Rapier108 said:
A&M provides a huge number of good degrees that lead to well paying jobs.
Its a diploma mill for worthless degrees that should not even be offered. All they do is churn out the next generation of social justice warriors who are saddled with massive debt and no chance to get a good paying job with their degree. Instead they turn into antifa and wait for the next Democrat to pay off their loans.
Just from one look through the list of current degrees. No problem with some of these topics have a few classes on the subject as college is about learning new things, but A&M shouldn't be having them as majors. None of the "Studies" should be taught at all.
Anthropology
Classics
Dance Science
General Studies
Journalism (so as long as it is basically MSDNC level)
Modern Languages (French, German, or Russian) (a minor, sure, but not a major)
Music Performance
Performance & Visual Studies
Philosophy
Spanish (Again, minor sure, but not a major)
Theatre
University Studies - Global Arts, Planning, Design & Construction (Plenty of similar degrees offered.)
University Studies - Oceans & One Health
University Studies - Race, Gender, & Ethnicity
University Studies - Society, Ethics, & Law
University Studies - Tourism & Coastal Community Development
Women's & Gender Studies
You're right for some of these, but you're simply wrong for several. The languages and music and maybe one or two others. I think you have an incomplete understanding of what one can do with and/or what one learns with those degrees.
If I had to do it all over again, I'd almost certainly go with a music undergrad, albeit maybe not performance. Thus, I may have had to come to A&M for a masters rather than undergrad (no such program back then), but I know (and perform with) a lot of people with music degrees. They have a lifelong skill or set of skills that most people, even with business or engineering degrees don't have. For a music degree, you take lessons EVERY semester. For a two hour lesson, the MINIMUM practice time EACH DAY is two hours. I think most performance majors in any instrument or voice will tell you two hours is nowhere near enough to cover what needs to be done or to make a grade higher than a C. More like 4. Then, you play in ensembles EVERY semester. Its a 2-3 hour class once a week and prep for it is easily an hour or two each day. Heaven forbid you come unprepared. That doesn't speak to your other classes and each of these that I've talked about are like a fifth of your total load each semester. In other words, we're talking 3 credit hours max, and you're talking about 5 hours a day prep.
Did YOU spend 5 hours a day studying/preparing for a 3 hour class when you were an undergrad? I didn't even come close to that kind of time until I went to law school. When I go play with folks, I can pick up fairly quickly: are these high school level players? Are they college musicians, perhaps JuCo (like I am, incidentally)? Or, are they degreed music pros? Frankly, it isn't that hard. It isn't that the HS guys are bad players, but we can do so much more with those that have some college music experience.
Languages are beyond useful. The kinds of offers I would have gotten out of school in '91 had I majored in Russian and had significant foreign relations/affairs classwork, even as an undergrad, would have rivaled business and even computer science grads a decade later. How do I know? Because I know people that did just that.
I will concede that in many cases it is a good idea to either double major, get a dual degree, or pursue a separate masters program in some of these fields. A friend from HS did a history undergrad at UTA along with enough Spanish for either a double major or separate degree (I don't know for sure; don't know if he just did the coursework or got the actual diploma). After a year working, I think, for a library, he went back for a Latin American History grad degree and went into exactly what he wanted -- although I don't recall what that was. Is this track for everyone? Maybe not, and market whims might affect all this. But how is that different from what's going on in Computer Science right now? How many BS Comp Sci grads are finding work in their field, and specifically in jobs north of first level tech support?
When I got out of A&M in '91 with an Econ BA, the job market for people with my degree wasn't great. A Gender Studies degree is totally stupid because it is a degree based on idiotic politically based nonsense. You can't say that about music, languages, etc. So you can't just say, "STEM, Business, or Bust..."
Also, people continue to ***** about History, English, etc. departments being controlled by leftists. Then stop telling people these degrees are worthless! Maybe if we can get more smart people to go into these fields, even if they wind up in Academia, we can turn the departments around.
