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Vive-ut-Vivas comments on Open Thread June 2010, Part 3 - Less Wrong
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I wish I could vote this comment up a hundred times. This insane push toward college without much thought about the quality of the education is extremely harmful. People are more focused on slips of paper that signal status versus the actual ability to do things. Not only that, but people are spending tens of thousands of dollars for degrees that are, let's be honest, mostly worthless. Liberal arts and humanities majors are told that their skill set lies in the ability to "think critically"; this is a necessary but not sufficient skill for success in the modern world. (Aside from the fact that their ability to actually "think critically" is dubious in the first place.) In reality, the entire point is networking, but there has to be a more efficient way of doing this that isn't crippling an entire generation with personal debt.
I would settle for just 10 times if it were in the form of a post. ;)
Evidently the ability to think critically is instilled after the propaganda is spread.
Wow, now that is what I would call fraud. It's something the students should be able to detect right off the bat, given the lack of liberal arts success stories they can point to. It's like they just think, "I like history, so I'll study that", with no consideration of how they'll earn a living in four years (or seven). That can't last.
And I wish I could vote that up a hundred times. I wouldn't mind as much if colleges were more open about "hey, the whole point of being here is networking", but I guess that's something no one can talk about in polite company.
Tell my parents this one.
On the other hand, is 'success' an existentialist concept (in that you have to define it yourself)? I would think it'd be near impossible to come to a consensus as to what is necessary and sufficient for success.
Sure, it's vague. The point is that, for any plausible, conventional definition of success you might be able to come up with, a typical liberal arts degree is definitely insufficient and probably unnecessary to meet that definition's criteria.