Look no offense to those whose careers / passions are included in my list, but lets take me as an example. I am an accountant. I went k-12 I went 4 year college for a BBA I went 2 year college for MBA That is 18 years of education. Yes, I did need some of those less technical classes to help me develop my critical thinking, my writing, and language skills, etc. But in my opinion, that should have stopped at about year 10. I learned more in my first year of working than probably my last 6 years of school. To me, the college system was fine when it was affordable and there were tons of jobs on the other side. In today's world, it is inadequate and needs to be massively revamped. It needs to be far more technical, far less liberal arts nonsense, and it needs to do a much better job of preparing people with useful skills. And most of all, it needs to be cheaper.
College is not trade school larsv8. Also if you want to get down to it an undergrad business degree is basically worthless too. It's more about the "networking" than it is the actual things you learn. I haven't met anyone with an undergrad business degree that can do anything with it other than go to graduate school or maybe get their foot in the door working for someone. And I don't know everything it takes to become an accountant, but I'm guessing you could have learned a ton if you had simply worked for an accountant almost like an apprentice. I wouldn't think you need go to college to become an accountant other than for simply acquiring a degree to make you look more professional. Would a trade school for accounting be more appropriate for this career path? I don't mean for this to come off as abrasive or like I am talking down, but it's just that college doesn't prepare you for working in a specific field right out of undergrad unless it is engineering or pharmacy or some other fields I'm forgetting. If you want to work in a specific technical field then get a job in that field and learn the profession. You will get paid for your education if you do it that way. I know it's not that simple but it is by far the best way to learn a specific field. IMO there is very little monetary value gained by going to college for the most part (other than getting a piece of paper at the end of your undergrad work). This doesn't mean it doesn't have great social value and that to me is the primary goal one should have when they go to college. It's too bad that you feel that your critical thinking, language, and writing skills should have ended after 10th grade. The best education I received in those areas was in my later years in college. High school did not do much developing those in my experience.
Remember when apprenticeship used to be a thing? Too bad common sense isn't a valued trait in business sometimes
I'm not in favor of free college and I think the way Bernie feels that he can fund it isn't based in reality. That said college is not worthless. It doesn't always have immediate monetary return after you graduate and that doesn't make it worthless. If we are paying for it then it is for the social benefit of America and having citizens that are more well rounded with their skills and connections in life.
I think you're looking at this too narrowly. Humanities does prepare people to think more creatively and communicate better. For example Singapore is lauded as having one of the most educated populations with students who routinely outperform much of the world when it comes to math and science at the same time though Singaporeans and modern Singaporean culture is fairly shallow and a frequent complaint from foreigners working with and managing Singaporeans is that they communicate poorly and can't think flexibly. Singapore 20 years ago recognized this as a problem and tried to address it through their own creativity project. Leaving aside the irony of a large government program to try to make people more creative one of the findings from it was that they needed to make their education more like the US and bring in more humanities and liberal arts into it.
I glossed over this and didn't notice. How do you know they taught it poorly? Did you already know up to Calc 3 and differential equations to know the professor was 'teaching it poorly'? This may come as a surprise to you, but advanced mathematics and engineering courses can be taught excellently and many still won't 'get it' so I hope you didn't base that assertion on you 'not getting it'. That is the key difference between a liberal arts degree and an engineering degree. Concepts in liberal arts degrees are relatively easy to pick up. If you attend all your classes and put in all the work that your professors ask of you, there is no reason why you shouldn't average between a 3-4 GPA. With engineering, you can attend all your classes, put in all the work, seek tutoring, practice problems to death, and still end up with less than a 3.0 GPA or even drop out.
They are less likely to docilely accept that the money keeps being redistributed to .1% or 1%. There was talk among the Reagan and right wingers at the time that defunding college education and make it more difficult to afford would make college students work longer hours to support themselves , have less leisure time, dream smaller and focus only on occupationally relevant majors that pay the most initially. There is a reason the elite send their kids to smaller often elite colleges which often don't have engineering or undergraduate business majors. Keep the engineers and accounting and the IT types focused only on the tasks assigned to them by the elite so they don't worry their little heads about society or who controls things.
To follow on my previous post I think many of our problems are due to lack of knowledge of humanities. Too many people consider what is the immediate tangible monetary gain but to build a better society humanities are very vital. I think many of our problems now are due to having a a populace that largely doesn't have a good grasp of things like history, language, sociology, and philosophy. There is too much ignorance about basics about how our government even works or understanding basic philosophical principles such as why we even have rights that simplistic messages and demagoguery has so much sway over people. Without being exposed to different societies or understanding other languages people aren't exposed to modes of thoughts and become more provincial and unable to consider other points of view. That so few people have a good grasp of even English makes people easily swayed by shallow even vulgar messages and demagoguery. A truly educated and informed society isn't just one that focuses on STEM but also one where the humanities are valued. With a better basis in humanities I think there would be both less frustration and anger from the Left and the Right, a far more informed electorate and quite possibly a better functioning elected government.
A new poll showing that Bernie is the safer Dem candidate if you want to beat the Republicans. I would take Bernie's chances against Trump and Bloomberg. I think the public at large does not want billionaire rule. http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us02182016_Urpfd42.pdf ********** Quinnipiac University Poll/February 18, 2016 – page 2 Presidential matchups among American voters show: Sanders over Trump 48 – 42 percent; Sanders tops Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas 49 – 39 percent; Sanders leads Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida 47 – 41 percent; Sanders beats Bush 49 – 39 percent; Sanders edges Kasich 45 – 41 percent. Clinton with 44 percent to Trump’s 43 percent; Cruz with 46 percent to Clinton’s 43 percent; Rubio topping Clinton 48 – 41 percent; Bush at 44 percent to Clinton’s 43 percent; Kasich beating Clinton 47 – 39 percent. If Bloomberg mounts a third party run, results are: Sanders and Trump tied 38 – 38 percent, with 12 percent for Bloomberg; Sanders tops Cruz 39 – 33 percent, with 14 percent for Bloomberg.
New York Times reports that Hillary has a meeting with some of her heavy donors at the Wall Street offices of one of the downers. The donors ask her to stress that Bernie's proposals are unrealistic and to attack him for focusing on billionaires and millionaires. The donors told Hillary to keep stressing that she does have lots of small donors. That might why almost everyday I get an email from the Clintons, often Chelsea begging me to donate at least one dollar to help her mom. I have read that 85% of Hillary's donations have come from large donors. Soros for instance gave her $6 million./
Hillary answering the call from her MASTERS on Wall Street like a dog. I hope people don't waste their vote on her because they won't actually be voting for her.
Just to back this up, the data are overwhelming that "even" non-tech degrees lead to greatly expanded lifetime earnings and security. That's not even a debate at all, separate from the non-monetary aspects you list.
This is an interesting topic, and I like hearing various perspectives on it. Let me add a different perspective. Accounting is a trade. It is largely (though not entirely) the application of rules to a system. Creative thought is mostly discouraged. For a career path like that, as well as many others, liberal arts may be a waste of time. But there are a lot of different career paths out there. There are jobs which require a more strategic perspective or innovation or general forward thinking - jobs that REQUIRE creativity. Liberal arts degrees help many (but not all) develop an alternative framework to solve problems. That framework can apply to anything...not just philosophy or political science or economics. I am a liberal arts undergrad. My wife is a super liberal arts undergrad. We both have graduate degrees that have helped us (in different ways). Neither of us are operating in rules-based careers. I'm not sure I would have gotten here if I got a BBA. But there are others that I work with who got there just fine. Education is tricky. Different things work for different people. And it's hard to make that decision for someone at 16 or 14 or whatever. It sure would be easier to add trade schools in as a real option earlier in life. But are we willing to cap upward mobility for segments of the population as a whole? And guess who would be steered towards trade schools? Poorer people who want a guarantee of a "steady, reliable" income. Guess who would largely go the other path? People from families with money who can afford to let their children slip up and flounder for a while in their careers. So then does that help guarantee a base level of income for people at the expense of mobility? I'm not sure that is a fair trade.
All of this is completely unrelated to the thread so I figured I'd spoiler it to minimize clutter. Spoiler I thought Khan Academy taught math, physics, chemistry, and almost anything related to those a hell of a lot better. The only memorable professor I had from my time in engineering was the second semester of calculus in sequences and series with Prof Popescue (I think that's how his name was spelled). He was a little Romanian guy that would yell at the students if they didn't know an answer off the top of their head during class lol. I don't think I showed up to that class for weeks at a time it was so worthless. I think I ended up with a B in there too. The other professors didn't seem to care too much. Physics was a killer weed out course which sucks because I have actually tried to learn about physics and stuff after college. I never truly understood the concepts that I was learning at UT and the classes did not make the material interesting in the slightest. When they were taught to me on Khan they made sense and I understood them. It's so much more fun when you understand what you are doing. Anyhow, the things I learned from Khan Academy helped me recognize why my education in mathematics eventually collapsed and failed. I had far too many gaps in my fundamental understanding of math from my junior high and high school education. Math always came relatively easy to me in school, but it was because I was just following patterns rather than truly understanding what the hell I was even doing. I didn't even truly understand what Pi or the unit circle was until I learned it on Khan. Once I gained an understanding various concepts it was like an AHA! moment. Well I had a 3.0 GPA thru my first 3 semesters until I got 4 F's and a D in my 4th lol. I wasn't a good student and I certainly did not put enough time. I hated everything and I was completely burned out by my 4th semester. That said the textbooks were not good teaching materials for me. There never seemed to be enough examples and there always seemed to be too many dots that weren't connected. This has always been the case for me. The professors certainly didn't offer up any inspiration or effective help in class either. My dad felt pretty bad about everything and he talked to the Dean of engineering. The Dean felt terrible that I flamed out and he granted me a retroactive withdrawl from that train wreck semester and allowed me to transfer out of engineering. Also, let's not act like my 4th semester of math was extremely advanced mathematics. I think it was differential equations with linear algebra that semester. We aren't talking about graduate level stuff that involves high end logic and very creative thinking. Sure it's not everyday stuff, but we don't need to exaggerate the difficulty level. There lies the problem with how you are viewing this in my opinion. At no time should anyone put in that much time and still be struggling that hard. We aren't talking about high level stuff. People are smarter than you give them credit for. The concepts of undergrad engineering aren't crazy difficult, but they can be mundane and mechanical. That is usually why people don't succeed. It isn't due to some fundamental inability to understand the material. It is simply because it is presented in a very dry and boring fashion and people can tune out and miss key concepts that tie everything together. Maybe I am too biased given my burnout experience to give an accurate assessment of the professors and how they taught....but in my opinion they didn't care very much and were poor at effectively conveying the material. Enough ranting about that for now :grin:...back to the Bernie thread!
I agree that the first couple of years are very dry. The project based classes are taken during your junior and senior years, unfortunately most have dropped out by then and went to a different major.
