Why the us should cut useless courses from college degrees.

[Aclion]

I think your position on homeschooling is super irrational and largely a product of your own issues with your parents. It's pretty absurd to claim that Homeschooling doesn't provide a superior education when there are high schools with 7% literacy rates.

And there’s also high schools with 100% literacy rates, and homeschooled kids who can’t read. Cherry-picking samples is not a fruitful exercise (heh pun about fruit accidentally I guess??)

Yes, but the people clamoring for school choice aren't the ones with the countries best schools. It's poor people who are stuck with the failing ones.

[Chernoslavia]

Class war now

So to be clear— you think any course that might not be actively good for your chances at getting hired by some capitalists at a tech firm or investment bank is worthless knowledge that should be eliminated, and you can’t differentiate between the lumpenproletariat and elites with the resources to do nothing but gamble and do coke... but you’re on fire for the revolution? Lmao

Learning to be a mechanical engineer for example actually contributes to society. I shouldn't have to take a course on gender studies or multicultural literature to become a mechanical engineer.

[Senkaku]

And there’s also high schools with 100% literacy rates, and homeschooled kids who can’t read. Cherry-picking samples is not a fruitful exercise (heh pun about fruit accidentally I guess??)

Yes, but the people clamoring for school choice aren't the ones with the countries best schools. It's poor people who are stuck with the failing ones.

Are you sure about that

Seems to me there’s a solid contingent of rich antivax moms and religious extremists in the mix too!

So to be clear— you think any course that might not be actively good for your chances at getting hired by some capitalists at a tech firm or investment bank is worthless knowledge that should be eliminated, and you can’t differentiate between the lumpenproletariat and elites with the resources to do nothing but gamble and do coke... but you’re on fire for the revolution? Lmao

Learning to be a mechanical engineer for example actually contributes to society.

Learning to be a mechanical engineer who can communicate and is capable of original thought contributes even more lol

I seriously cannot stress enough how many engineers need some humanities courses in their lives. It’s bad dude

Anyways I would also humbly submit that not all learning has to contribute to the material betterment of society to be worthwhile and valuable

[Chernoslavia]

Yes, but the people clamoring for school choice aren't the ones with the countries best schools. It's poor people who are stuck with the failing ones.

Are you sure about that

Seems to me there’s a solid contingent of rich antivax moms and religious extremists in the mix too!

Learning to be a mechanical engineer for example actually contributes to society.

Learning to be a mechanical engineer who can communicate and is capable of original thought contributes even more lol

Crap like gender studies isn't going to teach you how to communicate or think critically if you already fucking can't.

[United Dependencies]

Crap like gender studies isn't going to teach you how to communicate if you already fucking can't.

Well then there would need to be improvements to primary schools.

Such courses can also improve critical thinking and writing skills for those who already have a built a basic writing foundation.

[Senkaku]

Are you sure about that

Seems to me there’s a solid contingent of rich antivax moms and religious extremists in the mix too!


Learning to be a mechanical engineer who can communicate and is capable of original thought contributes even more lol

Crap like gender studies isn't going to teach you how to communicate if you already fucking can't.

I mean, it might, have you ever taken a gender studies course? Most of the gender studies majors I know are pretty good writers lol

But if the field isn’t interesting to them, they can take a class on essay writing or short stories or politics or history or literature or literally just about anything else that will require critical thinking and reading challenging and complex works and learning to write or speak better! And it might open up new interests or passions for them too so they have an actual personality besides being an engineer (and btw the reverse is true too, humanities students need STEM in their lives)

Also it’s fascinating to me how gender studies gets shit on so much by people who did not take any classes remotely about it and are not interested in learning anything related to it lol

[Senkaku]

So to be clear— you think any course that might not be actively good for your chances at getting hired by some capitalists at a tech firm or investment bank is worthless knowledge that should be eliminated, and you can’t differentiate between the lumpenproletariat and elites with the resources to do nothing but gamble and do coke... but you’re on fire for the revolution? Lmao

Learning to be a mechanical engineer for example actually contributes to society. I shouldn't have to take a course on gender studies or multicultural literature to become a mechanical engineer.

No, you should have to take it to be a human in the world lol

[Northwest Slobovia]

Learning to be a mechanical engineer who can communicate and is capable of original thought contributes even more lol

I seriously cannot stress enough how many engineers need some humanities courses in their lives. It’s bad dude

Anyways I would also humbly submit that not all learning has to contribute to the material betterment of society to be worthwhile and valuable

Oh, yes! To all three. I've worked with engineers to struggle to write a techincal description of what they're doing right then, much less explain the reasoning behind it.

I'd certainly like my engineers to have some capacity for independent ethical thought, and have some idea that there's a world beyond solving whatever problem their employer drops in front of them; if nothing else, that that thing produces consequences somewhere. Y'know, icky humanities stuff.

The last is rather obvious: even beyond the mechanical description of the sciences that theoretical work -- stuff with no obvious, immediate value to anybody -- provides the spring from which the applied sciences and engineering later draw, much of what people pay for is of no "material benefit" to anybody. Disney made a fortune last year simply entertaining people, and the skills that went into doing that are also icky humanities stuff.

...and whatever happened to the notion that a well-educated populace is a necessity in a democracy? If all people know how to do is their job, how will they pick people to represent them in solving all the other problems we have?

[The Lone Alliance]

I'd be fine if colleges dropped unnecessary courses that are simply people's beliefs pushed as education...

Unless you're getting a degree in religious studies it's unnecessary.

other people’s beliefs: useless and not relevant, and definitely not smthn you need to know about as you go through life

Depends on if their beliefs are based on reality and not on whatever they ideology they devote their mindset too.

As for regular education.... at this point I believe it is broken beyond repair.

Beyond repair would suggest you think we might as well just throw it overboard? Or do u mean smthn else (srs question, not clear)

From what I've seen public school is broken beyond repair in the sense we are setting highly unrealistic goals for children at an early age, we've continued to try to commodize students into being products of an education "System", we talk of personalized learning but we expect all children to have the same endgame, we don't only teach the test, we teach the test several times a year which leads to critical education skills and critical life skills are completely left off because there is simply no longer enough time in the school year to teach such things, and early childhood development is gridlocked because they push more and more stuff in earlier and earlier to better "Prepare the child for college". We also force under developed brains to handle adult level organizing, and ultimately inflict the adult level stress accordingly.

Really this was a process started with "No child left behind" but it's clear that the lesson still hasn't been learned. Children aren't products, they aren't a microwave oven that you can put together and make it work, there is no single assembly line system that can magically turn every child in the country into a prodigy.

All this is being pushed by rich financiers who attempt to use all these programs as a mean to turn a profit off of these kids while they send their own kids to private schools.

The current incoming generation of school age children are going to be functionally useless adults if they don't commit suicide by the time they're 16 from the stress.

Well tbf, having your civilization ground into the dirt over the course of your life by the natural forces it unleashed in its own shortsighted greed is kinda stressful, esp when you know it’s happening in advance

I'm not even bringing that up, but those conditions also increase the tension, under the belief that the world is going to get worse they are going to internalize the belief that "Only a few will make it, only a few of us will succeed, most of us will fail."

[Senkaku]

Anyways I gotta go to bed but in the words of the late great zaddy of capitalism Adam Smith himself:

“the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent performing a few simple operations, of which the effects too are, perhaps, always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him, not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgement concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life. Of the great and extensive interests of his country he is altogether incapable of judging; and unless very particular pains have been taken to render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending his country in war.”

Broaden your horizons, torpors of the mind suck and are surprisingly easy to fall into— and since apparently fucking no other arguments are valid in arguing for the worth of learning without material benefit besides this one, IT’S BAD FOR FUCKING BUSINESS

[Lamoni]

I'm not angry. I just think the major is propaganda.

You must be a big believer in the notion of ignorance being bliss.

Please Knock it Off on the snark, it is not helping anyone.

[Senkaku]

We should remove stupid degrees like gender or ethnic studies. I don't know about abolishing courses though.

Yeah nobody needs to study “gender” or “ethnicity” are those even real words

Could never be relevant in REAL life, haha owned again libs

[Senkaku]

other people’s beliefs: useless and not relevant, and definitely not smthn you need to know about as you go through life

Depends on if their beliefs are based on reality and not on whatever they ideology they devote their mindset too.

“Ideology”? Now you’re just using made up words I don’t think I’ve ever had to know anything about a person’s “ideology” in my life

The rest of your post was decent enough for me to not think it’s worth dissecting esp since I promised myself I’d go to bed but instead I just got the soju out ;-;

[Chernoslavia]

Crap like gender studies isn't going to teach you how to communicate if you already fucking can't.

I mean, it might, have you ever taken a gender studies course? Most of the gender studies majors I know are pretty good writers lol

But if the field isn’t interesting to them, they can take a class on essay writing or short stories or politics or history or literature or literally just about anything else that will require critical thinking and reading challenging and complex works and learning to write or speak better! And it might open up new interests or passions for them too so they have an actual personality besides being an engineer (and btw the reverse is true too, humanities students need STEM in their lives)

Also it’s fascinating to me how gender studies gets shit on so much by people who did not take any classes remotely about it and are not interested in learning anything related to it lol

And it might not. I'm not interested in hearing once more about how women are supposedly still oppressed in a Western society. But no, I haven't even attended college, I'm waiting for my MEPS appointment. Then after my 4 years as an 03, it's long haul trucking for me.

You make a fair point, but you seem to assume people haven't already developed their own personality and interests during grade school. Me for example by way of getting detention, I had the opportunity to read books as was the only thing we were allowed to do in the library where students serve their detention. Mainly these books were dictionaries and history books and that's what ultimately got me interested in military history, and military technology.

Maybe because they'll just end up hearing the same thing they already know from having to listen to these same people in high school or society. I have a friend of mine who has attended Women's studies and went along with whatever they were trying to teach him just so he could pass and not have to deal with them anymore. From him, it's about how women, queer people, etc are oppressed by Western society and challenges norms and stereotypes about said people. Basically things me and him already know but want us to care. I'm not saying they should be removed, as some people have an interest in this subject, but don't force it on others.

[US-SSR]

Because four-year degrees are for the children of The One Percent. The rest of you, just get your community college certificate and take the low-wage, low-benefit, non-union, fire-at-will job we give you, and keep your heads down and be quiet like good little proles.

[Chernoslavia]

We should remove stupid degrees like gender or ethnic studies. I don't know about abolishing courses though.

Yeah nobody needs to study “gender” or “ethnicity” are those even real words

Could never be relevant in REAL life, haha owned again libs

I've already knew what those words meant before High School, hell I knew what those words meant before Middle.

[Senkaku]

I mean, it might, have you ever taken a gender studies course? Most of the gender studies majors I know are pretty good writers lol

But if the field isn’t interesting to them, they can take a class on essay writing or short stories or politics or history or literature or literally just about anything else that will require critical thinking and reading challenging and complex works and learning to write or speak better! And it might open up new interests or passions for them too so they have an actual personality besides being an engineer (and btw the reverse is true too, humanities students need STEM in their lives)

Also it’s fascinating to me how gender studies gets shit on so much by people who did not take any classes remotely about it and are not interested in learning anything related to it lol

And it might not. I'm not interested in hearing once more about how women are supposedly still oppressed in a Western society.

Is... is that all you think gender studies consists of...

But no, I haven't even attended college, I'm waiting for my MEPS appointment. Then after my 4 years as an 03, it's long haul trucking for me.

Then Smith’s point is especially true for you. It’ll be repetitive work that isn’t terribly mentally stimulating, even if it is challenging and profitable. You’ll have a need to learn and do other things in that time

You make a fair point, but you seem to assume people haven't already developed their own personality and interests during grade school.

Yeah, because they haven’t. No one goes out of high school with the same personality they’ll have even for the next decade much less the rest of their fucking lives lmfao

Me for example by way of getting detention, I had the opportunity to read books as was the only thing we were allowed to do in the library where students serve their detention. Mainly these books were dictionaries and history books and that's what ultimately got me interested in military history, and military technology.

Maybe because they'll just end up hearing the same thing they already know from having to listen to these same people in high school or society. I have a friend of mine who has attended Women's studies and went along with whatever they were trying to teach him just so he could pass and not have to deal with them anymore.

It blows my fucking mind that people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to college, decide to take a course they know won’t be materially helpful to them to see if they find it intellectually stimulating, then it turns out they hate it... but they decide “no I’m not going to drop this I’m going to grit it out... but I’m also going to drop any commitment to engaging seriously with the material or trying to learn it” like what the fuck

From him, it's about how women, queer people, etc are oppressed by Western society and challenges norms and stereotypes about said people. Basically things me and him already know but just want us to care.

“Basically things me and him already know” you know somehow I suspect there may have been a little more to it and your friend just wasn’t interested or didn’t learn it, or, worse for your relationship, he actually DID learn or enjoy some of it but knew you’d be dismissive of it so felt like he had to be as well when he talked about it with you

[Senkaku]

Yeah nobody needs to study “gender” or “ethnicity” are those even real words

Could never be relevant in REAL life, haha owned again libs

I've already knew what those words meant before High School, hell I knew what those words meant before Middle.

Well I knew what the words “mechanical” and “engineering” meant around the same time so I guess I have no need to study further

[Senkaku]

Because four-year degrees are for the children of The One Percent. The rest of you, just get your community college certificate and take the low-wage, low-benefit, non-union, fire-at-will job we give you, and keep your heads down and be quiet like good little proles.

This guy gets it. No intellectual stimulation for poors, it’s a waste of resources for us scion of ruling class types

[Purgatio]

Crap like gender studies isn't going to teach you how to communicate if you already fucking can't.

I mean, it might, have you ever taken a gender studies course? Most of the gender studies majors I know are pretty good writers lol

But if the field isn’t interesting to them, they can take a class on essay writing or short stories or politics or history or literature or literally just about anything else that will require critical thinking and reading challenging and complex works and learning to write or speak better! And it might open up new interests or passions for them too so they have an actual personality besides being an engineer (and btw the reverse is true too, humanities students need STEM in their lives)

Also it’s fascinating to me how gender studies gets shit on so much by people who did not take any classes remotely about it and are not interested in learning anything related to it lol

Yeah, because the people who understand how useless, logically circuitous and self-justifying the subject is are obviously not gonna waste time and money in that course putting up with that curriculum. Not exactly surprising.

[Senkaku]

I mean, it might, have you ever taken a gender studies course? Most of the gender studies majors I know are pretty good writers lol

But if the field isn’t interesting to them, they can take a class on essay writing or short stories or politics or history or literature or literally just about anything else that will require critical thinking and reading challenging and complex works and learning to write or speak better! And it might open up new interests or passions for them too so they have an actual personality besides being an engineer (and btw the reverse is true too, humanities students need STEM in their lives)

Also it’s fascinating to me how gender studies gets shit on so much by people who did not take any classes remotely about it and are not interested in learning anything related to it lol

Yeah, because the people who understand how useless, logically circuitous and self-justifying the subject is are obviously not gonna waste time and money in that course putting up with that curriculum. Not exactly surprising.

“I have never taken any course in this field or read anything about it besides extremist bloggers or propaganda networks saying it’s stupid and bad, and I therefore am in the enlightened elite who understand that it’s a waste of time and money, should be abolished, and is a totally worthless field devoid of intellectual value or any meaningful information”

Quick, am I a right winger talking abt gender studies majors or a leftie talking abt Econ majors

[LiberNovusAmericae]

We should remove stupid degrees like gender or ethnic studies. I don't know about abolishing courses though.

Yeah nobody needs to study “gender” or “ethnicity” are those even real words

Could never be relevant in REAL life, haha owned again libs

Nice strawman.

[Senkaku]

Yeah nobody needs to study “gender” or “ethnicity” are those even real words

Could never be relevant in REAL life, haha owned again libs

Nice strawman.

You pronounced two fields of study to be stupid, and I said yeah who ever has to study the things they study in those fields

Just because you now realize your argument is fucking stupid doesn’t actually mean I misrepresented it

[LiberNovusAmericae]

Nice strawman.

You pronounced two fields of study to be stupid, and I said yeah who ever has to study the things they study in those fields

Just because you now realize your argument is fucking stupid doesn’t actually mean I misrepresented it

Saying that I deny words and that I just wanted to own the libs is a fucking strawman. Also, I don't think my own argument is stupid so don't put words in my mouth.

[Pasong Tirad]

Did a business major write this?