Humanities and soft skills are extremely useful, but significant economic gains are mainly reserved for professionals that are not actually in the humanities. If you're a "pure breed" bookworm...
Humanities and soft skills are extremely useful, but significant economic gains are mainly reserved for professionals that are not actually in the humanities. If you're a "pure breed" bookworm (which I was), you're probably screwed. Also: the price of tuition fees in the US never ceases to amaze me. Its probably cheaper to study in good, reputable institutions in foreign countries. And there are many, including ones where the dollar is worth a lot more than in the US. Some even offer free education to north-Americans. Another slightly related note: why do American universities look like fucking study resorts, full of expensive amenities? Maybe if college was less "Hollywody" it could also be cheaper.
They're competing with each other to attract the scions of wealthy families around the world in the hopes that they will become big-money donors to the university, either to curry favor with...
why do American universities look like fucking study resorts, full of expensive amenities?
They're competing with each other to attract the scions of wealthy families around the world in the hopes that they will become big-money donors to the university, either to curry favor with admissions or upon graduating out of a sense of school pride.
Same reason they put more money into their football programs than into most of their humanities education.
Same reason the business schools are always amply funded, and their faculties well compensated, despite producing scant returns in terms of noteworthy research findings or grants.
Our colleges are locked in a game where they're trying to speculate on how to get a stable of alumni who are destined for fabulous wealth. The easiest way to do that is to attract the already wealthy nepotism cases as a secure bet and then to go long on a bunch of promising brainiacs in the hopes that a few of them hit it big on something cool.
It almost definitely would have been cheaper for me to go abroad. I probably could have found a school for under $60k a year there. But I also could have done that in the US too xD as for the...
It almost definitely would have been cheaper for me to go abroad. I probably could have found a school for under $60k a year there. But I also could have done that in the US too xD as for the Hollywood aspect I can’t really say too much on that. I went to a tiny college in the middle of nowhere. We didn’t really have a Hollywood campus, we just had a president making $350k a year and staff on food stamps NOT THAT IM STILL MAD ABOUT IT DEAN CORNCOB YOU STUPID FUCKING PRICK
Wow, that's bad. I don't know what quality of education $60k would buy you in the US, but you could absolutely get a top-notch education for less than that in other countries. Or even free. Here...
Wow, that's bad. I don't know what quality of education $60k would buy you in the US, but you could absolutely get a top-notch education for less than that in other countries. Or even free. Here in Brazil, anyone can take the exams. If you study hard, you can get to the best university in the country (you would have to be very good at Portuguese and local subjects, though). But there are places in Europe with similar selection methods and courses/exams entirely in English. Just saying :P
To be fair, I didn’t pay $60k a year. I worked my ass off in high school (3 sports I could play at a college level, perfect scores in STEM areas of standardized testing, 97th percentile cumulative...
To be fair, I didn’t pay $60k a year. I worked my ass off in high school (3 sports I could play at a college level, perfect scores in STEM areas of standardized testing, 97th percentile cumulative score, enrolled in college classes online and transferred them to high school credits) and come from a very lower-middle class family (we always had a bills paid and food but for a long time that was the extent of the money we had) so I went for about $7k a year. I may have left with $25k in student loans because my family didn’t have money to spare to help not have to take those, but its WAAAY better than the $240k it would have been with 0 aid.
Oh yeah, I want to be very clear I think it's super fucked up. I'm all for free college. Education should be limited by how much you want to learn, not by how much money you have.
Oh yeah, I want to be very clear I think it's super fucked up. I'm all for free college. Education should be limited by how much you want to learn, not by how much money you have.
And what about all the people born without your happy combination of stats? What if god had spent all your sports and STEM points in mime or french poetry? :P
And what about all the people born without your happy combination of stats? What if god had spent all your sports and STEM points in mime or french poetry? :P
I'm a team lead and heavily involved in hiring for my company (a tech company). I have generally found that I almost always prefer a liberal arts, sciences, or humanities major who picked up...
I'm a team lead and heavily involved in hiring for my company (a tech company). I have generally found that I almost always prefer a liberal arts, sciences, or humanities major who picked up coding or data science or whatever as a hobby to someone who specifically studied a conventional tech industry major.
Generally, a smart person can self-teach or pick up all the skills with actual utility pretty quickly as long as they have a decent foundation. But the breadth of experience my team has tends to make them all way better at communicating, understanding our clients' needs, and coming up with more creative and clever solutions to problems than more traditionally STEM focused teams I've worked with. This is especially important for our field of work where we do a lot of bespoke work for (mostly) non-technical clients. I've found that these types also tend to have a more intense sense of intellectual curiosity that makes them willing to try novel approaches and always be learning new things.
Part of this might just be me preferring to work with people who are like me, and being lucky enough to be able to build my own team I was able to get a diverse group of people who I like working with. But everyone else at my company seems to like and respect my team too, so I'm not sure if that's all there is to it.
Edit: I don't doubt that there are plenty of STEM or comp sci or whatever majors who also have these traits, but it's much harder to pick up on for me. And insofar as its there it almost seems like they got cheated out of an edifying education for having studied something they could and would have learned on their own anyway. I can't imagine having actually learned or understood much about history or political theory without the guidance of a college curriculum. But I learned data science at a good enough level to get by in the professional world just fine mostly on my own. I don't think it would have been valuable for me to study it unless I wanted to go really deep into doing something really sophisticated, like climate modeling. But 98% of the data science work out there is so much more prosaic and it seems silly how many people are insisting on masters or PhD level credentials to qualify.
That's good news for me because I'm a programmer who can't code but majored in film, directed short-films, wrote screenplays for movies and an entire TV show season (never produced, but they're...
That's good news for me because I'm a programmer who can't code but majored in film, directed short-films, wrote screenplays for movies and an entire TV show season (never produced, but they're good, I swear!).
I’d tend to agree with your experience. I graduated with two STEM degrees from a liberal arts school and nearly minored in Religious Studies (had to be able to incorporate all majors and minors...
I’d tend to agree with your experience. I graduated with two STEM degrees from a liberal arts school and nearly minored in Religious Studies (had to be able to incorporate all majors and minors into a graduate-level thesis to graduate, didnt want to forfeit a year doing research on a topic I was interested in bc of my minor so I dropped it despite taking all the classes). I found every tech person I have met who has a similar background to me or to what you described has been infinitely better with customers, communicating in teams, and more willing to be a back of all trades and pick things up. My main selling point for interviews at every job I’ve had has been “I might not know the things you use, but my biggest strength and pride is I love to learn new things and because of that I’m a faster learner than almost anyone I’ve ever met.” I might not be the best programmer in the world, I won’t come up with a major tech breakthrough. But if you have a wide base and need someone to cover for team weaknesses I’m your guy.
Recently I've wondered if I could benefit from doing this the other way around. I already have a degree in computer science and am currently enjoying my job as a software engineer. I could easily...
Recently I've wondered if I could benefit from doing this the other way around. I already have a degree in computer science and am currently enjoying my job as a software engineer. I could easily see myself doing this for the rest of my life. But maybe I could do well as a historian, archeologist, biologist, etc. after getting a second degree - combining software engineering skills with whatever humanities topic I enjoy most.
Doing it CS first then humanities second means that jobs I can get right now will allow me to easily pay for a second education.
I’ve also considered doing this. For a random idea: i had a classmate in college who got a cs degree and then ended up hating regular software design. Last I heard he works for a college or...
I’ve also considered doing this. For a random idea: i had a classmate in college who got a cs degree and then ended up hating regular software design. Last I heard he works for a college or historical group righting software to translate old French books into English using ML ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ you really can do whatever if you’re creative and willing to move to the right places.
Edit: I wanted to note that I acknowledge that not everyone has the privilege to be able to afford to up and move to wherever you want in the US for a job and not have to think about the consequences. It sucks that it isn’t, but that’s the reality for now.
Humanities and soft skills are extremely useful, but significant economic gains are mainly reserved for professionals that are not actually in the humanities. If you're a "pure breed" bookworm (which I was), you're probably screwed. Also: the price of tuition fees in the US never ceases to amaze me. Its probably cheaper to study in good, reputable institutions in foreign countries. And there are many, including ones where the dollar is worth a lot more than in the US. Some even offer free education to north-Americans. Another slightly related note: why do American universities look like fucking study resorts, full of expensive amenities? Maybe if college was less "Hollywody" it could also be cheaper.
They're competing with each other to attract the scions of wealthy families around the world in the hopes that they will become big-money donors to the university, either to curry favor with admissions or upon graduating out of a sense of school pride.
Same reason they put more money into their football programs than into most of their humanities education.
Same reason the business schools are always amply funded, and their faculties well compensated, despite producing scant returns in terms of noteworthy research findings or grants.
Our colleges are locked in a game where they're trying to speculate on how to get a stable of alumni who are destined for fabulous wealth. The easiest way to do that is to attract the already wealthy nepotism cases as a secure bet and then to go long on a bunch of promising brainiacs in the hopes that a few of them hit it big on something cool.
It almost definitely would have been cheaper for me to go abroad. I probably could have found a school for under $60k a year there. But I also could have done that in the US too xD as for the Hollywood aspect I can’t really say too much on that. I went to a tiny college in the middle of nowhere. We didn’t really have a Hollywood campus, we just had a president making $350k a year and staff on food stamps NOT THAT IM STILL MAD ABOUT IT DEAN CORNCOB YOU STUPID FUCKING PRICK
Wow, that's bad. I don't know what quality of education $60k would buy you in the US, but you could absolutely get a top-notch education for less than that in other countries. Or even free. Here in Brazil, anyone can take the exams. If you study hard, you can get to the best university in the country (you would have to be very good at Portuguese and local subjects, though). But there are places in Europe with similar selection methods and courses/exams entirely in English. Just saying :P
To be fair, I didn’t pay $60k a year. I worked my ass off in high school (3 sports I could play at a college level, perfect scores in STEM areas of standardized testing, 97th percentile cumulative score, enrolled in college classes online and transferred them to high school credits) and come from a very lower-middle class family (we always had a bills paid and food but for a long time that was the extent of the money we had) so I went for about $7k a year. I may have left with $25k in student loans because my family didn’t have money to spare to help not have to take those, but its WAAAY better than the $240k it would have been with 0 aid.
I'm happy for your achievement, but at the same time it's sad someone had to go to such great extents to get something I consider a universal right.
Oh yeah, I want to be very clear I think it's super fucked up. I'm all for free college. Education should be limited by how much you want to learn, not by how much money you have.
And what about all the people born without your happy combination of stats? What if god had spent all your sports and STEM points in mime or french poetry? :P
I probably would have gone to a cheaper school ;)
I'm a team lead and heavily involved in hiring for my company (a tech company). I have generally found that I almost always prefer a liberal arts, sciences, or humanities major who picked up coding or data science or whatever as a hobby to someone who specifically studied a conventional tech industry major.
Generally, a smart person can self-teach or pick up all the skills with actual utility pretty quickly as long as they have a decent foundation. But the breadth of experience my team has tends to make them all way better at communicating, understanding our clients' needs, and coming up with more creative and clever solutions to problems than more traditionally STEM focused teams I've worked with. This is especially important for our field of work where we do a lot of bespoke work for (mostly) non-technical clients. I've found that these types also tend to have a more intense sense of intellectual curiosity that makes them willing to try novel approaches and always be learning new things.
Part of this might just be me preferring to work with people who are like me, and being lucky enough to be able to build my own team I was able to get a diverse group of people who I like working with. But everyone else at my company seems to like and respect my team too, so I'm not sure if that's all there is to it.
Edit: I don't doubt that there are plenty of STEM or comp sci or whatever majors who also have these traits, but it's much harder to pick up on for me. And insofar as its there it almost seems like they got cheated out of an edifying education for having studied something they could and would have learned on their own anyway. I can't imagine having actually learned or understood much about history or political theory without the guidance of a college curriculum. But I learned data science at a good enough level to get by in the professional world just fine mostly on my own. I don't think it would have been valuable for me to study it unless I wanted to go really deep into doing something really sophisticated, like climate modeling. But 98% of the data science work out there is so much more prosaic and it seems silly how many people are insisting on masters or PhD level credentials to qualify.
That's good news for me because I'm a programmer who can't code but majored in film, directed short-films, wrote screenplays for movies and an entire TV show season (never produced, but they're good, I swear!).
I’d tend to agree with your experience. I graduated with two STEM degrees from a liberal arts school and nearly minored in Religious Studies (had to be able to incorporate all majors and minors into a graduate-level thesis to graduate, didnt want to forfeit a year doing research on a topic I was interested in bc of my minor so I dropped it despite taking all the classes). I found every tech person I have met who has a similar background to me or to what you described has been infinitely better with customers, communicating in teams, and more willing to be a back of all trades and pick things up. My main selling point for interviews at every job I’ve had has been “I might not know the things you use, but my biggest strength and pride is I love to learn new things and because of that I’m a faster learner than almost anyone I’ve ever met.” I might not be the best programmer in the world, I won’t come up with a major tech breakthrough. But if you have a wide base and need someone to cover for team weaknesses I’m your guy.
Recently I've wondered if I could benefit from doing this the other way around. I already have a degree in computer science and am currently enjoying my job as a software engineer. I could easily see myself doing this for the rest of my life. But maybe I could do well as a historian, archeologist, biologist, etc. after getting a second degree - combining software engineering skills with whatever humanities topic I enjoy most.
Doing it CS first then humanities second means that jobs I can get right now will allow me to easily pay for a second education.
I’ve also considered doing this. For a random idea: i had a classmate in college who got a cs degree and then ended up hating regular software design. Last I heard he works for a college or historical group righting software to translate old French books into English using ML ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ you really can do whatever if you’re creative and willing to move to the right places.
Edit: I wanted to note that I acknowledge that not everyone has the privilege to be able to afford to up and move to wherever you want in the US for a job and not have to think about the consequences. It sucks that it isn’t, but that’s the reality for now.