absolutely die – to major in something more akin to mathematics, biology, economics, environmental science or engineering, but I suck at all those.
I haven’t had anything enlightening to contribute that hasn’t already been said, so, very uncharacteristically, I’ve decided to stay mostly quiet. I will say that when people bang on about how we are going to afford college for them all, we respond that college will not be in all their futures. We plan on giving them a full liberal education, but you certainly don’t need to pay $20,000 a year to get it. The books are there and we have no shortage of friends (many philosophy, english, and religion majors)and family who will provide discussion and smack down when they need it. I am one who regretted going to college, though I got my husband out of it, so it wasn’t a total waste. I do hate that it’s become sort of a giant expensive day care for 18-24 year olds who don’t know what else to do. We didn’t do preschool either, so I guess we are at least consistent.
I think my husband did pretty well. He took 10 years after graduating/escaping high school to be a roughneck, a ski instructor, a dock worker, a mason’s employee, etc. After hurting his back he went to college as a non-trad for engineering.
I think one of the main reasons this worked for him was because he was single for those 10 years. You can’t dingle around looking for a career when you have a wife and kids to support. Unless your wife does the supporting.
In other news, I am grateful now (wasn’t so much then) to my theater-major brother who talked me out of following in his footsteps.
P.S. Rufus, the ‘Burgh natives spell it either “yinz” or “yins.” Always a nice touch to put an “n’at” after it, too. Authenticity and all…
+JMJ+
I’m very late, I know, but here’s my story.
When I started telling people I wanted to major in English History, they all asked me, “What are you going to do with that degree?” They made it quite clear that it wasn’t the kind of degree that markets itself.
The good thing is that I had already wanted to be a teacher for years before that, so at least I knew where I was going.
*****
Rufus, I find your post interesting because the last time I gave these issues any serious thought, I took a stance opposite yours. I was frustrated at all the students I had who were planning to major in Business Administration, Accouting, or even Nursing, because those degrees were better guarantees of jobs after uni. I wanted them to “follow their passions” and “be not afraid” and all those naive goals a young, untried teacher sets. Besides, it “worked” for me . . . but as I’ve explained above, I already knew what path I wanted to take, anyway. So my majoring in English was almost as practical as their majoring in Nursing.
Enbrethiliel,
I have no problem with people following their passion. I stress that (to an extent) with my own children. I do believe, however, that schools, parents and teachers need to be very frank about the odds involved. There are many, many, many more young boys who want to be lead guitarists in a rock band than there are jobs making a living wage doing that. Some number of young men in High School right now will go on to be the next Eddie Van Halen and Jeff Beck, but 99.9999% of them will not get the job they dream of. If a boy chooses to follow that dream, go for it, and understand what you’re up against. Socio-economics matter too. My family did not have the means to fund “follow your passion” for me or my sister. I wish the University I went to had made their mission clear. I probably would have gone a different route.
As you may have noticed, I agree with Floyd that Universities should be lofty, ivory towers of higher learning. I just think there should be more truth in advertising, and they should stop pretending to be what they are not.