Arguably, most college degrees are.

A college degree was supposed to make you well rounded.

For example, a college graduate should understand that Marx made significant contributions to the field of economics, but made several critical errors, including the error that concentrated power corrupts. The result has been that Marxism has killed more people than any other single cause since the black plague.

But being able to argue that Marx had both some interesting insights and also some critical flaws takes nuance.

There is no nuance in college today. Only propaganda:

Quote:

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A college graduate should understand that Marx made significant contributions to the field of economics, but made several critical errors, including the error that concentrated power corrupts. The result has been that Marxism has killed more people than any other single cause since the black plague.

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Millennial who graduated around the time of the recession with a business degree. We might be the last group to miss the extreme wokeness. I had one professor that gave a lecture on why everyone should enthusiastically support gay rights. The class was not related to politics at all. This was only one lecture. He just decided to freestyle it that day. I can say as a core millennial, the only wokeness in my whole education was this lecture and my high school political science teacher being a huge Al Franken fan (I know random for a high school teacher in Texas). He was a great teacher though and also showed us a bunch of positive videos about Scalia. Things must be so different now.

When asked I tell young people that if the Degree Program is not also a Job Title it is not something you should study. Accounting, Business Admin, Engineering, Medicine, Finance, etc. Brief and to the point advice.

My daughter wants to be an artist. She's only 8, but I'm trying to steer that into more of a hobby than a career.

She also wants to be a zoologist. Seems awfully specialized, but more stable than art.

PCC_80 said:

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When asked I tell young people that if the Degree Program is not also a Job Title it is not something you should study. Accounting, Business Admin, Engineering, Medicine, Finance, etc. Brief and to the point advice.

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This is sound advice.

Some liberal arts degrees are still of value. It's the critical theory based one's that are poison. And those bleed over into the more substantial topics since the department is all connected and academia is becoming woke.

Kvetch said:

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Some liberal arts degrees are still of value. It's the critical theory based one's that are poison. And those bleed over into the more substantial topics since the department is all connected and academia is becoming woke.

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It's of value if your plan is to become a liberal arts professor. Outside of that, it is 90% useless.

My wife got a liberal arts degree and got a job in PR/marketing.

IDaggie06 said:

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Kvetch said:

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Some liberal arts degrees are still of value. It's the critical theory based one's that are poison. And those bleed over into the more substantial topics since the department is all connected and academia is becoming woke.

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It's of value if your plan is to become a liberal arts professor. Outside of that, it is 90% useless.

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Not true. It's still a very good background for going to law school and other fields.

The world needs liberal arts majors. Just not so many of them.

Martin Cash said:

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IDaggie06 said:

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Kvetch said:

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Some liberal arts degrees are still of value. It's the critical theory based one's that are poison. And those bleed over into the more substantial topics since the department is all connected and academia is becoming woke.

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It's of value if your plan is to become a liberal arts professor. Outside of that, it is 90% useless.

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Not true. It's still a very good background for going to law school and other fields.

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So pretty much useless unless you get another degree that actually earns money.

I was going to say "actually Is useful" but then you mentioned law degree.

This reminds me of this now-deleted tweet:

2012heisman said:

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Millennial who graduated around the time of the recession with a business degree. We might be the last group to miss the extreme wokeness. I had one professor that gave a lecture on why everyone should enthusiastically support gay rights. The class was not related to politics at all. This was only one lecture. He just decided to freestyle it that day. I can say as a core millennial, the only wokeness in my whole education was this lecture and my high school political science teacher being a huge Al Franken fan (I know random for a high school teacher in Texas). He was a great teacher though and also showed us a bunch of positive videos about Scalia. Things must be so different now.

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There have always been outlier nutjobs in academia; it's just that they are no longer outliers and are becoming the norm.

When my Dad was in college at UH post returning from Vietnam one of his professors didn't show up to class one day. Turns out she had been arrested as part of some underground far left wing domestic terrorist group who was plotting to kill people or something. I don't recall the exact details. Lol.

My freshman History prof at A&M in 1992 was a far left wing nutso moron who threw out the syllabus and made us read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for our semester final. Lectures were his personal time to rage about George Bush and recount his near death experience being shot at at Kent State.

I took 2 or 3 classes that changed my life.

The rest were junk.

I was really good at one of them and it has put food on the table since 1998. Thank God for Y2K and all of that subpar COBOL code that landed me my first job.

BBA, Information and Operations Management 1998

IDaggie06 said:

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Kvetch said:

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Some liberal arts degrees are still of value. It's the critical theory based one's that are poison. And those bleed over into the more substantial topics since the department is all connected and academia is becoming woke.

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It's of value if your plan is to become a liberal arts professor. Outside of that, it is 90% useless.

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Not true. There is still value in a classical education. Not every profession out there is a hard trade like engineering. But, like I said before, the liberal arts departments are currently infested with critical theory so you likely won't be getting a great education on that tract. I think there would be immense value in restoring those departments to actual esteem instead of writing them off as garbage wastes of time and money.

The system of higher education itself needs reforming, and that is not limited to the liberal arts department.

Kvetch said:

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The system of higher education itself needs reforming, and that is not limited to the liberal arts department.

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This is for sure a topic for a different thread but an entirely true statement. "Higher education" in the US has morphed into quasi-useful credentialing system that is overpriced and delivers a a product of inconsistent value.

One reason is that restaurants are investing in robots.

https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/3352158

I see you had Livesay also.

The Chicken Ranch said:

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I see you had Livesay also.

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Yes, I think that was his name.

The classes I had that have really stuck with me and affected my outlook on life: Texas History, Music Appreciation, both Poli Scis.

Classes that have funded my lavish lifestyle: all the aerospace engineering.

I got my undergrad in History, and ended up working on a golf course, wearing a shirt with my name on it and scraping by to pay rent. Went back and got an Associate's in electronics and that got me into an actual career. My daughter (Class of '27) plans to study English on a pre-law track. I normally wouldn't be too supportive of her being a liberal arts major, but it is definitely her strength/apptitude, and worse-case, she can teach.

Tumble Weed said:

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I took 2 or 3 classes that changed my life.

The rest were junk.

I was really good at one of them and it has put food on the table since 1998. Thank God for Y2K and all of that subpar COBOL code that landed me my first job.

BBA, Information and Operations Management 1998

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Peter Gibbons, that you? I thought you quit Initech to get into construction.

IDaggie06 said:

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Kvetch said:

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Some liberal arts degrees are still of value. It's the critical theory based one's that are poison. And those bleed over into the more substantial topics since the department is all connected and academia is becoming woke.

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It's of value if your plan is to become a liberal arts professor. Outside of that, it is 90% useless.

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When I bag on young family members who are majoring in some useless Liberal Arts field, I also tell them the option of the "store".

Me: What's your major?
Kin: Eastern Philosophy.
Me: Are you going to teach?
Kin: I don't know.
Me: Well, you can always open a Eastern Philosophy store.

Insert any useless major and it works.

duffelpud said:

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Tumble Weed said:

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I took 2 or 3 classes that changed my life.

The rest were junk.

I was really good at one of them and it has put food on the table since 1998. Thank God for Y2K and all of that subpar COBOL code that landed me my first job.

BBA, Information and Operations Management 1998

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Peter Gibbons, that you? I thought you quit Initech to get into construction.

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You are closer to the mark than you suspect. I even look a bit like him.

Lived for years in a cube. Truely miserable existence.

Had to go back to work this morning and I told my wife that I hate my job more than she hates hers. She agreed with me.

Considered signing up for welding classes on my drive to work. Maybe I should see an occupational hypnotherapist.

BS - '78, MBA - '83 Argued with several Prof's that 'Globalism' would not be the benefit they seemed to think it would. Was asked to do a Phd...glad I declined. Never suspected Academia would become what it apparently has.

Jeeper79 said:

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My daughter wants to be an artist. She's only 8, but I'm trying to steer that into more of a hobby than a career.

She also wants to be a zoologist. Seems awfully specialized, but more stable than art.

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You aren't really concerned about this at 8 are you?

jja79 said:

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Jeeper79 said:

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My daughter wants to be an artist. She's only 8, but I'm trying to steer that into more of a hobby than a career.

She also wants to be a zoologist. Seems awfully specialized, but more stable than art.

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You aren't really concerned about this at 8 are you?

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No, of course not. But let's just say that there are unnamed influential people in her life that are reinforcing that as a great career choice, and I've got my doubts. It's not something that I would let go indefinitely unchecked.

Jeeper79 said:

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jja79 said:

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Jeeper79 said:

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My daughter wants to be an artist. She's only 8, but I'm trying to steer that into more of a hobby than a career.

She also wants to be a zoologist. Seems awfully specialized, but more stable than art.

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You aren't really concerned about this at 8 are you?

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No, of course not. But let's just say that there are unnamed influential people in her life that are reinforcing that as a great career choice, and I've got my doubts. It's not something that I would let go indefinitely unchecked.

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Relax. My daughter wanted to be an art teacher right about that age as well.

She's now a physician.

I wanted to drive the jeep on the Roy Rogers show but grew out of it. She probably will too.

Why in the world do we have liberal arts and not conservative arts?

AgCat93 said:

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Why in the world do we have liberal arts and not conservative arts?

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From Merriam Webster

Quote:

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The liberal in liberal arts, a cornerstone of the education of so many, has very little to do with political leanings; its roots can be traced to the Latin word liber, meaning "free, unrestricted." Our language took the term from the Latin liberales artes, which described the education given to freeman and members of the upper classes, and involved training in the mind (grammar, logic, geometry, etc.). The lower classes were educated in the servile arts, which were mechanical or occupational in nature. The phrase liberal arts has been part of our language for a very long time, with use dating back to the 14th century.

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Jeeper79 said:

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PCC_80 said:

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When asked I tell young people that if the Degree Program is not also a Job Title it is not something you should study. Accounting, Business Admin, Engineering, Medicine, Finance, etc. Brief and to the point advice.

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This is sound advice.

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Unfortunately, it isn't.

It is going overboard the other way. What if the guy with the accounting degree no longer wants to be an accountant when he's 40? Sure, he has some marketing, management, econ, and possibly the newer biz school classes (supply chain, etc.) classes he slept through to "fall back" on but will that be enough? He can teach, I guess, but he has to return to school to get a certificate and multiple hours in a teaching discipline. But if he wants to get into IT or most other fields he has to start completely from scratch.

I'm not advocating totally stupid areas like _____ studies. Anything that ends with studies in it is by definition worthless. I'm also not in favor of any of the woke crap being taught in ANY discipline. We need to remove that from everywhere, liberal arts, business, engineering, etc. And finally, paying excessive tuition and fees to go to a private school and major in English or PoliSci is never a good idea.

However, there's nothing wrong with Econ, a traditional liberal arts field, with a heavy math (say, 21-ish hours) load. Or, the traditional liberal arts disciplines (i.e. English, History, PoliSci/Govt., etc.) with a double major/dual degree in a more tech oriented field like Math or Physics. Frankly, although many will laugh at this, there is absolutely nothing wrong with music -- you'll learn a skill that will last a lifetime (unlike most degrees) and if you knew how hard undergraduate music majors worked and how much time they put in, you'd be shocked. Its just in that program, you have to be realistic about your career options and a double major (business, for example) is almost a must.

The important idea here is we ***** all the time about history, government, etc. being taught from a leftist viewpoint yet we never encourage smart people to get educated in those fields because we tell them liberal arts is trash. I've got an idea: quit saying that. Tell them, "hey, the current way liberals arts is taught is trash, so YOU go into that field and make it better..." or something like that.

We need to exterminate the "race, class, and gender" crap from all history departments. We can't do that if we keep telling what MIGHT be conservative leaning students to not go in to history. This is but one example. Ultimately, we need to change the way the university works, but in the mean time, eliminating liberal arts from our vocabulary entirely is NOT the answer. It is a bit like stopping all food intake in an attempt to lose weight. At best, you'll have VERY short term effects and at worst, it could totally mess up your body.

The whole discussion summed up by Archer.

I am seeing a lot of younger people become successful in law right now. It appears like the legal market has completely changed. I am a millennial who graduated during the recession with a business degree and got a job, but many of my classmates went to law school. Back then the legal market was terrible. No one was getting a job in corporate like Vinson and Elkins unless they finished at the top quartile of their class and were also at a top law school like UT Law or maybe like top 10 percent at UH Law.