Are Liberal Arts Degrees Worth the Cost in This Economy?

ABC NEWS ^ | 5/23/2009 | STACY TEICHER KHADAROO

[SteamShovel]

The applied engineering courses don’t require much math.

A good understanding of algebra and a year of basic applied calculus (no theorems or proofs).

I'm not sure what you mean by "applied engineering courses".....

.....But this BSME had to take Calculus though triple integrals and differential equations. Then we used this advanced calculus in Fluid Dynamics, Thermodynamics, and System Dynamics classes.

I enjoyed the challenge and did well. I haven't used that type of advanced math in 20 years, but I am happy to have learned it. Just don't ask me to do it today because I can't remember half of the Calculus I learned then!

[Hyzenthlay]

‘Liberal arts’ degrees, today, are completely useless. They essentially mean “you just took classes for four years and still couldn’t decide on a major, so here’s a diploma anyways!” However, if you’re talking about ‘the humanities’ it depends on what the person wants to do - if they end up working in an office a history degree is useless and having business experience would have been much better, but if they want to become an archaeologist all the business experience in the world won’t help them much and the history degree will suddenly mean everything!

So, I guess there are a couple issues: First of all, not every person is cut out for being an entrepeneur. Second of all, self-employment is not feasible in every career field and especially not the sciences - being self-employed in the computer industry is quite easy, but have you ever heard of a truly self-employed entomologist? That leads to the third issue, which is that while there are business people who don’t have college degrees, who ever heard of a physicist or chemist who only has a high school diploma?

And, last but not least, there is the ‘diploma issue’ with being homeschooled. Something I’ve noticed is that if you’re in college, or have graduated college, people don’t tend to ask you if you have a piece of paper that says you’ve graduated high school, but assume that you’ve graduated. It’s a great way to overcome the ‘high school diploma required’ stipulation on some job applications.

[Nailbiter]

Sorry for delay in answering your question.

I do think that I get as much from independent reading as I would from classroom.
I might miss some divergent views, but from past experience most divergent views in classroom were from libs and their logic is tiresome.