Obvious article is obvious.

It's certainly not a *new* topic, but maybe some people here aren't versed in it. Or maybe I'm just more willing to let it slide since I live in it.

I recently was asked to have a conversation and give advice to a young man starting at Northeastern University, my alma mater. Most of the conversation was:

1) How to avoid the bureaucracy and administrators
2) How to manipulate and overcome the bureaucracy and administrators if you can't avoid them
3) How to fully overcome expectations of mediocrity (undergraduate research, doubles/minors, early graduate courses, +1 programs, etc)

I think there's very few to no places I wouldn't have that conversation with an enterprising entering student, while much of the conversation by nature was NEU-specific, I hold no special ill will towards NEU on that front. It simply *is*.

I think the serious careers such as medicine and law don't suffer much from these problems and never really will. Ultimately the sorry state of humanities education is surely self-inflicted by both student and teacher, and doesn't really matter anyway as the fruits of it are purely subjective. Those who want to be a serious person will find their way anyway.

I wonder if this is just a North American thing or not?

I definitely don't have the experience to confirm or deny this happens, although this person is convincing.

There is some truth in this, unfortunately. I will however say that it is not uniformly thus. I am currently doing a Master's degree in Law via Nottingham University, which has a superb law school. The course is HARD WORK but I am engaged in the subject and find it fascinating. If I did not do nearly all the required reading and engage with the topic, I would fail.

I think that some undergraduate courses are too easy to pass and there needs to be more academic rigour, especially at undergrad level.

I've observed a serious decline in critical thinking among students today. I remember my Masters being one of the most gut wrenching, motivating experiences of my life. College should be a motivator for your passion.
The academic environment of today favors an unchallenging system of paying the teachers poorly and keeping the diplomas flowing like candy bars.

Brainbomb, you are right. In the UK, since the recent enormous rises in University fees, an undergraduate degree, in particular, is seen by some students as a commodity which they are purchasing, rather than an important achievement in their personal and professional development.

I pay student loans which are not a burden. I put a lot of myself into my graduate abd undergraduate degree. Its the fact that the system is broken. I hear stories from students about classes where the teacher just has them watch movies the whole time. Theres an MBA program in Omaha where the projects are to make collages and posters.
An MBA? Collages and posters? What the hell value is there to an MBA if you can earn it watching movies and doing Arts & Crafts?

The Wall Street Journal ran an op ed piece a year or two ago about how law school had become one of the biggest legal scams. There was a glut of new lawyers that most could no longer get employed at existing law firms. Their school debt was exceeding what they could make for several years. But they were still pushing to recruit new law school students because it was so lucrative for the schools.

Article asks humanities students.

Enough said.

Go to college and get a real degree, not one you can get at the public library...and you'll probably find different results. There is a reason these kids are "humanities" majors....

Ah, well, I am not doing a Master of Laws with the intenton of becoming a lawyer. Indeed about a third of the students on my course are solicitors already. If I wanted to be a lawyer I'd need to study for a Legal Practice Certificate, and probably have an undergrad law degree already.

I don't support setting Prop 2 aside when 7 out of our 9 Cllrs have voted in favour of it. I don't see how it's more "democratic" to allow Cllr ND to use some kind of veto to overrrule a very clear majority.

Uhh krellin... I have a degree in Acting and a Masters in Painting. I'm fortunate enough to be employed with my "creative" degrees.

You are right we should only be studying law, engineering, and medicine. All other "Humanities" are a waste of time : writing, archeology, philosophy, sociology, architecture....

Fucking phone. Wrong thread.

It made sense to me Jamie. ##Vote ND

"I have a degree in Acting "

Is that why you're such a class act?

krellin is a well know staunch advocate of Engineer or Nothing. or was that Putin33?

I despise engineering and all that it stands for so that cannot be true.

'Engineers think everybody else is lousy at their jobs. Pricks.'--Putin33

'I've yet to meet an engineer that had one iota of open-mindedness when it came to anything related to education. It's just not in their DNA. If I'm a bigot, so be it.'--Putin33

quoted from abge's profile.

Quite so.

"I think the serious careers such as medicine and law don't suffer much from these problems and never really will. "

That's because medicine and law are professional programs that have no interest in the liberal arts ethos of well rounded citizens. The notion that people should be challenged to investigate life outside their their cocoon is completely foreign to the professional schools, who sell themselves as job factories first and foremost.

This article accurately reflects my own experience in academia as an instructor. The problem is "business oriented reformers" are taking over universities and pushing it to promote customer service and enrollment above all else. The result is a race to the bottom in terms of pandering and dumbing down instruction. Students cannot be bothered to read (when they can be bothered to attend class at all) and they write at an 8th grade level (when they're not plagiarizing). Instead of flunking them and making our courses difficult we're expected to handhold them while they take our classes just so they can fulfill gen ed requirements and major in "serious" subjects like communications, public relations, and business.

This thread reminds me of the feminist dance therapy major.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SocialJusticeInAction/comments/3xiowe/apparently_feminist_dance_therapy_majors_are_real/?

The overall education system is becoming too saturated ( I don't know if anyone else has repeated this or if it is stated clearly in the article for everyone else) now-a-days people are expected to go to college and do what? If they wish to pursue degrees that are worthwhile and can lead to a more intense education then great! But far too often these days we are witnessing people going to college then settling for jobs that mean absolutely nothing with said degrees........ As stated above of course law and medicine aren't experiencing this that much because A the application process weeds out those unworthy and uninterested and if not there then the actual classes will. As far as engineering goes.... I agree with Putin enough said =)

Reminds me of a Baffler article I read a while back: http://thebaffler.com/salvos/academy-fight-song

I'd also add a little anecdote from my undergraduate experience. As you go through third and fourth years of university, your classes get smaller. In one of my classes, the students were so few that the prof felt comfortable talking to us about his personal life. He was working as a part-time professor on contract at our university and another that is in our city. In total, he was teaching four or five courses. However, since he was considered only a part-time professor, he was only paid for the hours he spent teaching in class. He was not paid for marking, adminstrating, office hours, or lesson planning. So while his hourly wage was fairly high, he was in fact making only about C$14 per hour of work. For perspective, minimum wage in Ontario is C$11 per hour.

I later found out that he was living in the student ghetto next to the university despite being forty-something, and his reason for this was of course that he could not afford a house elsewhere.

And just to respond to the general sentiments of a few people in this thread, I've found in my experience that the people who are concerned with getting everyone into STEM fields are neither creative nor fun, and they view the purpose of education as only to help you get a job; I pity them.

If you are studying for your own pleasure then you should pay for it. the Government does not need to pay you to study for your own pleasure.

What if great minds are those who studied for their own pleasure?

Then they ought to pay for it. Whether this is by them convincing some benefactor to pay is another issue.

You're missing my point. I think we can agree that education is important for both the individual and the entire population of a country. I think we can also both agree that it's at the very least debatable to say that this counts for every study. What I debate is that we know for certain which education is useful for the individual and society and which is just for pleasure. One could argue that a great mind is more likely to be produced if everyone has the freedom to follow their intuition. I'm therefore not so sure whether saying 'studies for pleasure' (which is your perspective) should not be government-supported and other, 'useful studies' (which is again your perspective) should be is fair, efficient, good, etc.

I genuinely don't know. I'm on the fence right now.

@brainbomb: "I have a degree in Acting and a Masters in Painting. I'm fortunate enough to be employed with my "creative" degrees. "

You are the exception, not the rule. If a person wants to get a degree in liberal arts, fine, go ahead. When you then find yourself in a lower socio-economic class because you have no marketable *skills* (not lack of knowledge, lack of skills) then be content with the choices you have made.

I really don't give a flying fuck what degrees people get. I have a huge problem when dumbasses get degrees in subjects for which THE KNOWN, EXPECTED OUTCOME in the job marketplace is null.

Interestingly enough, many of you here are GAMERS. In the world of RPG / MMO's, you often can equip your characters with skills. Depending on the game, this can offer quite a broad selection - blacksmith, armor maker, weaponsmith, alchemist. and then there are sometimes less, uh, useful skills. Let's say, fishing.

Now, a character who truly devotes an massive amount of time to fishing may indeed learn to catch a very valuable fish....but the likelihood of this skill really being of any use are null.

On the other hand, the character with weapons skills can always repair his damaged weapons....and therefore, the majority of players ***looking for succeed***, will equip themselves with useful skills that will enhance the chances of success of their character.


So WHY IN THE LIVING FUCK do a bunch of kids play a video game and know enough to give the imaginary characters the best chance of survival and success....but WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR FUCKING **LIFE** you make dumbass choices like studying "Obscure Languages that Read Right to Left". Oh sure...you might be the one in a million to catch the big fish with that degree.....but chances are....NOT.


time for the kiddies of the world to recognize the difference between hobbies and interests...and getting a real fucking degree.


To the asses that think "krellin says engineering or nothing", you are simply a moron. there are a fantastic number of degree programs out there beyond engineering that offer high paying careers to the ambitious, that will give the person the ability to buy all the "history of arts" books they want for personal study, or even take classes on the side to pursue their interests as a hobby. Medicla industry is booming. Business degrees, Marketing degrees, bio-chemistry, renewable energy industries, etc etc etc. Endless option for careers that won't leave a bunch of sniveling twats demanding their "fair share" from the people that actually worked to get useful degrees and lead successful lives.

I'm gonna have to agree that a bunch of studies should be avoided as a study but pursued as a hobby instead. You don't need expensive classes to learn everything. For some things, a bunch of good books, people to discuss with and a load of time will indeed do the trick.

I guess that is one thing to ask yourself: why get the expensive degree with which you'll never get a job if you can spend the same time getting the same knowledge cheap?

The current unemployment rate for 4 year college graduates is 2.6%.

Bad article, bad conversation, bad understanding of what the liberal arts means (but it's krellin, what can we expect). There are real problems with the over-corporatization of higher education, but this turns into a grocery list of get-off-my-lawn complaints about whatever the author appears to dislike.

About skills etc: I would love to live in a world where we can just measure the most important skills that everyone has. By way of analogy, who are the best football players in the NFL? Is it the ones with the best measurables? Strongest arms, fastest runners? No, of course not. If it were, Jim Druckenmiller would be in the hall of fame. It's the people with :"intangibles". Life is not a video game, and it's stupid to act like it is. Otherwise, the NFL draft would just be the 99 ranked players, then the 98 ranked, down the line. In real life, teaching skills like critical thinking, close reading, and information literacy is hard, and they're very difficult to measure.

This would be longer, but I have to go teach a class of community college students meaningless things that don't benefit anyone and that nobody would care about, like the expansion of slavery in the antebellum South, then this afternoon how and why the Allies won WWII, and why it's important.

Yeah, but ckroberts, you can't just show up to a job interview and discuss the reasons why the Allies won WWII and expect to get a job as an engineer. Where are you going to get your SKILLS?

You don't want to be an engineer if you study History though. Maybe you have a crucial insight while studying History and build a political career around it. A lot is possible.

Of course, I'm glad that several of my interests lie where the money is. That's practically a given due to the amount of interests, though.

That said, I don't think I'd ever follow the money if that's not where my interests would be. What I do doubt is that I would do a study for a useless degree in my interests though. I would be more likely to study it myself as a hobby and get creative or rely on society to make a living.
Yes, I'm totally cool with people relying on society for their living in that case. Dreams need to be pursued or this world is damned. I guess I'd be more likely to write books or something though.

As an all-rounder, I have trouble imagining having absolutely no lucrative interests though. There are so many interesting things to choose from!

I tried to be diplomatic about it but my concerns with academia are almost entirely with the bloat/administration aspect of the article. I hold no special reverence for STEM (and spent all my electives on Philosophy courses). Just a personal clarification.

@Valis, the article I shared has a good deal of bitching about administration, if you haven't already given it a read. Also, my comment about STEM wasn't directed at you.

@krellin, you can study art history and develop skills that apply to all fields. Writing, for example, is one of them. I've found that people in areas of study like math or engineering tend to be bloody awful at writing essays or most forms of written communication. Studies in philosophy, which are generally seen to be useless, teach very clear and critical thinking.

Of course, you're right about video games. I might add that after-school specials that teach us everyone is unique and worth respecting are probably shouldering some of the blame here, too.

i just stumbled upon this, thought it was relevant.

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=2729