This is important, particularly the idea (with which I wholeheartedly agree) that the high-end humanities departments are destroying the brains of all the students who enter them. There's simply something wrong if your lit degree has you reading Lillian Hellman but not Aristophanes. Or your psych degree has you memorizing Freud instead of learning actual things about the brain. I could go on and on and on. Better to join some English department that isn't steeped in its own mythos, so you'll actually learn what you came to learn. If you must join at all.
The further point, of course, is for chrissakes study something else. Study something that can't be self-taught efficiently, like biochem or accounting. Suck it up. Read Hellman and Lacan and Foucault on your own time. I have never encountered a good argument against this.
Wait, there are places that do this? Yikes. I started university as a psych major before transitioning into a comp-sci double-major, and we got maybe one or two lectures on Freud in our intro to psychology class, before dropping him for almost the entire rest of the program. Or your psych degree has you memorizing Freud
Psychology–Computer Science? Presumably to become the first Robopsychologist?
I shoulda dropped out and gone to a trade-school, then. Hell, I still got time. Lock-smithing, here I come.The further point, of course, is for chrissakes study something else. Study something that can't be self-taught efficiently, like biochem or accounting. Suck it up. Read Hellman and Lacan and Foucault on your own time. I have never encountered a good argument against this.
I only just noticed this post. Isn't the value of college education in the tacit knowledge gathered? Education is much more than just information passing, even when it is something you can teach yourself. Programming, for example, can be self-taught better than ever. I've spent quite some free time learning Python. But taking a programming course greatly improved my skill and taught me the tacit knowledge I don't think I could've developed on my own to the same degree.
Really trade-schools get a lot of shit, but it's one of those things where you're never gonna get screwed career-wise (I'd assume, I'm not even in the workforce yet, so). You've got lots of options, on average make 42,000 to the 4 year degree holder's 45,000, costs less to get said degree, and it works for the people who just don't like academia, or enjoy working with their hands more. Lot of stigma against them, though.
Pretty much every time I start to think of doing a PhD on anthropology, I see an article on Hubski like this. Back to the drawing board. It's kind of empty.
This article seems to be mostly geared towards specifically english majors. Good read. What I noticed about myself is that as an adult going to school my mindset is more towards learning and what I can get out of the classes and my teachers. At this point, imo, a college degree is useful if you want to go to more school, like phd or masters. The degree isn't as important as your ability to connect with people and network while you're attending.
College, to me, is a place you go to get a degree and learn skills that get you a better job. I think there needs to be a new school that is the "enlightening" sort of world, or what I view as college needs to be split from colleges now. I've been learning most of my classes by re-learning them online after I get out of my original classes. The online ones are just as in depth so year, and I'm sitting two years in college. I could have the same skills for a hell of a lot cheaper if the internet could print me a degree.Study something that can't be self-taught efficiently,