The Defense of Liberal Arts Post

[onlykelsey]

Firstly, no education should be subsidized by the government as that involves theft and the violence, a violation of others rights.

Well, thank you US taxpayers who gladly (not so gladly?) paid for my education via ROTC.

Happy to oblige!   In 2016 I'll pay approximately 100K in income and real estate taxes.  I'm not even counting sales taxes! I should file a police report!

I am so frustrated by threads that turn to taxation is theft (especially on an entirely unrelated subject).

[ooeei]

If you believe that taxation is not theft, make the case. You have yet to do so.

Please use Google before you make obviously incorrect and easily checkable statements.  Guitarstv has "made the case" in more than 80 posts on this forum over the last two years.

His claims are questionable. He usually attributes some vague moral obligation to 'society' to levy unequal taxes. However, that implies a reciprocal obligation. If you receive an unequal benefit from the taxpayers, you have an inherent moral obligation to repay 'society' (the taxpayers) the benefits you've received.

As our tax code becomes more progressive, I'm not too upset with growing wealth inequality because the burdens of society shouldn't be shouldered by the few. They deserve a greater return from their social investment.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theft
"the act or crime of stealing"

Taxes are not a crime, therefore no theft. 

You're arguing semantics.  There's two definitions: 1) taking without someone's permission, 2) illegally taking without someone's permission.

This is obviously legal, so you're arguing definition 1).  In the "taking without someone's permission", then anything that negatively impacts an individual in society would be theft.  Putting a murderer in jail = theft of their freedom.  Making a company pay damages for polluting the drinking water of a community = theft.  You can use it this way, but then I don't think theft would be a bad thing, theft would be what makes the country, in a good way. 

So, let's celebrate your "theft."

Everyone has a right not to be aggressed upon, they have this right simply because they exist. Taking without someone's permission doesn't suddenly become a lack of aggression because 51% decided it to make a legal to take from 49% without their permission. It is still theft, legal or not. Think it through, replace "theft" with "murder", same thing.

Your examples are ignoring a simple fact, once someone has initiated force or aggressed against someone else, the aggressor has waived his rights. To simplify: The murderer waived his rights when initiating force to take another person's life. The polluting company waived their rights when initiating force to pollute other people's water. In both cases the aggressor now owes a debt to make others whole.

Now for a fun spin that perhaps you can explain, if the murderer is a police officer he will not go to jail so as to ensure others are not harmed and he will not have to make any heirs of his victim whole (spouse, children). The police officer will either carry on with his job as usual, get a paid vacation, get to retire early with pension, or some other minor variation. This is called qualified immunity, it is the law and it is legal. There's a thinker...

Your use of force to butt into this thread with this totally unrelated topic is harming my brain.  Please make me whole by starting a new thread about the evils of government.

[shelivesthedream]

(University is a bit different in the UK. You only take classes in the subject you are studying (although you can take "joint honours", what I suppose you would call a double major, but again there are requirements for you to take certain papers in each subject, you can't just pick and choose). If you've opted for Chemistry, you spend three years just doing chemistry. Likewise English or history. The idea is to aim for depth rather than breadth. I looked at American universities because I loved the idea of having a major but being able to take all sorts of other classes on the side, but it was too expensive and I decided I didn't want to deal with the different admissions system and then study abroad.)

I have a BA in Theology and a PgDip in arty stuff. My BA ended up being heavily textual, focusing on the New Testament and the debates in the early church, with a bit of Old Testament and sociology of religion thrown in. At the time everyone told me I was developing "soft skills" and I thought it was a load of rubbish and that what I was really learning was theology. Now I think differently. It developed my speed and clarity of mind when dealing with dense texts to a level which I doubt I could have achieved on my own.

I can:
- Extract useful knowledge from seven books a week
- Turn that knowledge into a well-written and hopefully compelling report of approximately 2000 words in a day
- Argue both sides of any question
- Analyse texts, focusing on the author's intentions, the historical/social context, and the importance of and solution to any conflicts within them
- Defend my own written opinions against intense oral questioning
- Distill complex arguments over the very nature of the universe and humanity that people have struggled with for centuries into a short paragraph
- Find an answer to a question myself, by asking more pertinent questions and finding the answers to those
- Manage my own time to complete all of the above tasks as well as any optional extras (like student plays or politics) by any deadline you may wish to impose

I have realised now that not everyone has the ability to be given a simply worded task, break it down into its component parts, do necessary research, summarise findings, complete task, all by themselves to the deadline. They just don't know what to do with the one seemingly-huge task. So it doesn't matter what I think about the eucharistic nature of John 6, or the issues at stake in the first council of Nicaea. But it does matter that I can form a robust and informed opinion on them in a short time. It makes me a good public speaker as well, because I can swot up on something quickly and then speak informatively and interestingly about it for some time. I can inhale, process, and exhale information with great speed.

I now a freelance artsy person. Very few people who work in the arts are "arty-farty" when it comes to their work. Some of them do talk all kinds of shit about it, but at the end of the day you won't keep getting offered projects if you can't deliver on time and to budget. I love the project management side of my work as much as I love the creative bits. In my opinion, people who fail at making careers in the arts or humanities often do not appreciate when they go in that the creative, intellectual side of it is only part of it. You cannot be effective without also being able to manage yourself, manage resources and manage others. The 'disorganised artist' is bullshit.

I think the problem is the kind of people who select themselves to go into the arts/humanities and STEM. No one goes into STEM for funsies because they don't know what else to do. They might not know what to do, but they go into it with an eye on their future career after graduation. A lot of people do go into the arts/humanities with a thought towards their post-graduation lives, but it's also where the people who don't have a clue about their careers also go. So STEM is full of driven, practical people while arts/humanities have a mix of those and of slack-assed drifters. Of course the slack-assed drifters aren't going to succeed, and that has nothing to do with their major.

[mm1970]

Here's my take:

I want the arts to be so heavily subsidized that they stop requiring STEM majors to take those classes.  Right now a massive amount of that subsidy was taken out of my time when I was busy with something that was genuinely difficult.

I took intro to Philosophy, which was one of my best classes in all of college, and I took that one because I wanted to.

I also took years of history where I learned nothing (not that it isn't a good class, I just enjoy history on its own from a very young age, so there was no new information there).  It was a total waste of time and money.  I showed up the first day.  The day before the midterm (because it got postponed) and left when I realized it wasn't a test, the day of the midterm, and the final.  I got an A.  I never opened the book or spoke to the professor.  It was cash out the door to no purpose for information I already had.

There were no liberal arts students in my fluid mechanics lab.

I took years of literary comprehension and English between high school and college, as someone who started reading when I was 4 and who regularly reads hundreds of books for fun every year, these were all a waste of time.

There were no English majors in my thermodynamics or dynamic systems and controls classes.  I know what a goddamn sentence diagram looks like, why can none of you assholes draw a bond graph?

I love the arts and want everyone who is interested in that and not concerned with their own ability to contribute to the world and make a living to be free to pursue it.  I wasn't confident enough in my own worth as a person to pursue History as a profession.  I still got to take 9 credit hours of it at $400.00 per hour.

Just stop wasting the time of people who know they want to be something else when they grow up.  I wanted to be an engineer, and it was a waste of resources in every sense to force me to take those classes.  They should be available.  It's great that they are there.  I thoroughly enjoyed philosophy and ballroom dance.  But neither of those counted towards the requirements.

I actually got written up and had to meet with the Dean for failure to attend my American English course.  It turns out the class had assigned seating and I had been marked absent for every class.  The irony is that it was one of the few classes I attended every time because it was between two very difficult courses I was taking as a senior, so I would go nap in the lecture hall.  But, it was right after one class and all the way across campus, so I was always a few minutes late.  Missed the first few minutes where they assigned seats.  I didn't even know the University had an attendance policy.  I sure as shit wouldn't have attended if this class hadn't been during some dead time in my day.

I catch myself being contemptuous of liberal arts majors, and it largely stems from this sort of bullshit life experience.  Engineering was difficult.  Not difficult in a sense.  Not difficult in a manner of speaking.  It was objectively difficult.  Even people who are passionate about it fail to finish.  Intelligent, hard-working folks reach a point where they just can't master some concept and fail-the-fuck-out.  It isn't getting drunk and missing the final exam, engineering is just difficult.  Out of a starting group of 35 students (there was a small group of us thrown together as freshmen), only 7 of us finished.  Only 4 of us managed it in 4 years.

So when asked about funding for the arts?  I tell them to go fuck themselves.  Somewhere out there is an English professor who had a job as a TA in grad school because all the engineers were required to go through what can only be described as hazing by the college of liberal arts.  I funded the fuck out of the arts, as STEM majors all over continue to do.  You want more?  You're surprised we want cuts?  Pay attention to reality.

I was also paying more to take those classes, the college of engineering had a higher base cost per hour for its students.  Fucked.

Hmm.  The liberal arts majors at my university were required to take math - at least calc if not more.  And science too - bio or chem or physics.
The fine arts students were not, at least not necessarily.

I was required to take liberal arts classes, but most were 100 level, only 1 or 2 at the 200+ level.  Which I would is the same for LA majors in reverse.  So I don't think you really have a valid argument there.

Engineering is hard, I won't argue that.  But many engineers get out of school without being able to spell or write.  Which kind of sucks.  And other majors at my school were also legitimately difficult, albeit in their own way.  I'm pretty confident that I would have flunked out of computer science, drama, English lit, or psychology.

My sister went to school to major in business when she was in her 30's.  She wanted to finish quickly but the college had a lot of liberal arts requirements.  She convinced them to waive the requirements by arguing "I'm 30+ years old with 2 kids - I LIVED it, I don't need to STUDY it."

In any event, my university had a flat tuition, no matter what/ how many classes you took.

[Chris22]

Firstly, no education should be subsidized by the government as that involves theft and the violence, a violation of others rights.

Well, thank you US taxpayers who gladly (not so gladly?) paid for my education via ROTC.

Likewise.  And then they paid me $50k a year after that to work for them!

[TheOldestYoungMan]

The argument is that STEM isn't forcing themselves on anyone.  We do arrogantly assert that it's a much less volatile path to a secure lifestyle (I believe this is objectively true, but am honestly too busy counting all my money to see how anybody else is doing).  The well-rounded renaissance education model is the result of centuries of romanticism from liberal arts.  The dean at the college of engineering isn't insisting his curriculum include liberal arts courses, and he gives zero fucks if any liberal arts students want to take classes in engineering.  The concept, the idea, that it is OK to have such requirements is persistent:

[/quote]
I don't remember having engineering/science majors in my higher level English classes.  I did have certain math and science classes that I had to take for my degree.  There are certain basic math, science, language, and history classes that all students are required to take or get equivalent credit for.  Once the basics are out of the way, then the higher level classes are geared towards certain degrees, so it's not surprising that those classes don't have a lot of crossover between majors/minors.    I've not used one damn bit of that chemistry class I took, but I had to take it anyway.
[/quote]

 And didn't that suck?  Every argument for it is intensely irritating once you look at the reality of how accessible so much of this information is nowadays.  I would have been much better served (and in fact was) by active engagement in student groups that focused on specific interests than I was by mandatory participation in arbitrarily selected liberal arts topics.

Those general requirements have significant effects.  For instance, engineering was the only major at my university which required no foreign language.  That is what tipped me into mechanical engineering instead of physics.  I wasn't the only one.  Out of the 7 of us in that group that made it, there were 3 others that admitted over drinks our last semester that if there was another way to avoid foreign language we probably wouldn't have gone into engineering.  One of those was a native Spanish speaker.  I'm conversational in German but have no interest in coursework to further the skill as it is just too inefficient a way for me to learn languages.

I contend, and my primary point, is that the whole awful mess of the "general requirements" is a direct result of social engineering espoused as a good idea by liberal arts types.  "It's important to be well rounded."  "Getting a well-rounded liberal arts education was just as valuable to me as any other degree, more even!"  "I should force that belief on others by affirming the sentiment whenever possible that only by studying a shitload of stuff you don't care about can you be a useful person."  "I will express disdain with anyone who offers me the perspective asked for as to where the attitude of many STEM people comes from."

There's no engineer out there that would design a system which focuses educational resources on individuals who are not interested in the subject matter.  I consider it a human rights violation there were so many of you forced to endure math classes with us STEM types in high school, and I got no end of your incessant whining there.  I have no qualms about inflicting my whining on you now.

...Well I certainly feel better.  Thank you.

Also this:

Engineering is hard, I won't argue that.  But many engineers get out of school without being able to spell or write dumb down their ideas so we can understand them.  Which kind of sucks. 

Fixed that for you.

Almost every engineering program has a final graduation project that has a written component that would make most of you lie down and die.  We just don't complain about that part of it because it's so fucking easy compared to being able to generate the content you're writing about.  By the time your product/design/idea works, the write-up takes care of itself.

The complaint that gets reported:  "engineers can't communicate" is that they can't communicate outside their field right out of school.  Of course they can't.  Neither can any other grads.  Ever sit through a sermon from someone who just finished seminary?  It takes time to re-enter the general population.  You forget that most people don't know what you know, because it seems so easy now.

[Cpa Cat]

Speaking of amusing college BS.

When I transferred to a university in the USA after attending a university in Canada for two years, I had to retake Statistics and Calculus because the math department could not be convinced that Canadian statistics and calculus are the same as American statistics and calculus. Spoiler alert: It was identical.

Although I am a native English speaker, I did French immersion in school, and because more than half of my schooling was in French, I had to prove I spoke English. This was decided in a live interview, which took place entirely in English. After I took a test to prove that I spoke English, they gave me an official-looking certificate indicating that I speak English and advised me that I might need to present it to certain authorities at the university. No one ever asked for my "You Speak English" certificate.

Despite all of that... they still wouldn't let me test completely out of my second language requirement. They allowed me to bypass three out of four French classes, but I still had to take the capstone French class as a "refresher."

But that second language requirement for my degree was super duper useful. I have spoken French... wait... let me think... zero? times since leaving Canada. Except in class.

They did let me test out of my English requirements though. Because according to my "You Speak English" test, I speak English really well. That came back to bite me, because my state requires a certain number of hours of communications classes in order to qualify to sit for the CPA exam, and I didn't have enough because I had tested out of them. I had to go back and take a couple of first-year English and Coms classes as a Master's student.

[seemsright]

This entire argument is amusing. I have a BS in Art and I am married to and Engineer. 

From what I am seeing is that everyone is in agreement that if you can program or do math great...if you cannot you will make coffee is not correct.

There is a lot of things you can do with a Liberal Arts degree. The problem is in general the people who get those type of degrees don't want to do what it takes to get a 'real' job. But hell I went to school with people who their entire goal was to get on with Costco part time and do their art.  With out art you would not have a chair to sit in, or your monitor would not look the way it does. Your toaster would not work the way it does, you would not even see the logo at the top of this page. what about the billboard when you go down the highway, the TV commercials, the ads you ignore via google.  You would not have that fancy street outside your house, you would not have a million other things.

Anything you touch or see was designed, your house was designed by an architect who had to have some Liberal Arts classes and BTW any architect who becomes a photographer takes amazing photos. Industrial design is a major thing and it either takes having a fine arts degree and a masters in Industrial design or working your way up. Everything is Art.

Without a marketing/sales team that program/math etc that some people are saying STEM is better would not have a job because the company is not making money. It is the Sales and Marketing team that make the company money and gets to dictate to the Engineers what they get to program. Nor would you have any sort of documentation without people who know how to write, or project managers/coordinators.

And there is a major push to add the letter A to STEM and make it STEAM...the A stands for Art.

Art is so much more than painting a pretty picture. You would not have any sorta video games without art.

I will get off my soap box now.

[expatartist]

I also find the "my husband has lots of art degrees, and got a job teaching others to get art degrees" to be something of a self-licking ice cream cone, but congrats to him for getting a job in a field he loves.

^^Why I never got an MFA after my Painting BFA . Didn't want to spend my life perpetuating a cycle of churning out contemporary artists producing work with no relevance to most people's lives.

[A Definite Beta Guy]

Fixed that for you.

Almost every engineering program has a final graduation project that has a written component that would make most of you lie down and die.  We just don't complain about that part of it because it's so fucking easy compared to being able to generate the content you're writing about.  By the time your product/design/idea works, the write-up takes care of itself.

The complaint that gets reported:  "engineers can't communicate" is that they can't communicate outside their field right out of school.  Of course they can't.  Neither can any other grads.  Ever sit through a sermon from someone who just finished seminary?  It takes time to re-enter the general population.  You forget that most people don't know what you know, because it seems so easy now.

+1
More generally, communication problems aren't specific to engineering. I work with people with all different majors that cannot communicate effectively. Some of them have decades of work experience, too.

Some of them even graduated from liberal arts colleges.

My opinion? Not enough writing experience. Start with your damn thesis. Bottom-line up front. Whatever stupid lingo that means "tell me what the hell you want and summarize your point."

[TheOldestYoungMan]

Speaking of amusing college BS.

When I transferred to a university in the USA after attending a university in Canada for two years, I had to retake Statistics and Calculus because the math department could not be convinced that Canadian statistics and calculus are the same as American statistics and calculus. Spoiler alert: It was identical.

Although I am a native English speaker, I did French immersion in school, and because more than half of my schooling was in French, I had to prove I spoke English. This was decided in a live interview, which took place entirely in English. After I took a test to prove that I spoke English, they gave me an official-looking certificate indicating that I speak English and advised me that I might need to present it to certain authorities at the university. No one ever asked for my "You Speak English" certificate.

Despite all of that... they still wouldn't let me test completely out of my second language requirement. They allowed me to bypass three out of four French classes, but I still had to take the capstone French class as a "refresher."

But that second language requirement for my degree was super duper useful. I have spoken French... wait... let me think... zero? times since leaving Canada. Except in class.

They did let me test out of my English requirements though. Because according to my "You Speak English" test, I speak English really well. That came back to bite me, because my state requires a certain number of hours of communications classes in order to qualify to sit for the CPA exam, and I didn't have enough because I had tested out of them. I had to go back and take a couple of first-year English and Coms classes as a Master's student.

Yes yes yes!  Exactly.  If you are ever in a position to select a gatekeeper make sure you get one that understands rules are made to be broken.

[robartsd]

I can:
- Extract useful knowledge from seven books a week
- Turn that knowledge into a well-written and hopefully compelling report of approximately 2000 words in a day
- Argue both sides of any question
- Analyse texts, focusing on the author's intentions, the historical/social context, and the importance of and solution to any conflicts within them
- Defend my own written opinions against intense oral questioning
- Distill complex arguments over the very nature of the universe and humanity that people have struggled with for centuries into a short paragraph
- Find an answer to a question myself, by asking more pertinent questions and finding the answers to those
- Manage my own time to complete all of the above tasks as well as any optional extras (like student plays or politics) by any deadline you may wish to impose

This is a great post for this thread.

[Digital Dogma]

Any other folks here feel like defending the humanities? :) jump in! Tell us what you studied, would you do it all over again, what did you do with your degree? If you think the humanities are bunk, feel free to post about that too but be civil please!

I have a BA in social sciences (don't want to be too specific) from a state university, and beyond the obvious growth I've had to do as a student to receive that, I recently uncovered some information that justifies the entire experience financially.

I've been at my current job (unrelated to my degree) going on 7 years, we've moved from various legacy computer systems to new software, new email, etc. and in the process of migrating all the old information to the new systems someone must have made a mistake. That mistake associated people's emails who were hired with the conversation that their bosses had with HR, essentially forwarding me an email from 7+ years ago during the hiring process. Following the back-and-forth between my boss and HR, I could see that he wanted to hire me for a higher $/hr cost than HR. HR insisted that I receive 18% less because I was "in training", my boss pointed out that my degree justified the higher hourly wage.

HR accepted the higher pay rate only because of my social sciences BA. And I only found out about it because of a glitch.

[onlykelsey]

Any other folks here feel like defending the humanities? :) jump in! Tell us what you studied, would you do it all over again, what did you do with your degree? If you think the humanities are bunk, feel free to post about that too but be civil please!

I have a BA in social sciences (don't want to be too specific) from a state university, and beyond the obvious growth I've had to do as a student to receive that, I recently uncovered some information that justifies the entire experience financially.

I've been at my current job (unrelated to my degree) going on 7 years, we've moved from various legacy computer systems to new software, new email, etc. and in the process of migrating all the old information to the new systems someone must have made a mistake. That mistake associated people's emails who were hired with the conversation that their bosses had with HR, essentially forwarding me an email from 7+ years ago during the hiring process. Following the back-and-forth between my boss and HR, I could see that he wanted to hire me for a higher $/hr cost than HR. HR insisted that I receive 18% less because I was "in training", my boss pointed out that my degree justified the higher hourly wage.

HR accepted the higher pay rate only because of my social sciences BA. And I only found out about it because of a glitch.

I had a similar experience at a job once.  I had discussed some relevant courses in the interview (stats, cryptography, linear algebra), and it turns out the fact that I have a triple major BA in unrelated social sciences/humanities got me a higher starting raise.  That said, I think it probably would have worked just as well in the other direction (ie if I had discussed relevant language or social sciences classes and revealed my BA was in physics).  I really think people like well-rounded types.  I certainly do when I'm interviewing.

I have pulled out my linear algebra book twice in my five year legal career, and could barely stumble through it at this point, but understanding math is very important to understanding the complex financial deals I paper and what incentives might be created by drafting a payment clause one way or the other.

[Brokenreign]

Mak,

What did you learn in your first 6 months of Big 4 Auditing?

I don't think he saw this or answered this, so I thought I'd give my 2 cents. If you're committed to a career in accounting, Big 4 is far more valuable than anything you'll learn in school or elsewhere (subjective statement, but I think most would agree). It's a pressure cooker of knowledge and experience. You'll likely be interacting with controllers and CFOs in your first or second year. You learn real-world financial statement analysis, real-world risk factors, staff and time management (most people will be supervising in their second or third year) and the application of very advanced accounting concepts (IFRS and other). More importantly, you get a lot of exposure to future employers and connections, as you'll likely be moving to a different client every few weeks.

That being said, if your sole goal is FIRE in a very short period (5-7 years) of time, the crappy pay you'll receive during your first three years probably isn't worth it. From an NPV perspective, I would have been better off going to industry rather than to public accounting right out of university. Furthermore, it's a very competitive and often dog-eat-dog atmosphere with often-arrogant partners and a lack of support from all levels. A lot of people turn out bitter and unhealthy at the end.

Back to liberal arts...I have one lib arts degree and another in business (accounting). I never really got the point of the business degree. It made it much easier to get a job but the schooling itself was just rote memorization of standards that I could have easily learned from a book. I'm sure others have had different experiences though. The liberal arts degree actually helped far more in accounting than the business degree ever did. My writing and communication skills were always far superior to my peers and actually made the final exams for the CA much easier (pro tip - you can bullshit your way through a lot of the test).

It seems that there's a lot more critical thinking and collaboration required in the STEM degrees than in business though, and if you do it right, I'm sure you'd develop the same skills that lib arts majors claim to excel in. To be honest, I think a lot of the claimed benefits of each path come down more to the type of person likely to choose that type of schooling than the schooling itself. STEM likely attracts more INTJ types that already have an engineer's mindset while the arts attract those with more extroverted or aesthetic mindset.

As if often the case, I think a balance produces the best results, as seems to be the case with someone like GuitarStv. Love the comment on the importance of aesthetics in building and community design!

[mm1970]

Firstly, no education should be subsidized by the government as that involves theft and the violence, a violation of others rights.

Well, thank you US taxpayers who gladly (not so gladly?) paid for my education via ROTC.

Likewise.  And then they paid me $50k a year after that to work for them!

Yep, and on top of that they paid for my master's degree too!

Then when I got out, I had about 5 years of working for a company that got government contracts.

[mm1970]

Also this:

Quote from: mm1970 on May 25, 2016, 03:35:21 PM


Engineering is hard, I won't argue that.  But many engineers get out of school without being able to spell or write dumb down their ideas so we can understand them.  Which kind of sucks. 

Fixed that for you.

Almost every engineering program has a final graduation project that has a written component that would make most of you lie down and die.  We just don't complain about that part of it because it's so fucking easy compared to being able to generate the content you're writing about.  By the time your product/design/idea works, the write-up takes care of itself.

The complaint that gets reported:  "engineers can't communicate" is that they can't communicate outside their field right out of school.  Of course they can't.  Neither can any other grads.  Ever sit through a sermon from someone who just finished seminary?  It takes time to re-enter the general population.  You forget that most people don't know what you know, because it seems so easy now.

You didn't really fix it for me.  I'm an engineer, and I've worked with many many engineers in my lifetime.  Now, I'm going to give the guys from China a pass (I was often asked to review their papers before submitting, being a native English speaker).

However, many of the American engineers REALLY REALLY cannot spell, nor can they use proper English.  Imagine trying to understand the point that they are trying to get across.  I don't expect people to "dumb it down" (I don't require that).  But people...basic English.

[A Definite Beta Guy]

Mak,

What did you learn in your first 6 months of Big 4 Auditing?

I don't think he saw this or answered this, so I thought I'd give my 2 cents. If you're committed to a career in accounting, Big 4 is far more valuable than anything you'll learn in school or elsewhere (subjective statement, but I think most would agree). It's a pressure cooker of knowledge and experience. You'll likely be interacting with controllers and CFOs in your first or second year. You learn real-world financial statement analysis, real-world risk factors, staff and time management (most people will be supervising in their second or third year) and the application of very advanced accounting concepts (IFRS and other). More importantly, you get a lot of exposure to future employers and connections, as you'll likely be moving to a different client every few weeks.

That being said, if your sole goal is FIRE in a very short period (5-7 years) of time, the crappy pay you'll receive during your first three years probably isn't worth it. From an NPV perspective, I would have been better off going to industry rather than to public accounting right out of university. Furthermore, it's a very competitive and often dog-eat-dog atmosphere with often-arrogant partners and a lack of support from all levels. A lot of people turn out bitter and unhealthy at the end.

Sounds about right. Thanks for the feed-back. This is probably unique to the way the Big 4 operate. Like you said, you get put into contact with a lot of high-level management and touch a lot of different functions. That's a great way to learn how businesses operate.

Unfortunately, probably doesn't apply to the rest of us. You audit the books. I get chained to a desk and need to develop deep mastery of a very specific function. It's not learning how the business as a whole operates, or even the department as a whole. Cross-training is not encouraged.

So I learned more about the business world, as a whole, at university than I did at college.

What I learned most about the business world is that all the lazy idiots in high school and college are still out there, working, and they don't improve. You'd be shocked at how many "accountants" we have that do not know the difference between a debit and a credit.

EDIT: "We don't accrue for anything until it's more than 4 months old."
Who in the actual flying fuck taught you accounting? So if we make a sale you don't fucking book it for 4 months unless the cash comes in? WHO TAUGHT YOU A/R?

Ugh....

[Noodle]

I think the problem is the kind of people who select themselves to go into the arts/humanities and STEM. No one goes into STEM for funsies because they don't know what else to do. They might not know what to do, but they go into it with an eye on their future career after graduation. A lot of people do go into the arts/humanities with a thought towards their post-graduation lives, but it's also where the people who don't have a clue about their careers also go. So STEM is full of driven, practical people while arts/humanities have a mix of those and of slack-assed drifters. Of course the slack-assed drifters aren't going to succeed, and that has nothing to do with their major.

There's definitely something to that--also the fact that there can be enormous variance in the way liberal arts are taught and still end up with a degree with the same name. If taught rigorously at schools that specialize in it--small classes with actual faculty or very advanced grad students, lots of writing, expectation that everyone participate substantially in discussion--liberal arts are just as hard work as STEM (based on my college memories and the volume of homework my STEM friends and humanities friends were doing) and you come away with advanced skills in analysis and communication.  But at other schools you can also get a LA degree by sitting in big classes, writing a few papers and memorizing some stuff. Whereas in STEM, I tend to think there is less variation. Calculus at the University of Maine at Farmington is going to have more overlap with calculus at MIT than English literature at UMFarmington is with English literature at Harvard.

[Brokenreign]

Mak,

What did you learn in your first 6 months of Big 4 Auditing?

.A lot of people turn out bitter and unhealthy at the end.

Sounds about right. Thanks for the feed-back. This is probably unique to the way the Big 4 operate. Like you said, you get put into contact with a lot of high-level management and touch a lot of different functions. That's a great way to learn how businesses operate.

Unfortunately, probably doesn't apply to the rest of us. You audit the books. I get chained to a desk and need to develop deep mastery of a very specific function. It's not learning how the business as a whole operates, or even the department as a whole. Cross-training is not encouraged.

So I learned more about the business world, as a whole, at university than I did at college.

What I learned most about the business world is that all the lazy idiots in high school and college are still out there, working, and they don't improve. You'd be shocked at how many "accountants" we have that do not know the difference between a debit and a credit.

EDIT: "We don't accrue for anything until it's more than 4 months old."
Who in the actual flying fuck taught you accounting? So if we make a sale you don't fucking book it for 4 months unless the cash comes in? WHO TAUGHT YOU A/R?

Ugh....

Haha that sounds pretty familiar...the one I hear most often is "why are we accruing that? The invoice hasn't been received?" That's the problem frequently seen in business school - it's easy to get through with rote memorization. They don't force you to understand. Big 4 does. Or you can be ridiculously good looking. That seems to be a viable path in big 4 as well.

[mak1277]

Or you can be ridiculously good looking. That seems to be a viable path in big 4 as well.

I think that's a viable path in a lot of places, not just big 4.

Sorry I missed the original question that was directed to me.  I don't have anything more really to add than what has already been said about the learning at a big 4.  More than anything, for me, it taught me how to punch above my weight in a business setting.  I was almost always the youngest person in the room when meeting with clients and you quickly learn to adapt, mature and swim with the sharks.

[libertarian4321]

Even in my top-10 engineering school, we were required to take 1 humanities class per semester, for a total of 8.  It's a good thing.

I went to RPI eons ago, and we were required to take one humanities course as well.

But the selection was usually pretty thin.  You know, "History of Science" kind of thing.

Still, I enjoyed them, and they were an easy "A" compared to my science and engineering courses.

I'm glad there has been a push for STEM in recent years. 

For far too long, the push was just to get a college degree, any college degree. 

Which meant we had far too few scientists and engineers, and far too many people with a 4-year degree humanities degree, tons of student loan debt, and a "want fries with that?" or "Welcome to Walmart!" kind of job.

I'm still firmly in the "get a useful degree" camp.  You can always take night or weekend courses in art history or film appreciation later.  Or better yet, use your library.  It's free and you can learn more there than you ever will at the local University.

[libertarian4321]

Almost every engineering program has a final graduation project that has a written component that would make most of you lie down and die.  We just don't complain about that part of it because it's so fucking easy compared to being able to generate the content you're writing about.  By the time your product/design/idea works, the write-up takes care of itself.

The complaint that gets reported:  "engineers can't communicate" is that they can't communicate outside their field right out of school.  Of course they can't.  Neither can any other grads.  Ever sit through a sermon from someone who just finished seminary?  It takes time to re-enter the general population.  You forget that most people don't know what you know, because it seems so easy now.

The other poster has a point.  A lot of engineers have very poor written and oral communications skills.  They may be great at the science part, but they struggle to put together a coherent paragraph or two.  And it's not just the overuse of technical jargon (also a big problem). 

I've spent a good portion of my career "translating" the writing of engineers into English.  I feel more like a technical editor than an engineer sometimes. 

And, of course, many engineers/scientists in the USA are foreign born, and also struggle with communicating in English.

So to the STEM students out there:  You don't have to be masterful writer, but if you can communicate competently, you will be a better engineer.  Plus, I suspect there will always be a demand for those who can "translate" from engineerese into English, so you will remain employable even when other engineers might be getting laid off. 

So pay attention in that mandatory freshman English Comp course. :)

[onlykelsey]

I've spent a good portion of my career "translating" the writing of engineers into English.  I feel more like a technical editor than an engineer sometimes. 

And, of course, many engineers/scientists in the USA are foreign born, and also struggle with communicating in English.

So to the STEM students out there:  You don't have to be masterful writer, but if you can communicate competently, you will be a better engineer.  Plus, I suspect there will always be a demand for those who can "translate" from engineerese into English, so you will remain employable even when other engineers might be getting laid off. 

So pay attention in that mandatory freshman English Comp course. :)

+1.  I'm not an engineer, but did quant courses up through diff eq, linear algebra, cryptography (and got my butt handed to me by econometrics), and I have literally been employed trying to turn what engineers wrote in to normal English. I don't think it's only written work product, either.  STEM folks who can write decently, and have a high enough EQ to pick up on what's important in the workforce, which norms can't be broken, etc do much better.

[Northwestie]

I lead a group of ecologists and through all our field studies, analysis, and statistics - you still have to be able to convey information to your audience.  Good writing is a skill that can be learned and developed.   

I have been called in on projects to edit material produced by PhDs -- holy cow.  My junior staff have better writing skills.

[astralweeks]

Lurker here, but wanted to add my voice.

I'm a history professor at a top-tier (but not Ivy League) research university with a strong liberal arts foundation.

History used to be one of the top majors at the school where I now teach.  Our majors fell by half after 2008, understandably, and now Economics has doubled.  Recently, however, we've seen a slow but steady growth in the number of students majoring in History at our university.  Why?

-- Many of them want to study what they love but are also now double-majoring or minoring in something "practical" (History and Econ (future career: finance); History and Poli-Sci/IR (future career: DC-based govt service or NGO), or just History (future career: attorney, after law school).  We've also got a number of pre-med students who will no doubt become exceptional doctors.

-- Recent statistics confirm that students with a strong critical thinking background from liberal arts training do very well after college. See one of numerous articles appearing recently, which notes that humanities majors do just fine, and that good students do very well, since they go on to earn higher degrees with higher earning potential: http://fortune.com/2015/11/13/liberal-arts-degrees-critics/

-- In business, tech, and corporate law, employers are drawn to students with liberal arts backgrounds, whether or not they have training in accounting, business, or another field.  My hard-working students who aren't heading to grad school or law school receive excellent summer internships and job offers before finishing college.

CAVEAT:  much of the above is more applicable for humanities majors at "good" universities, where the name brand of their BA serves as a credential in itself.  I'm a first generation college student, and the only one of four siblings to go to college.  I can't imagine recommending to my non-academically inclined brothers that they get a humanities BA.  I'd say:  how about becoming a dental hygienist?  What about radiology tech? information technology? For some students, particularly those with financial hardship, a trade skill can provide much more job security.  But even in those cases, I strongly support some liberal arts classes along the way — they help foster the critical thinking skills we need to develop a healthy democratic civil society.

[Radagast]

I received a BA in political science in addition to two degrees in civil engineering. I enjoyed the polisci classes and learned much about the mechanics of history. However I did not think polisci was worthy of being a standalone degree, ultimately it taught no actionable material. It was everything that was left when you realized it taught neither science nor politics. The professors talked about "critical analysis", but it was clear they did not understand what analysis meant, while you could tell by looking at their faces that the students were not accustomed to mental challenge. Nevertheless it greatly broadened my perspective of the world, and it is nice to look at current events and realize that this line of thought began from that certain classical thinker, or that cultural aspect originated in some country around a certain time. Ultimately I am quite glad to have a BA and would recommend it to everyone, but not as a way to make money in absence of either a real degree or great personal drive.

In fact I think the best idea is to have both. An engineering degree teaches how to think and analyze, while a liberal arts degree provides a framework for that thinking and offers hints about how it can be expanded. It would take too much time in practice, but in theory my concept of the ideal education right now is the 3P's and 3E's: philosophy, psychology, physics, economics, and electrical engineering. Plus probably another area that varies per individual :D.

And about the engineers can't write thing: it is mostly a myth made by liberal arts majors to feel better about themselves (not entirely, one of my colleagues seemingly struggles with the concepts of spelling and grammar). One of my classes, environmental law, was offered jointly by the political science and engineering departments. Every single assignment was a written paper or essay. The professor also had a mixed engineering and liberal arts background, but was enough of an engineer to show grade distributions for our class and the previous seven years he had taught it. It turned out that the average engineer handily out-wrote the average political science major every single year. Hilariulously it was mostly taken by the lazier engineering students who wanted an easy class.

[obstinate]

-- Many of them want to study what they love but are also now double-majoring or minoring in something "practical" (History and Econ (future career: finance); History and Poli-Sci/IR (future career: DC-based govt service or NGO), or just History (future career: attorney, after law school).  We've also got a number of pre-med students who will no doubt become exceptional doctors.

Attorney is a terrible choice in the current job market. I don't think there's anything wrong with double majoring in something you love and something useful. That's cool. But just because people can double major doesn't make a history degree useful. If I am trying to drive screws and I have a screwdriver and a loofah, I can drive the screws. Doesn't make the loofah useful in the process.

-- Recent statistics confirm that students with a strong critical thinking background from liberal arts training do very well after college. See one of numerous articles appearing recently, which notes that humanities majors do just fine, and that good students do very well, since they go on to earn higher degrees with higher earning potential: http://fortune.com/2015/11/13/liberal-arts-degrees-critics/

The article you cite basically shows that humanities majors are doing much worse than the average major. Unemployment rates cited are 4.6% for average, 5.4% for humanities, 9% for high school only. That means that a humanities degree is 20% less useful than the average degree for avoiding unemployment. And I remember in the first couple of years after graduating (class of '07, what a lucky year!) things were very bleak for my humanities-major friends.

-- In business, tech, and corporate law, employers are drawn to students with liberal arts backgrounds, whether or not they have training in accounting, business, or another field.  My hard-working students who aren't heading to grad school or law school receive excellent summer internships and job offers before finishing college.

The ones who tell you about their outcomes anyway. The aggregate statistics are clear. Humanities degrees are better than nothing -- nobody but crazy Republican Presidential candidates disputes that -- but they underperform the typical degree.

CAVEAT:  much of the above is more applicable for humanities majors at "good" universities, where the name brand of their BA serves as a credential in itself.  I'm a first generation college student, and the only one of four siblings to go to college.  I can't imagine recommending to my non-academically inclined brothers that they get a humanities BA.  I'd say:  how about becoming a dental hygienist?  What about radiology tech? information technology? For some students, particularly those with financial hardship, a trade skill can provide much more job security.  But even in those cases, I strongly support some liberal arts classes along the way — they help foster the critical thinking skills we need to develop a healthy democratic civil society.

Enough with the "liberal arts=critical thinking" approach. There is no difference between humanities and other majors when it comes to learning this skill.

[GuitarStv]

-- Recent statistics confirm that students with a strong critical thinking background from liberal arts training do very well after college. See one of numerous articles appearing recently, which notes that humanities majors do just fine, and that good students do very well, since they go on to earn higher degrees with higher earning potential: http://fortune.com/2015/11/13/liberal-arts-degrees-critics/

The article you cite basically shows that humanities majors are doing much worse than the average major. Unemployment rates cited are 4.6% for average, 5.4% for humanities, 9% for high school only. That means that a humanities degree is 20% less useful than the average degree for avoiding unemployment. And I remember in the first couple of years after graduating (class of '07, what a lucky year!) things were very bleak for my humanities-major friends.

No it doesn't.

As someone with a science background, you should be well aware that correlation doesn't imply causation.  You're drawing an unsupported conclusion about the usefulness of the degree from the data without considering the many possible confounding factors (several of which have already been brought up and discussed in this thread).

[MrMoogle]

-- Recent statistics confirm that students with a strong critical thinking background from liberal arts training do very well after college. See one of numerous articles appearing recently, which notes that humanities majors do just fine, and that good students do very well, since they go on to earn higher degrees with higher earning potential: http://fortune.com/2015/11/13/liberal-arts-degrees-critics/

The article you cite basically shows that humanities majors are doing much worse than the average major. Unemployment rates cited are 4.6% for average, 5.4% for humanities, 9% for high school only. That means that a humanities degree is 20% less useful than the average degree for avoiding unemployment. And I remember in the first couple of years after graduating (class of '07, what a lucky year!) things were very bleak for my humanities-major friends.

No it doesn't.

As someone with a science background, you should be well aware that correlation doesn't imply causation.  You're drawing an unsupported conclusion about the usefulness of the degree from the data without considering the many possible confounding factors (several of which have already been brought up and discussed in this thread).

This.  Even the "humanities are better than no degree" isn't necessarily true.  It requires something to be able to get a degree.  If those people chose not to get one, I am confident, without the degree, they would be more employable than those who wouldn't start/finish. 

All of those famous college dropouts, had they have finished, they might have been less successful, since it took time away from their success.  But I'm sure they could have finished, and they would have still been successful, just not famously successful.

[beltim]

-- Recent statistics confirm that students with a strong critical thinking background from liberal arts training do very well after college. See one of numerous articles appearing recently, which notes that humanities majors do just fine, and that good students do very well, since they go on to earn higher degrees with higher earning potential: http://fortune.com/2015/11/13/liberal-arts-degrees-critics/

The article you cite basically shows that humanities majors are doing much worse than the average major. Unemployment rates cited are 4.6% for average, 5.4% for humanities, 9% for high school only. That means that a humanities degree is 20% less useful than the average degree for avoiding unemployment. And I remember in the first couple of years after graduating (class of '07, what a lucky year!) things were very bleak for my humanities-major friends.

No it doesn't.

As someone with a science background, you should be well aware that correlation doesn't imply causation.  You're drawing an unsupported conclusion about the usefulness of the degree from the data without considering the many possible confounding factors (several of which have already been brought up and discussed in this thread).

Not only that, even the math is wrong.  Assuming the data are right, ignoring any possible confounding factors, and using the metric defined by obstinate: "avoiding unemployment" the correct math is that 95.4% of college graduates currently are avoiding unemployment, and 94.6% of college graduates with liberal arts majors are currently avoiding unemployment.  So the average college graduate is just 0.8 percentage points (80 basis points) more likely to avoid unemployment, which is a 0.8/.946 = 0.85% more likely to avoid unemployment.

[mm1970]

Even in my top-10 engineering school, we were required to take 1 humanities class per semester, for a total of 8.  It's a good thing.

I went to RPI eons ago, and we were required to take one humanities course as well.

But the selection was usually pretty thin.  You know, "History of Science" kind of thing.

Still, I enjoyed them, and they were an easy "A" compared to my science and engineering courses.

I'm glad there has been a push for STEM in recent years. 

For far too long, the push was just to get a college degree, any college degree. 

Which meant we had far too few scientists and engineers, and far too many people with a 4-year degree humanities degree, tons of student loan debt, and a "want fries with that?" or "Welcome to Walmart!" kind of job.

I'm still firmly in the "get a useful degree" camp.  You can always take night or weekend courses in art history or film appreciation later.  Or better yet, use your library.  It's free and you can learn more there than you ever will at the local University.

I have several friends who went to RPI, and yeah - I'd say it skews more to engineering/ tech mostly.  It's probably rare to have a non-engineering major, I'd gather. (Carnegie Mellon was pretty diverse.  So we had other majors and many of our humanities classes were with humanities majors.)

One cool thing that my school did was institute a "free 5th year" while I was there.  They would choose 5 students from the graduating class (you had to apply for it, obviously).  The deal was that the school recognized that the degree requirements were pretty steep - so perhaps students did not get to enjoy a variety in coursework that they would like.  If you were awarded the 5th year, you were not allowed to take classes in your major (so, no free master's).

One of my chemical engineering classmates was awarded it and he chose performance and theater.  The only reason he got the chem eng degree is that his parents were willing to pay for it.  I don't think he ever used it.  I think that most of his electives were in performance (voice, acting, poetry) already.  When he graduated he moved to NYC and started working on off-broadway productions.  He's still working in the business, and a quick google tells me he's nearing six figures.  Which, you know, is totally respectable (and not much less than I make in engineering, to be honest).

[HBFIRE]

I encourage a liberal arts education, if you have the means to do it without going into huge debt.  In my opinion, ideally your undergrad should be very broad, a true "education" where you're learning how to learn and think -- education for its own sake.  Critical thinking skills are invaluable, and will serve you your entire life, and it's very difficult to quantify how it will pay off over the course of your life.  Graduate school would then be for your professional training.  Very few people truly know what their passion is at such a young age, and I think it's worthwhile spending these years learning very broadly and later narrowing that down.

Many of the top tech firms are looking for people with liberal arts backgrounds along with the necessary tech skills.  Anyone can gain skills, but finding people who know how to think creatively and solve hard problems is much more difficult to do, and these types of people will move up the ladder more quickly.  Google in particular loves finding these types of employees.  There have been many great articles on this subject, I'll see if I can dig them up and add them here.

Here is the main article I was looking for, really a great read:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-stem-wont-make-us-successful/2015/03/26/5f4604f2-d2a5-11e4-ab77-9646eea6a4c7_story.html?postshare=5581438984167825

[Threshkin]

(Disclosure: I am a Liberal Arts drop out and a two year Tech School graduate.)

I am a strong supporter of a hard sciences college education because it easier to turn it into a well paying job.

BUT the most important thing anyone should learn is how to communicate effectively.  It does not matter how smart you are if you cannot share your knowledge. 

As a result, I also strongly encourage students to take classes in public speaking, theater, marketing or similar.  Whatever floats your boat.

[desertadapted]

I’m not understanding some if the pro-engineering/STEM, anti-liberal arts arguments on this thread.   I would have been a terrible engineering student, challenged as I was by college level math.  I would have struggled to graduate, much less be competitive for hiring.  Instead, I got a BA then JD. A STEM degree and LAD weren’t fungible for me, and I think the same is true for lots of folks.  One choice would have led to academic mediocrity and four-plus years of subjects I didn’t enjoy.  The other resulted in me being passionate about what I was studying, graduating towards the top of my class, and going on to a top-five law school.  My subsequent career has been modestly successful.   Point here: I excelled doing something I liked and was good at.  The same is true of others. Sure, it may have been more efficient for me to be a great engineering /comp sci student in terms of my speed to a remunerative job.  But that wasn’t in the cards both as a matter of interest or aptitude.   

So if I wasn’t qualified to become an engineer, why push me in that direction?  Why threaten my access to loans/grants?  The US taxpayer subsidized my fantastically expensive education with Safford Loans.  And the US taxpayer has gotten a solid ROI.  Besides having repaid all loans, I’ve made good money and paid really friendly levels of taxes to Uncle Sam over the past 15 years.  Do you engineer-boosting types really think your profession would be improved by the likes of me sharing your classroom?  By me having engineering school debt that I would struggle to pay because I couldn’t do the work?  Why create such a powerful inefficiency in the government subsidy of education?* Passion and aptitude come in many forms.  And that doesn’t take an engineering degree to figure out.

*Not wanting to get into an argument with the ubiquitous libertarian clique that is opposed to all government subsidy of education, taxes, etc., life being too short, and Sisyphus having been a lesson, not something to aspire to (see what I did there?  Yay, liberal arts!). 

[StarBright]

I’m not understanding some if the pro-engineering/STEM, anti-liberal arts arguments on this thread.   I would have been a terrible engineering student, challenged as I was by college level math.  I would have struggled to graduate, much less be competitive for hiring.  Instead, I got a BA then JD. A STEM degree and LAD weren’t fungible for me, and I think the same is true for lots of folks.  One choice would have led to academic mediocrity and four-plus years of subjects I didn’t enjoy.  The other resulted in me being passionate about what I was studying, graduating towards the top of my class, and going on to a top-five law school.  My subsequent career has been modestly successful.   Point here: I excelled doing something I liked and was good at.  The same is true of others. Sure, it may have been more efficient for me to be a great engineering /comp sci student in terms of my speed to a remunerative job.  But that wasn’t in the cards both as a matter of interest or aptitude.   

So if I wasn’t qualified to become an engineer, why push me in that direction?  Why threaten my access to loans/grants?  The US taxpayer subsidized my fantastically expensive education with Safford Loans.  And the US taxpayer has gotten a solid ROI.  Besides having repaid all loans, I’ve made good money and paid really friendly levels of taxes to Uncle Sam over the past 15 years.  Do you engineer-boosting types really think your profession would be improved by the likes of me sharing your classroom?  By me having engineering school debt that I would struggle to pay because I couldn’t do the work?  Why create such a powerful inefficiency in the government subsidy of education?* Passion and aptitude come in many forms.  And that doesn’t take an engineering degree to figure out.

*Not wanting to get into an argument with the ubiquitous libertarian clique that is opposed to all government subsidy of education, taxes, etc., life being too short, and Sisyphus having been a lesson, not something to aspire to (see what I did there?  Yay, liberal arts!).

+1ing all of this

[libertarian4321]

Even in my top-10 engineering school, we were required to take 1 humanities class per semester, for a total of 8.  It's a good thing.

I went to RPI eons ago, and we were required to take one humanities course as well.

But the selection was usually pretty thin.  You know, "History of Science" kind of thing.

Still, I enjoyed them, and they were an easy "A" compared to my science and engineering courses.

I'm glad there has been a push for STEM in recent years. 

For far too long, the push was just to get a college degree, any college degree. 

Which meant we had far too few scientists and engineers, and far too many people with a 4-year degree humanities degree, tons of student loan debt, and a "want fries with that?" or "Welcome to Walmart!" kind of job.

I'm still firmly in the "get a useful degree" camp.  You can always take night or weekend courses in art history or film appreciation later.  Or better yet, use your library.  It's free and you can learn more there than you ever will at the local University.

I have several friends who went to RPI, and yeah - I'd say it skews more to engineering/ tech mostly.  It's probably rare to have a non-engineering major, I'd gather.

There were plenty of non-engineers.  RPI is has lots of math and science majors.  Very diverse.  :)

Things might be different now, but I doubt it.

[lightmyfire]

I'm still firmly in the "get a useful degree" camp.  You can always take night or weekend courses in art history or film appreciation later.  Or better yet, use your library.  It's free and you can learn more there than you ever will at the local University.

To turn this on its head - I guess I took the opposite approach.  I pursued the humanities in a broad way (admittedly was of the "study what you love" school of thought), and had the ability to do so without crushing debt due to being a National Merit Scholar and getting a full ride scholarship.  My first job out of college was at a university library, where I was hired because of my broad humanities knowledge, of pertinence to library patrons.  I also realized that working for a university allowed me to keep taking classes - in any subject - for free.  While I am also a voracious reader and self-didact, there's something about the classroom experience that can't be translated into a MOOC or a book.  And there is something particular to those humanities seminars, bouncing ideas around a room and seeing where they land, that very much improves the human experience and dialectic.  But maybe one of these days I'll go take those entomology classes I missed out on in undergrad.

[Singuy]

Paying for you to do something you really like (just think up all the majors in a university that you are interested in but may not yield a job) without a return on investment is called a hobby, not a career. Nuff said...

If you are paying, learn something that is hard to replicate without your degree. Don't let some youtube watching self-taught history buff who used the public library debate your fancy history degree to the floor.

If you are not good at Stem, then perhaps paying for college is not for you. Go get a job, start investing early, and become FIRE in your 40s working as a waitress. If you really love music theory, pull up a free youtube lecture from the University of Berkley and go at it for free.

I don't see why anyone would spend 50k/year paying for a degree that may not yield any return on investment when you can learn anything you want for free via internet....waste of time and money.

[MrMoogle]

Paying for you to do something you really like (just think up all the majors in a university that you are interested in but may not yield a job) without a return on investment is called a hobby, not a career. Nuff said...

If you are paying, learn something that is hard to replicate without your degree. Don't let some youtube watching self-taught history buff who used the public library debate your fancy history degree to the floor.

If you are not good at Stem, then perhaps paying for college is not for you. Go get a job, start investing early, and become FIRE in your 40s working as a waitress. If you really love music theory, pull up a free youtube lecture from the University of Berkley and go at it for free.

I don't see why anyone would spend 50k/year paying for a degree that may not yield any return on investment when you can learn anything you want for free via internet....waste of time and money.

But learning it from the internet doesn't give you a pretty paper saying your special.  This is both a joke and truth.  So many positions now require a bachelors, even though the task should not.  But since so many people have bachelors, they can be picky and make it a requirement.  It's harder to use "self taught" when applying for a job, but to me, it means more than a diploma, if you actually know your stuff, which is hard to show in many interviews.

[sstants]

When I'm not working I'm almost constantly benefiting from the arts. Enjoying the nice items I have in my home that someone has designed, listening to music, watching a movie, reading books. I don't mind paying for these things either because it adds to my life and to the life of the artist.

A culture and society without art and without people that seek to improve their artistic talents would be very dull. I'm not artistic so I do data analytics and that is how I contribute, and I'd never try to be a painter. But I'd hope that someone who sucks at analytics and is great at painting pursues painting.

A balance between science, literature, fine art, design and other fields is important, as it always has been!

[Chris22]

When I'm not working I'm almost constantly benefiting from the arts. Enjoying the nice items I have in my home that someone has designed, listening to music, watching a movie, reading books. I don't mind paying for these things either because it adds to my life and to the life of the artist.

A culture and society without art and without people that seek to improve their artistic talents would be very dull. I'm not artistic so I do data analytics and that is how I contribute, and I'd never try to be a painter. But I'd hope that someone who sucks at analytics and is great at painting pursues painting.

A balance between science, literature, fine art, design and other fields is important, as it always has been!

No one disputes that, what is under dispute is whether someone who wants to paint a picture, compose a song, or write a book/blog should go into debt for $50k/yr x 4 years in order to do those things. 

[Northwestie]

When I'm not working I'm almost constantly benefiting from the arts. Enjoying the nice items I have in my home that someone has designed, listening to music, watching a movie, reading books. I don't mind paying for these things either because it adds to my life and to the life of the artist.

A culture and society without art and without people that seek to improve their artistic talents would be very dull. I'm not artistic so I do data analytics and that is how I contribute, and I'd never try to be a painter. But I'd hope that someone who sucks at analytics and is great at painting pursues painting.

A balance between science, literature, fine art, design and other fields is important, as it always has been!

Not long ago I went to a intimate lecture by Twyla Thorp, the choreographer.  What a hoot.   After her talk she took questions and the first was from a young, twenty something woman.  During her talk, Twyla talked about her start and using borrowed studio time and living with a handful of dancers to save money. 

The young woman asked -- ".....well, how did you make it all work back then with such little resources?"  Twyla looked at the woman like she was and idiot and said -- "I'll tell you how, we worked our butts off, we all had day jobs, and we scrimped and conducted our art in our off hours because we loved it."   She went on a minor lecture of artists today not willing to put in the hours necessary -- no one was going to hand it to you.   What a pistol.

[shelivesthedream]

When I'm not working I'm almost constantly benefiting from the arts. Enjoying the nice items I have in my home that someone has designed, listening to music, watching a movie, reading books. I don't mind paying for these things either because it adds to my life and to the life of the artist.

A culture and society without art and without people that seek to improve their artistic talents would be very dull. I'm not artistic so I do data analytics and that is how I contribute, and I'd never try to be a painter. But I'd hope that someone who sucks at analytics and is great at painting pursues painting.

A balance between science, literature, fine art, design and other fields is important, as it always has been!

As a jobbing artist I just wanted to say thank you. I spent two years training and I certainly wouldn't have a career in the arts without that, but I also work my butt off and have day jobs from time to time, as someone else put it. I'm not some starry-eyed moron and I never was but I wanted it anyway. Could I make art without training? Sure, but I wouldn't be very good and it would probably take ten years at least for me to catch up to where I was when I graduated from art school. Totes worth it.

[plainjane]

Twyla Tharp has a great book called "The Creative Habit" - highly recommended.  I'm envious of your opportunity to hear her speak.

[Gerard]

I've brought this up in other, similar threads, and I've learned to preface it by saying "I'm not shitting on engineers, honest!":

One reason that some arts and humanities degrees result in little (or even negative) income growth is that they prepare people for jobs they're willing to do for less money. The rewards might include flexible hours and tasks, variety, good colleagues and interactions, ego gratification, or making/doing something that actually helps others. Some other jobs pay more, in part because they're less pleasant to do, and many of those jobs seem to require STEM degrees. I think the MMM site attracts STEM people not simply because they're attracted by optimization, but often because they're motivated to retire from shittier jobs. We'll all turn out fine in the end... some of us will lose 1% of our soul per year for 30 years, some will lose 3% a year for 10 years!

I do agree that it's bad to go deeply into debt for a degree that won't help pay back said debt, because debt limits your choices. But the underlying problem there is a different one, relating to over-pricing of university education and expecting 19-year-olds to be good with long-term financial decisions.

[Noodle]

I'm still firmly in the "get a useful degree" camp.  You can always take night or weekend courses in art history or film appreciation later.  Or better yet, use your library.  It's free and you can learn more there than you ever will at the local University.

To turn this on its head - I guess I took the opposite approach.  I pursued the humanities in a broad way (admittedly was of the "study what you love" school of thought), and had the ability to do so without crushing debt due to being a National Merit Scholar and getting a full ride scholarship.  My first job out of college was at a university library, where I was hired because of my broad humanities knowledge, of pertinence to library patrons.  I also realized that working for a university allowed me to keep taking classes - in any subject - for free.  While I am also a voracious reader and self-didact, there's something about the classroom experience that can't be translated into a MOOC or a book.  And there is something particular to those humanities seminars, bouncing ideas around a room and seeing where they land, that very much improves the human experience and dialectic.  But maybe one of these days I'll go take those entomology classes I missed out on in undergrad.

I don't know enough about advanced classes in STEM subjects to know if it is the same there, but humanities subjects always seem to me HARDER to learn in isolation--ie, without classmates to bounce ideas off of and a teacher to steer/model/correct messy thinking and arguing. Studying English literature isn't about reading Oliver Twist--it's about figuring out what Dickens was doing when he wrote it, and why, and framing an argument as to why your answer to the question is better than others. I don't disagree that right now humanities degrees are risky and certainly a bad bet if you want to retire early (if I had millions to dispose of, I'd put it into scholarships in the humanities for students who don't have financial backing, so they can go into careers that are going to have low pay without also strapping on debt)  and it makes me sad (and worried) that humanities may be a career only for rich kids for awhile. When your field is about people thinking and writing, limiting the diversity of people participating is not healthy for it.

[shelivesthedream]

I don't know enough about advanced classes in STEM subjects to know if it is the same there, but humanities subjects always seem to me HARDER to learn in isolation--ie, without classmates to bounce ideas off of and a teacher to steer/model/correct messy thinking and arguing. Studying English literature isn't about reading Oliver Twist--it's about figuring out what Dickens was doing when he wrote it, and why, and framing an argument as to why your answer to the question is better than others. I don't disagree that right now humanities degrees are risky and certainly a bad bet if you want to retire early (if I had millions to dispose of, I'd put it into scholarships in the humanities for students who don't have financial backing, so they can go into careers that are going to have low pay without also strapping on debt)  and it makes me sad (and worried) that humanities may be a career only for rich kids for awhile. When your field is about people thinking and writing, limiting the diversity of people participating is not healthy for it.

Not picking on you but in general about this thread: my motivation for going into an artsy career was to not have to want to retire so early. I.e. to find a job I'd actually enjoy doing at a moderate level for thirty years, rather than kill myself with misery for fifteen years and spend the next fifteen years getting over it.

[robartsd]

I.e. to find a job I'd actually enjoy doing at a moderate level for thirty years, rather than kill myself with misery for fifteen years and spend the next fifteen years getting over it.

Just annother way to "optimize lifetime happiness" which living frugally still helps. Lucky for some - they actually enjoy some of the highest paying careers - and my opinion is that those doing things they enjoy usually become the best in their field. I enjoy arts appreciation (reading Oliver Twist), I tend to dislike the part where I'm supposed to "figure out what Dickens was doing when he wrote it". Not that I mind at all studying Dickens as a person while also enjoying his literature, I just dislike the idea of being so presumptous that I can get into his mind. Now, if I have Dickens' journal or some other primary source stating directly that Oliver Twist was meant to express a certain idea, then I don't mind analyzing how effective Dickens was at his stated intent.

[Northwestie]

Twyla Tharp has a great book called "The Creative Habit" - highly recommended.  I'm envious of your opportunity to hear her speak.

It was the reason I went to the lecture - she signed my book!  When I went up to her she asked while she was signing what I did for a living - I said I'm an ecologist and that science can be as creative as the arts - she looked over her reading glasses at me and said - yes, I know, I wrote this book........ and handed it back to me.  I love her!