Current Events > The problem with calling some degrees worthless...

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Verdekal
09/10/17 5:24:20 PM
#1:


is that all they value is money and not a love of learning.
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Dustin1280
09/10/17 5:24:44 PM
#2:


hence worthless
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#3
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ChrisHanson24
09/10/17 5:26:59 PM
#4:


have fun working til ur 70
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TheDarkCircle
09/10/17 5:31:11 PM
#5:


your degrees shot up to 97
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armandro
09/10/17 5:35:46 PM
#6:


Cash rules everything around us
Money make the world go round
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Polycosm
09/10/17 5:38:36 PM
#7:


I agree that it's a worthless motto. While it may be true that many college students don't really understand what they're buying, it's also true that not having a BA / BS of some sort will get your resume tossed in the trash more often than not.

There's a bubble. Degrees are overvalued by the market (students and employers alike). But that doesn't make them worthless... quite the opposite, in fact.
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GreatEvilEmpire
09/10/17 5:40:14 PM
#8:


You can learn by reading. Most of those 'degrees' are nothing but hobbies.

Philosophy, Gender Studies, Lesbian Studies, Art History, Parapsychology and David Beckham Studies can all be learned just be doing some research and or reading.

To spend a $100k on it and have little practicality in the real world, that's what you call wasted money.
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Verdekal
09/10/17 5:55:27 PM
#9:


GreatEvilEmpire posted...
You can learn by reading. Most of those 'degrees' are nothing but hobbies.

Philosophy, Gender Studies, Lesbian Studies, Art History, Parapsychology and David Beckham Studies can all be learned just be doing some research and or reading.

To spend a $100k on it and have little practicality in the real world, that's what you call wasted money.

Okay, what you just said is something I have a huge problem with.

It's REALLY arrogant to think someone can pick up books on a subject and become as erudite as a PhD holder in those fields. People who say this have usually never been judged by a master of that field.

What education does is create standards to a subject. We say who in those fields has demonstrated competencies and then they are qualified in that field.

If everyone just read on something, there would be many different opinions on the same work and more than half of them would be pretty off the mark.
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weapon_d00d816
09/10/17 6:02:31 PM
#10:


Money is relevant when it costs tens of thousands of dollars to get that degree.
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Polycosm
09/10/17 6:05:27 PM
#11:


Colleges provide structure, accountability, and certification. They provide access to peers, mentors, and facilities. It's nowhere near the same as simply reading on your own time.

Being able to learn on your own is a valuable skill which everyone should master. But learning at a university matched to your ability is far more efficient (albeit far more expensive too).
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The Admiral
09/10/17 6:06:51 PM
#12:


The love of learning is what the library and Youtube is for. If you're taking out tens of thousands of dollars in debt, you damn better view that as an investment. And if that investment results in a Starbucks career, it was a shitty one.
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YUNASBFGIR
09/10/17 6:07:36 PM
#13:


I don't think it matters really what you've majored in (unless you are going for a specific field), as long as you can transfer the skills you've learned in college. A big thing that a degree shows people is the ability to think critically.
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GreatEvilEmpire
09/10/17 6:23:10 PM
#14:


Verdekal posted...

Okay, what you just said is something I have a huge problem with.

It's REALLY arrogant to think someone can pick up books on a subject and become as erudite as a PhD holder in those fields. People who say this have usually never been judged by a master of that field.

What education does is create standards to a subject. We say who in those fields has demonstrated competencies and then they are qualified in that field.

If everyone just read on something, there would be many different opinions on the same work and more than half of them would be pretty off the mark.


I have a 1000 page Art History book on my shelf. I can read it and learn more about art history than 2 college courses combined. Why do I need to pay a school thousands to do that and the only jobs I can find are work in a Museum and maybe as a Professor? The most common path for people with useless degrees is customer service...I've seen so many cases of it. You need a bit more schooling for Philosophy, but why bother?

There are many things I've picked up over the years that makes me as good, if not better than many people who majored in it. One of them is marketing. Another is project management. Most people sleepwalk through college, so their knowledge is fairly shallow. If I'm passionate enough about something and I want to spend time learning it, I can be just as good, if not better than many college majors.

You may think it's arrogant, but I'm confident about my abilities. When you think about how much time people spend on a major, it's not that much. Most colleges don't give you the good stuff until the last year, because their whole scheme is make you stretch everything to 4 years, when most of the material can easily be condense to a year.
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GreatEvilEmpire
09/10/17 6:31:23 PM
#15:


Polycosm posted...
Being able to learn on your own is a valuable skill which everyone should master. But learning at a university matched to your ability is far more efficient (albeit far more expensive too).


That's wrong. It's inefficient. They make you take useless classes to meet their credit requirements. You're only take a few classes related to your major per semester and students usually read what is asked of them. People with real interest in a subject can learn it in a couple weeks of dedicated studying instead of months.

Most college degrees are scams. They want you to spend 4 years there so they can make money, when that degree can easily be condense to less than 2 years. Undergraduate college is great for meeting girls, but for education, it's questionable. Look at many the naive protesting college students around the country and you tell me they really know what they're doing.
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COVxy
09/10/17 6:31:49 PM
#16:


GreatEvilEmpire posted...
Parapsychology


What university offers a degree in parapsychology?

Verdekal posted...
It's REALLY arrogant to think someone can pick up books on a subject and become as erudite as a PhD holder in those fields. People who say this have usually never been judged by a master of that field.


Didn't you make a topic last week claiming exactly this?
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Dustin1280
09/10/17 6:32:15 PM
#17:


The Admiral posted...
The love of learning is what the library and Youtube is for. If you're taking out tens of thousands of dollars in debt, you damn better view that as an investment. And if that investment results in a Starbucks career, it was a shitty one.

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GreatEvilEmpire
09/10/17 6:36:52 PM
#18:


COVxy posted...
What university offers a degree in parapsychology?


There's a few.

http://www.parapsych.org/articles/34/41/united_states.aspx

Maybe it was more popular during the X-Files era, but most of parapsychology courses are now online.
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COVxy
09/10/17 6:44:28 PM
#19:


GreatEvilEmpire posted...
COVxy posted...
What university offers a degree in parapsychology?


There's a few.


So few, probably rivals the number of universities that literally offer underwater basket weaving.
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Verdekal
09/10/17 6:47:30 PM
#20:


COVxy posted...
GreatEvilEmpire posted...
Parapsychology


What university offers a degree in parapsychology?

Verdekal posted...
It's REALLY arrogant to think someone can pick up books on a subject and become as erudite as a PhD holder in those fields. People who say this have usually never been judged by a master of that field.


Didn't you make a topic last week claiming exactly this?

I'm a fast learner.
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GreatEvilEmpire
09/10/17 6:49:22 PM
#21:


COVxy posted...
GreatEvilEmpire posted...
COVxy posted...
What university offers a degree in parapsychology?


There's a few.


So few, probably rivals the number of universities that literally offer underwater basket weaving.


I threw the last couple in there as a joke. If you didn't see it, I can't help you.
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#22
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Verdekal
09/10/17 6:53:37 PM
#23:


The Admiral posted...
The love of learning is what the library and Youtube is for. If you're taking out tens of thousands of dollars in debt, you damn better view that as an investment. And if that investment results in a Starbucks career, it was a shitty one.

It depends on your values.

The thing is that to those who frown on the humanities, money = value.

That's what gets me.
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Verdekal
09/10/17 6:55:59 PM
#24:


GreatEvilEmpire posted...
Verdekal posted...

Okay, what you just said is something I have a huge problem with.

It's REALLY arrogant to think someone can pick up books on a subject and become as erudite as a PhD holder in those fields. People who say this have usually never been judged by a master of that field.

What education does is create standards to a subject. We say who in those fields has demonstrated competencies and then they are qualified in that field.

If everyone just read on something, there would be many different opinions on the same work and more than half of them would be pretty off the mark.


I have a 1000 page Art History book on my shelf. I can read it and learn more about art history than 2 college courses combined. Why do I need to pay a school thousands to do that and the only jobs I can find are work in a Museum and maybe as a Professor? The most common path for people with useless degrees is customer service...I've seen so many cases of it. You need a bit more schooling for Philosophy, but why bother?

There are many things I've picked up over the years that makes me as good, if not better than many people who majored in it. One of them is marketing. Another is project management. Most people sleepwalk through college, so their knowledge is fairly shallow. If I'm passionate enough about something and I want to spend time learning it, I can be just as good, if not better than many college majors.

You may think it's arrogant, but I'm confident about my abilities. When you think about how much time people spend on a major, it's not that much. Most colleges don't give you the good stuff until the last year, because their whole scheme is make you stretch everything to 4 years, when most of the material can easily be condense to a year.

Have you actually read that art book?

Why don't you try going head to head with a PhD in those fields and tell me how they trounced you.
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Looked gf
09/10/17 6:58:18 PM
#25:


GreatEvilEmpire posted...
Verdekal posted...

Okay, what you just said is something I have a huge problem with.

It's REALLY arrogant to think someone can pick up books on a subject and become as erudite as a PhD holder in those fields. People who say this have usually never been judged by a master of that field.

What education does is create standards to a subject. We say who in those fields has demonstrated competencies and then they are qualified in that field.

If everyone just read on something, there would be many different opinions on the same work and more than half of them would be pretty off the mark.


I have a 1000 page Art History book on my shelf. I can read it and learn more about art history than 2 college courses combined. Why do I need to pay a school thousands to do that and the only jobs I can find are work in a Museum and maybe as a Professor? The most common path for people with useless degrees is customer service...I've seen so many cases of it. You need a bit more schooling for Philosophy, but why bother?

There are many things I've picked up over the years that makes me as good, if not better than many people who majored in it. One of them is marketing. Another is project management. Most people sleepwalk through college, so their knowledge is fairly shallow. If I'm passionate enough about something and I want to spend time learning it, I can be just as good, if not better than many college majors.

You may think it's arrogant, but I'm confident about my abilities. When you think about how much time people spend on a major, it's not that much. Most colleges don't give you the good stuff until the last year, because their whole scheme is make you stretch everything to 4 years, when most of the material can easily be condense to a year.

r/iamverysmart
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GreatEvilEmpire
09/10/17 7:03:46 PM
#26:


Verdekal posted...

Have you actually read that art book?

Why don't you try going head to head with a PhD in those fields and tell me how they trounced you.


Trounce you? What are you, 18?

Who cares if they can trounce me with their Art History PhD degree? I have very little practical use for art history right now. And yes, I have read a decent part of it.

Here is the reality. People with degrees with little to no practicality (useless degrees) usually end up in customer service. A Psychology degree is just another term for customer service. Gender Studies is just another term for customer service. Public health is just another term for customer service. Philosophy? That's just another term for customer service, but if you're lucky, you just may end up in financial accounts.
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Soviet_Poland
09/10/17 7:19:10 PM
#27:


GreatEvilEmpire posted...
You can learn by reading. Most of those 'degrees' are nothing but hobbies.

Philosophy, Gender Studies, Lesbian Studies, Art History, Parapsychology and David Beckham Studies can all be learned just be doing some research and or reading.

To spend a $100k on it and have little practicality in the real world, that's what you call wasted money.


The point of any undergraduate degree is to teach you how to learn. One can say just read a lot of books, which is valid, but there is something to be said about how to systematically approach a topic.

The idea is that once you've achieved that level of education, you kind of have more of a ground work to approach any field you decide to self-study.

Majors are largely just a subject matter that's interesting to you, but rarely does an undergraduate degree qualify you to work in that field. Most of the core sciences (biology, chemistry, physics) will only net you some dead-end lab jockey job with no room for growth unless you go Masters or above. So it's not like the social sciences are the only fields that don't offer meaningful employment after undergrad. I would consider fields like computer science or engineering more of an exception, rather than the rule. And of course, most people with an undergrad degree end up working in a different field entirely.

It tells employers that you're someone who can easily be taught concepts and to solve problems (unique to their company), which is required in this more technically-skilled economy we're in today as opposed to yesteryear's factory-production based economy. Of course, everyone's different and I've met some bachelor-level educated people who are dumb as rocks with no critical thinking or work ethic and some really bright high school grads. But this is from a probability standpoint. Hire enough high school grads versus undergrads and you'll notice a trend.
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Soviet_Poland
09/10/17 7:28:00 PM
#28:


GreatEvilEmpire posted...
I have a 1000 page Art History book on my shelf. I can read it and learn more about art history than 2 college courses combined. Why do I need to pay a school thousands to do that and the only jobs I can find are work in a Museum and maybe as a Professor? The most common path for people with useless degrees is customer service...I've seen so many cases of it. You need a bit more schooling for Philosophy, but why bother?

There are many things I've picked up over the years that makes me as good, if not better than many people who majored in it. One of them is marketing. Another is project management. Most people sleepwalk through college, so their knowledge is fairly shallow. If I'm passionate enough about something and I want to spend time learning it, I can be just as good, if not better than many college majors.

You may think it's arrogant, but I'm confident about my abilities. When you think about how much time people spend on a major, it's not that much. Most colleges don't give you the good stuff until the last year, because their whole scheme is make you stretch everything to 4 years, when most of the material can easily be condense to a year.


Exceptions exist, but it's foolish for hiring managers to assume everyone is as self-driven as you are to read a 1,000 page art history text in their free time.

Spend some time in non-educated, non-skilled industries like food, customer service, or retail. When you have a college-educated applicant, it's a "weak" screen that they have a certain minimum of intellect, problem solving, or work ethic. Sure, some kids coast through college, but if you spend time in those aforementioned industries I mentioned, you'll find a pool of high school graduates who set the bar muuuuuuuch lower. Brushing off a college education, even if coasted, ignores just how little someone can do with themselves.

So yeah, while exceptions exist, it's not at all reasonable to expect them to know that about you because you say you read a lot.
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Verdekal
09/10/17 7:30:09 PM
#29:


Soviet_Poland posted...
GreatEvilEmpire posted...
I have a 1000 page Art History book on my shelf. I can read it and learn more about art history than 2 college courses combined. Why do I need to pay a school thousands to do that and the only jobs I can find are work in a Museum and maybe as a Professor? The most common path for people with useless degrees is customer service...I've seen so many cases of it. You need a bit more schooling for Philosophy, but why bother?

There are many things I've picked up over the years that makes me as good, if not better than many people who majored in it. One of them is marketing. Another is project management. Most people sleepwalk through college, so their knowledge is fairly shallow. If I'm passionate enough about something and I want to spend time learning it, I can be just as good, if not better than many college majors.

You may think it's arrogant, but I'm confident about my abilities. When you think about how much time people spend on a major, it's not that much. Most colleges don't give you the good stuff until the last year, because their whole scheme is make you stretch everything to 4 years, when most of the material can easily be condense to a year.


Exceptions exist, but it's foolish for hiring managers to assume everyone is as self-driven as you are to read a 1,000 page art history text in their free time.

Spend some time in non-educated, non-skilled industries like food, customer service, or retail. When you have a college-educated applicant, it's a "weak" screen that they have a certain minimum of intellect, problem solving, or work ethic. Sure, some kids coast through college, but if you spend time in those aforementioned industries I mentioned, you'll find a pool of high school graduates who set the bar muuuuuuuch lower. Brushing off a college education, even if coasted, ignores just how little someone can do with themselves.

So yeah, while exceptions exist, it's not at all reasonable to expect them to know that about you because you say you read a lot.

He didn't even read it!
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Soviet_Poland
09/10/17 7:30:17 PM
#30:


GreatEvilEmpire posted...
A Psychology degree is just another term for customer service.


Funny, I have a psychology degree and it qualified me to get into medical school. So far, it's helped me a lot in terms of being a better communicator and being mindful of my bedside manner with patients, because contrary to our sentiments, patients seem to care more about how we treat them as people than how competent we are at dealing with their disease process. So being good at both just makes me a better doctor.

So to make sweeping generalizations that any field of study is useless is just lowering my assessment of how intelligent you really think you are.
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Crazyman93
09/10/17 7:32:42 PM
#31:


TC is butthurt that he wasted a fuck load of money for a degree that he's never going to be able to use to pay off his loans on. LOL
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GreatEvilEmpire
09/10/17 7:36:16 PM
#32:


Soviet_Poland posted...
GreatEvilEmpire posted...
A Psychology degree is just another term for customer service.


Funny, I have a psychology degree and it qualified me to get into medical school. So far, it's helped me a lot in terms of being a better communicator and being mindful of my bedside manner with patients, because contrary to our sentiments, patients seem to care more about how we treat them as people than how competent we are at dealing with their disease process. So being good at both just makes me a better doctor.

So to make sweeping generalizations that any field of study is useless is just lowering my assessment of how intelligent you really think you are.


If you don't use it as a bridge to something else, it's useless. A psychology degree by itself is not very useful. If you look at my earlier post, I used the word "many" and "most" in my arguments. I didn't say "all", which would be generalizing.
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Soviet_Poland
09/10/17 7:36:54 PM
#33:


Verdekal posted...
He didn't even read it!


I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. I understand his premise entirely. A college education does not necessarily mean one is intelligent (whole different can of worms defining that term, but I digress) and not having a degree doesn't mean you aren't intelligent. But he's arguing from a contrarian standpoint that isn't at all conducive or adaptive to how the world works. I agree with him on some ideological level, but frankly like I said, it's just not productive to sort out each individual snowflake with an extensive screening process for each application and pretty much solidifies he's never had to sort through a stack of thousands of applications.

At some point, you use non-perfect means to screen out applicants. Turns out, an education is a pretty decent method. But the whole capitalization of higher education has put our generation in kind of a shitty position.

It's a raw hand to be dealt, but it's how you use it. I studied a "worthless" field as a stepping stone into a meaningful career and even find use of it in my chosen field on a daily basis. The return on my investment will far exceed what I put in. I think that's an adaptive way to approach the current state of our society rather than just assume all college is a scam.
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Soviet_Poland
09/10/17 7:40:22 PM
#34:


GreatEvilEmpire posted...
If you don't use it as a bridge to something else, it's useless. A psychology degree by itself is not very useful.


I don't disagree with you on that point, but I did obtain employment prior to getting accepted to medical school in a sort of "self-created" job that was much better paid and with benefits, but being college educated really was a cited factor for them giving me a chance. The annual salary was higher than what it cost to get my degree.

Like I said, a psych degree won't get you employment in the field, but an undergraduate degree does open more doors if you're creative with your job searching.

All you're advocating is going into college without being informed or without a plan is a bad idea. Congrats, the rest of the world agrees with you. But there is a subset that take it to mean all of college isn't worth it and I can't make assumptions as to what camp you subscribe to.
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Verdekal
09/10/17 7:40:49 PM
#35:


The dude says he has a massive, single book on a topic and that if he read it, he'd master the topic.

But he doesn't read it.

That's hilarious.
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GreatEvilEmpire
09/10/17 8:03:47 PM
#36:


Soviet_Poland posted...
GreatEvilEmpire posted...
If you don't use it as a bridge to something else, it's useless. A psychology degree by itself is not very useful.


I don't disagree with you on that point, but I did obtain employment prior to getting accepted to medical school in a sort of "self-created" job that was much better paid and with benefits, but being college educated really was a cited factor for them giving me a chance. The annual salary was higher than what it cost to get my degree.

Like I said, a psych degree won't get you employment in the field, but an undergraduate degree does open more doors if you're creative with your job searching.

All you're advocating is going into college without being informed or without a plan is a bad idea. Congrats, the rest of the world agrees with you. But there is a subset that take it to mean all of college isn't worth it and I can't make assumptions as to what camp you subscribe to.


Any undergraduate degrees gives you a better chance at finding a job than not having one. You won't ever see me disagree with that. The idea to to find a major worth investing in, a field that can actually translate to a job in the real world once you graduate. Take for instance. A Gender Studies degree gets you a job working in the gender studies field. A Public Health degree gets you work in the public health field.

But as I said, those degrees have very little practicality if you're looking for a job. You spend 4 years and over $100K on a degree that doesn't translate into a career. That's why people consider those degrees "worthless" and 'useless'. I'm sure you learn something, but when it's being compared relatively to other degrees, it's a lot less useful. Everyone know it's not 100% useless as you do learn some foundation that can be useful, but it does have a high degree of non-usefulness.

If you're going to further into the medical field, then your psychology degree is being put to use. I'm happy for you. I don't work in the medical field, but I do work closely with a number of doctors on building software to improve doctor-patient interactions.
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averagejoel
09/10/17 8:04:58 PM
#37:


for degrees like engineering and nursing, the value is in the degree itself - it's all about the little piece of paper that you get at the end

for degrees that people call "useless", the value is in the things you learn and the people you meet, and the people in programs like that who are aware of this, usually work hard while they're in school and get a lot out of their program
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#38
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Polycosm
09/10/17 8:24:41 PM
#39:


Verdekal posted...
The dude says he has a massive, single book on a topic and that if he read it, he'd master the topic.

But he doesn't read it.

Never mind the fact that reading only gets you two steps up the pyramid of Bloom's Taxonomy, at best. Even then, I doubt how much information someone would actually retain, cramming two courses worth of material into two weeks. As for "understanding," well... it's an easy claim to make, when one is completely untested.
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Kolibri X
09/10/17 8:26:01 PM
#40:


What's a ROI?
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Comfy_Pillow
09/10/17 8:27:25 PM
#41:


A lot of liberal arts degree holders didn't really learn much either though

I know tons of history/psych degree holders that just took a bunch of random classes that were unrelated or just like tangentially related because only certain classes were offered at certain times and they know like surface level facts about multiple topics but don't have an advanced understanding of anything.

I think most sociology/history/poli sci/psych degree holders are like that unless they go on to get their masters/phd
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EyeWontBeFooled
09/10/17 8:31:04 PM
#42:


ChrisHanson24 posted...
have fun working til ur 70

The idea of NOT working until you are 70+ was a consequence of the Baby Boom, and is not sustainable under current policies. Get used to it, is what I'd say.
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#43
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deltadan
09/10/17 8:41:47 PM
#44:


The Admiral posted...
The love of learning is what the library and Youtube is for. If you're taking out tens of thousands of dollars in debt, you damn better view that as an investment. And if that investment results in a Starbucks career, it was a shitty one.

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OEIO999
09/10/17 8:45:58 PM
#45:


Verdekal posted...
is that all they value is money and not a love of learning.


The only reason people pay thousands of dollars and go into debt, is so they can earn money through that degree.

No one goes through all that for learning. Unless you're fucking stupid.

Try and cheer yourself up for picking a shit degree all you want, it won't change reality.
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Soviet_Poland
09/10/17 8:47:22 PM
#46:


GreatEvilEmpire posted...
The idea to to find a major worth investing in


I already said I don't disagree with you on that. We just have different goal-posts as to what is worth it. If we're talking remaining at the undergraduate level, sure. Not all degrees are equal. But I have a feeling my list of "majors worth investing" is a bit wider because it's more so what you do with the degree, rather than expecting society to hand you an assembly-line job right at graduation.

GreatEvilEmpire posted...
But as I said, those degrees have very little practicality if you're looking for a job


Take two people with identical backgrounds and self-taught specialized knowledge appropriate for a job position. The one with the college degree, any degree, will be given more weight. And it's for reasons I stated before--when dealing with a large application pool at some point the decisions will be arbitrary. For reasons you may or may not agree with, a college degree will be perceived at having a higher problem solving capacity or work ethic.

This does not reflect reality in 100% of cases. But the reality is that more people with a college education will meet that minimum standard, so if you're taking a gamble on an applicant, it only makes sense to take the one with a degree.

This changes if the applicant pool is small, or necessarily skewed. Obviously a person with no education, but a lot of industry-specific experience will be taken over a fresh graduate. But barring two people of relatively similar experience, it's no contest.

Of course, some people will be more creative than others. I know plenty of my cohorts who stopped at the undergrad level with their psych degree and are lost as to the next step. That's going in without a plan. But I've met just as many premeds with a biology or a chemistry degree but didn't make it into medical school and aren't really in that much different of a situation.

A driven individual with a plan will open more doors with a degree, any degree, than a person without it. A person without a plan can be just as fucked with a degree than someone without a degree.

Hence, a degree is a very personalized decision that needs to be hedged. But it's really too complex to generalize.
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GreatEvilEmpire
09/10/17 8:48:29 PM
#47:


Polycosm posted...

Never mind the fact that reading only gets you two steps up the pyramid of Bloom's Taxonomy, at best. Even then, I doubt how much information someone would actually retain, cramming two courses worth of material into two weeks. As for "understanding," well... it's an easy claim to make, when one is completely untested.


Taking 2 courses and not making every day use of it leads to the same result. If you don't use that knowledge on a consistent basis, it will slowly fade away.

I wrote a lot of papers in college and I don't remember 90% of it. I took a fashion history class and I don't remember much of it. I know a guy who took 2 years of French. Without every day practice, he forgot most of it.

Retaining knowledge requires you to have an incredible memory, which most of us don't have or you have to practice that knowledge everyday, requiring you to constant reference, recommit to memory and expand on it.
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Soviet_Poland
09/10/17 8:55:58 PM
#48:


OEIO999 posted...
The only reason people pay thousands of dollars and go into debt, is so they can earn money through that degree.


Yes and no.

In my case, medicine is no longer what it used to be. Attendings I work with now graduated with five-figure debt and made the most money in the history of the profession.

Physician wages have remained stable (i.e., not risen with inflation as much) for quite some time now. The difference is my debt-load will be six figures. Not as good of a deal as it used to be.

I could have chosen a different field to maximize my earning potential if that's all that mattered. I chose my field because of other reasons, intellectual stimulation and enjoyment of learning being one of them.

At the end of the day, a person with a psych degree can self-teach themselves some marketing concepts, try and find any sort of experience whether it be by internship or contracted work to build a portfolio, and find a job in that industry. Maybe they make 80k after getting established. Even though they didn't study marketing.

Maybe they have absolutely no idea what to do. They're not driven. They aren't creative. So they come back and do the only thing they can think of doing. Applying to starbucks. They make $10/hr.

The point I've been trying to make is that the majority of college degrees aren't specific on the job training. You don't get a guaranteed job like a quest reward at the end of the process. People still need to figure the next steps out. That requires a plan. But that's not the fault of the degree.
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GreatEvilEmpire
09/10/17 9:01:41 PM
#49:


Soviet_Poland posted...
Take two people with identical backgrounds and self-taught specialized knowledge appropriate for a job position. The one with the college degree, any degree, will be given more weight. And it's for reasons I stated before--when dealing with a large application pool at some point the decisions will be arbitrary. For reasons you may or may not agree with, a college degree will be perceived at having a higher problem solving capacity or work ethic.

This does not reflect reality in 100% of cases. But the reality is that more people with a college education will meet that minimum standard, so if you're taking a gamble on an applicant, it only makes sense to take the one with a degree.


Like I said, I don't disagree with you that holding a degree holds more weight. Holding a college degree means someone has enough responsibility to commit to 4 years of school. They have more experience working with people, understanding processes, have a better work ethic, etc, etc. I like I said, I agree with you on that respect. But I'm really talking about comparing one degree to another degree.

Take for instance. Someone who has a Public Health degree, can't find a job in Public Health, so that person decides to get a entry level Marketing position. How do you think that Public Health degree will fare against other candidates who majored in Marketing? The choice is obvious, you want someone with marketing experience.
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Soviet_Poland
09/10/17 9:01:47 PM
#50:


GreatEvilEmpire posted...
I wrote a lot of papers in college and I don't remember 90% of it. I took a fashion history class and I don't remember much of it. I know a guy who took 2 years of French. Without every day practice, he forgot most of it.


Still has a verifiable document stated he went through the class and earned credit.

Again, from an employment standpoint that information has value. A college education is more likely to have a certain minimum standard for work ethic. He passed the class. He went through the work. Maybe you thought college was easy. Great. You would have been a good hire from a company regardless of the degree. They don't know that.

If you hire a high school grad, it might be someone who's entire goal is to shirk as many responsibilities as possible, cannot self-think and just defers to the manager for every single tiny task rather than attempting to solve it on their own, and just works to get by to the weekend for smokes and drinks.

Maybe the college grad is like that too. But to say there is an equal chance of those types of employees is kind of a stretch.
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