Posted on 04/29/2014 7:12:44 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
As commencement approaches, this year’s graduating seniors can look forward to pep talks about how employable humanities majors are.
“Upon graduating from college, those who majored in the humanities and social science made, on average, $26,271 in 2010 and 2011, slightly more than those in science and mathematics but less than those in engineering and in professional and pre-professional fields,” Vartan Gregorian writes in the Carnegie Reporter. “However, by their peak earning age of 56 to 60, these individuals earned $66,185, putting them about $2,000 ahead of professional and pre-professional majors in the same age bracket.“
“Further, employers want to hire men and women who have the ability to think and act based on deep, wide-ranging knowledge. For example, the report [from the Association of American Colleges and Universities] finds that 93 percent of employers agree that candidates’ demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than their undergraduate major, and 55 percent said that what they wanted from potential employees was both field-specific knowledge and skills and a broad range of knowledge and skills. Even more evidence of hiring managers’ interest in richly educated individuals is the finding that four out of five employers agree that all students should acquire broad knowledge in the liberal arts and sciences.”
The Carnegie Reporter is published by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Gregorian is president of the corporation.
(Excerpt) Read more at academia.org ...
“The WSJ had a piece on graduates in petroleum emgineering STARTING at $97k.”
Nephew received some sort of petroleum engineering degree...hired before he was out of school...spent a few years “on-site” in the Gulf and ND...returning to school for his Master’s...to be paid for by Chevron.
With a retraining program, they MIGHT qualify to run a deep fryer...
This sounds like a crock!
[ I’d rather have them flipping burgers than becoming “Community Organizers” and building careers feeding at the public trough. ]
I am so tempted to start some liberal PAC in order to waste Soros money, at the least pay off my house, at the most make myself filthy rich, and get nothing accomplished....
Or course the price on my soul is my my only concern...
That those with humanities (or worthless) degrees have an option if food service is not in their wheelhouse.
Lawyer. Barrista. Dog walker. Sad but true.
Okay. Thanks. I kinda misread your reply and that is why I asked. I’m trying to take a new track here and making sure about things before I go off on something or somebody. Please bear with me.
I sometimes get the feeling that some folks confuse college with vocational training or an apprenticeship.
The problem with the Humanities degree in most universities is the content of the course or the lack of rigor in instruction. Historically, a college degree was not just for landing a good paying job. It was to help form the whole man. There are other ways to do it, just as there are different kinds of men.
Abandoning the liberal arts to the leftists will make it that much more difficult to counter the cultural revolution that has been raging for the last 100 years.
A well-educated liberal arts major can find good work in many fields. I am a political science and economics major who has worked largely in IT. I haven’t had to serve fries since my sophomore year in college.
Too bad they wasted potentially many thousands of dollars on a “humanities” degree. Spending several thousand dollars to learn to a carpenter, electrician or plumber (or something in the construction trade) would be way more productive
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I have noticed a trend in younger white men to do just exactly this. Blow college off, learn a necessary trade, and aim towards becoming independent business owners. They recognize that the academic and white collar game is rigged against them, and they are determined to not waste their time. I see them with more focus, determination and success under their belts than their peers who choose to pass under the yoke. Your observation is an emerging trend.
I was gonna go to work. But then I got high. Then I got high.
Abandoning the liberal arts to the leftists will make it that much more difficult to counter the cultural revolution that has been raging for the last 100 years.
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I agree with you, and would point out that the brilliance of the Founders was rooted in the humanities, not tech or math.
The problem facing a young person now is to even -locate- someone who can communicate or even tolerate a classical education or objective humanities, as opposed to some weird propaganda for the fetish du jour. There are rebels, but few and far between.
I was gonna go to work. But then I got high. Then I got high.
Then I moved to Colorado, got on on welfare so I could stay high.
Watch TV shows featuring Jon Taffer and Gordon Ramsay long enough, and you quickly come to the conclusion that relatively few people possess the skill to properly cook a burger.
We all know Humanities majors aren’t employable. What burns me up is the line of complete BS that these college placement counselors spew about how employers are looking for “broad thinkers” and people with “well rounded experience.” It points out what a scam most college majors are.
The Humanities Departments in colleges are powerful but they need a constant stream of idealistic, sucker students to support them. So they spin this line of BS that you can get a job as a Liberal Arts or Humanities major and kids believe them. The entire job placement infrastructure of the university supports this Bull__t. If colleges were honest, they’d cut way back on the number of kids getting Humanities degrees and cut professor salaries or cut back the Humanities Department staff. But we all know that ain’t gonna happen as long as they can sucker kids into taking Humanities.
Good policy. I have worked hard to curb my sharp tongue over the last couple years. I am not a quick drawer anymore :)
You are absolutely correct. The problem is that there is a very vocal group on FR that thinks of higher education only as job preparation and if you are not a doctor, engineer, or something like that, you are nothing, absolutely nothing. You cannot argue with closed minds like those.
Here is the only thing a liberal arts degree is useful for.
Job application. Do you have a college degree?
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