Post: #26

I got my degree in Germanic Languages and Literature. Now making a shitload of money in international business development while working in Europe (several countries).

It's not the degree you get, it's how you use it.

Post: #27

(01-11-2014 08:08 AM)Blick Mang Wrote:  I got my degree in Germanic Languages and Literature. Now making a shitload of money in international business development while working in Europe (several countries).

It's not the degree you get, it's how you use it.

Agreed.
I got a degree in a particular field, then taught myself a trade related to that field.
A degree is just a foundation. You have to build upon it yourself from there onward.

Post: #28

(01-11-2014 03:49 AM)PoosyWrecker Wrote:  QC I would greatly appreciate that and I know that anyone here who has a son or is planning to would find it an invaluable guide. I'd also like to how you prepared yourself to become a military officer, how to develop the traits what you were taught in OCS without attending, looking back what were the most important things that brought success in Army and civilian leadership (MikeCF should weigh in on this too).

All right, I'll get on that today or tomorrow. (P.S.: I wasn't in Army, but USMC)

Post: #29

Delete.

Post: #30

OK, PoosyWrecker, I just posted my ideas on a new thread. Fire away with the comments.

Post: #31

(11-02-2013 06:17 PM)Consul Wrote:  I earned a humanities undergraduate degree and got absolutely nothing out of it -- not even the knowledge I was hoping for. It was the biggest mistake of my education, and, probably, my life.

This was exactly my experience...I got a humanities degree studying topics I could have easily discovered on my own, moreover it's opened zero professional doors. Simply put, a waste of considerable time and money.

Post: #32

(01-11-2014 08:08 AM)Blick Mang Wrote:  I got my degree in Germanic Languages and Literature. Now making a shitload of money in international business development while working in Europe (several countries).

It's not the degree you get, it's how you use it.

Please tell us more!

Post: #33

delete

Post: #34

Regarding the notion that French postmodern and poststructuralist philosophy led to the current state of overt political correctness at American universities, I'd like to draw anyone's attention to Julia Kristeva, one of those philosophers. In this NYT interview she stated that she and others have been routinely misunderstood in the US and that the surge of special interest groups who promote their particularist agenda (aka "mixed-race campus feminists with physical disabilities fighting for quotas in the Basketball team") was not what she intended.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/14/arts/c...all&src=pm

Quote:Of course, she is hardly the first French thinker to wield more influence over students and scholars in the United States than in France: this was also true of Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. In fact, it was the fate of Ms. Kristeva and this three unlikely subversives to be accused of planting the seeds of political correctness in American colleges long before the concept was re-exported back to France to be mocked as a typically American aberration.

Now, however, at age 60, Ms. Kristeva is bringing a new twist to this bizarre trans-Atlantic to-and-fro. She feels she has been misunderstood in the United States by the very circles that have embraced her as an icon of feminism and multiculturalism. ''Many of our American colleagues have taken what we proposed and have simplified it, caricatured it and made it politically correct,'' she said. ''I can no longer recognize myself.''

The kernel of her ideas, distilled through literary criticism and psychoanalysis, was that it was not enough simply to dissect the structure of language in order to find its hidden meaning. Language should also be viewed through the prisms of history and of individual psychic and sexual experiences. Known as post-structuralism, this approach in turn enabled specific social groups to trace the source of their oppression to the very language they used.

Today, however, Ms. Kristeva believes that the group identity adopted by some feminist, gay and ethnic leaders as a pedestal for their revindications is outdated and even, in her word, ''totalitarian,'' that freedom of the individual should take precedence over communitarianism, that political assertion of sexual, ethnic and religious identities eventually erodes democracy.

[...]

As a psychoanalyst, of course, Ms. Kristeva can only address individual needs, but that is where she sees the drama of contemporary society unfolding. ''What is important is not to affirm the power and identity of groups, but to increase the freedom of individuals,'' she insisted. ''To assume a group identity is a dead end. And if some people have interpreted French thinking to mean they should, they are totally wrong.''

As for Foucault, I think "Discipline and Punish" is a book that everyone here should read. It's everything but left-wing propaganda and extremely red-pill in its core message. The text illuminates quite clearly what surveillance by governments actually means and how social control has been refined over the centuries. The ruling ideologies do not depend any more on visible and physical manifestations of power (death penalty, corporal punishments, military parades, etc.). In the context of the early 21st century this means that with the progress of technology and the promulgation of "social media", we have created instruments that gratify the human desire for validation and vanity in a manner that was not conceivable before. Even more so, this stuff was not created by governments but by the private sector that involuntarily helps the elites to keep people in line. The panopticon seems to be real. We are now our own prison guards.

Post: #35

No one gains wisdom from the autodidact method of learning. History is learning the where and when, humanities is the why. If you think that is a bunch of unguided book learning, then you need to re evaluate what qualifies as learning.

If you want practical example, learning the humanities from the library is like trying to master a foreign language from a phrase book without ever being conversant with another person, or it like mastering a karate kata without a teacher- you might get the technical movements some what correctbut neverI learn it's applications.

In regards to the "professional" use, maybe the professsions have been indulging in academic inflation-i.e. the MBA is the best example, high pay for no real academic accumen, and they often screwup companies before bailing. Whereas the humanities served the West for over 2000 years, these technocrats have buried it in less than 100.

Post: #36

(01-13-2014 11:04 AM)Draugr Wrote:  No one gains wisdom from the autodidact method of learning. History is learning the where and when, humanities is the why. If you think that is a bunch of unguided book learning, then you need to re evaluate what qualifies as learning.

It's true it's hard to gain wisdom from rote memorization, but therein lies the issue: more often than not that's what undergraduate education is, even in "elite" institutions. Ivy League schools regularly have lecture halls of over 100 pupils and I've honestly never seen a "discussion-based course" that included actual discussion. It's almost all lecture, some of it excellent lecture, but ultimately nothing you can't get from a good book.

As for the why, that's a question that every good author will attempt to illustrate and answer, and the best will do so ably. Ironically, arguably the majority of the knowledge that's earned within a humanities course comes directly from the assigned readings...effectively, students are paying thousands for a reading list (sometimes posted online for free) and 3 hours of review each week. I deeply respect the study of the humanities and I agree that the why is the most important thing we can ever ask ourselves...but the realities of the modern college education are such that it's a flat-out bad investment with dubious tangible benefits. I couldn't agree more with Qunitus: study something practical and delve into the humanities on your own time.

Post: #37

Still, a good professor can offer perspective that only someone who has spent decades on the subject could elucidate so well. You could do the same, but that's inefficient. The professor is the expert and he is the one who sifts through all the crap and detail to deliver the critical message. You take the information and it guides you for the rest of your life. In the ideal world, he just saved you a lot of time.

Unfortunately, humanities was overrun by marxists so I think they've destroyed it.

My sister went to Smith. Never in my life have I seen uglier and more horrible people so densely concentrated. But they did take humanties seriously, and you can bet your ass she got a top-notch education, with the opportunity to spar with some very good professors.

Post: #38

As a casualty of the death of humanities, it has far more to do with ending up with a lack of practical skills than any type of curricular hijack. Reading old texts and learning dead languages doesn't really prepare you to anything other than read old texts and learn dead languages--not exactly marketable skills.


A person with a business degree says, "How can I get paid when it works?"
A person with a finance degree says, "How much do you need to borrow to get it to work?"
A person with a degree in science says, "How does it work?"
A person with a degree in philosophy says, "Why does it work?"
A person with a degree in theology says, "Who makes it work?"
A person with a degree in mathematics says, "How many ways will it work?"
A person with a degree in liberal arts says, "Would you like fries with that?"
A person with a psychology degree says, "Why do you want fries with that?"

lowbudgetballer

Post: #39

wow... that was an unusually uninsightful comment

Post: #40

(01-13-2014 12:54 PM)Saga Wrote:  Ivy League schools regularly have lecture halls of over 100 pupils and I've honestly never seen a "discussion-based course" that included actual discussion. It's almost all lecture, some of it excellent lecture, but ultimately nothing you can't get from a good book.

True in some (many perhaps) cases but the more worthwhile (well, lets say thought-provoking) liberal arts classes tend to be those that are small seminars, and usually focus on a very narrow subject matter that is of interest to the professor.

The more broad survey type classes can sometimes (often) be a bummer, but sometimes you have an instructor who is a very gifted lecturer, who enjoys the material, and they make it both memorable and enjoyable.

Post: #41

(01-13-2014 11:04 AM)Draugr Wrote:  In regards to the "professional" use, maybe the professsions have been indulging in academic inflation-i.e. the MBA is the best example, high pay for no real academic accumen, and they often screwup companies before bailing. Whereas the humanities served the West for over 2000 years, these technocrats have buried it in less than 100.

I do find that interesting, and it seems to go hand-in-hand with degrees getting more and more specialized. Years ago to get a top corporate/banking job perhaps the gentleman would go to law school after college and private school. Then that was overtaken by the MBA. Now we have the MSc in financial engineering type degrees.

Post: #42

A buddy of mine, who now is a state budget analyist, put it best when he was an accounting undergrad: this is a bullshit major, it should be a mathmatics degree with a business certification.

To clarify the problem with the library idea: one example, everyone knows of Plato's Republic? How it is a template for a totalitarian society, right?

Wrong.

The hardcore scholarship by using comparitive analysis of Plato's other works and letters shows that his city was meant as an allegory of the soul (fact us that is why the Greek title is called 'On Justice'). But the layman approaching the Classics has no way to directly access this fact. Without competency in the scholastic method or familiarity with Ancient Greek he is taking other people's word.

Post: #43

Humanities also pretty much died in Soviet Russia back in the days, because they were overridden by Communist ideology. The same thing seems to be happening now in the West with humanitarian education. Different kind of bullshit, but the same effect.

My advice to anybody who is choosing a major and has at least a little bit of talent when it comes to math/technology is don't bother with humanities. I know too many people who wasted their time and money going doing that path - both in Russia and the US.

Post: #44

Then don't bother with higher education at all. Go to technical school for less loans, more chance of employment, and higher initial pay. If you want to be totally pragmatic.