Why the us should cut useless courses from college degrees.

[Cekoviu]

Intelligence is not fixed. IQ is not fixed. Can I stress this more?

by the time you're almost grown, it's very hard to change. You need to have the right environment around children when they're young, because by age 17 it's too late to change them

You're saying that 18-year-olds essentially can't learn or change as people. Are you even hearing yourself right now?

[Saiwania]

Flip burgers. Seriously. NO ONE should be unemployed that long, and everyone seems to think jobs are 'beneath them'.

I know someone who studied biology and forestry who is employed not in her field but as a hotel receptionist, because there aren't enough jobs in her chosen course of study in comparison to everyone who studied for it.

Narrow focus simply means that if you misjudged the marketability of your very narrow skill set, you're fucked.

Certain jobs are beneath me unless I have no choice and I've exhausted all means of avoiding it. I didn't pay a boatload of money and time to flip burgers, wait tables, work in hotels or whatever else. What is the point if I won't afford the gasoline to go to the place of work? I'm thinking that instead, I should conclude that college is worthless unless you're becoming something like a doctor or lawyer and instead borrow money to go to a trade school.

The college path is a bust, but picking up a real skill can be the ticket to prosperity. Dentists for example, can become employed absolutely anywhere because there are always people with teeth problems. It is just a matter of somehow being able to execute on it, even if you don't like it strictly speaking.

[Cannot think of a name]

I kind of agree. I could have had my degree in two years instead of four if I didn't have to take bullshit like 12th century poetry. If I have to take those, then the English Literature majors should have to take some calculus or physics classes.

I took:
Biology
Geology
Physics
Economics
Computers and Probability
Abnormal Psychology 1 and 2
Personality
and Philosophy
Art Appreciation
Music Appreciation

as part of the studies I needed to take as an English major before I even took any of my own coursework.
So maybe you're not as educated as you THINK about what English Majors had to take?
So, maybe you're not as educated about the requirements of

Also, math was one of the only specific requirements my general education had. Calculus was one of the three options for a transferable math requirement, statistics was another. Since my understanding of the world was going to be influenced by statistics (four out of five dentists and all...) I thought it would be more useful to me even if I would likely never have to figure out the probability of this joker using a chord substitution so I took it.

I also took astronomy which contained some rudimentary physics.

Taking 12th century poetry sounds a little specific, something either a major would take or was on a list of things that would clear a requirement. Sometimes you take what fits your schedule but maybe you could have held out for something more interesting. That's how I handled my general education. I took things that I was curious about but had no intention of dedicating my life to.

[Rojava Free State]

by the time you're almost grown, it's very hard to change. You need to have the right environment around children when they're young, because by age 17 it's too late to change them

You're saying that 18-year-olds essentially can't learn or change as people. Are you even hearing yourself right now?

It's very difficult to change them as people. Yes I do hear myself, and I'm telling you from experience that a lot of people, not all people, never change. I know experience is looked down on as a reference here, but you can't totally disregard what others have witnessed first hand

[Cannot think of a name]

Intelligence is not fixed. IQ is not fixed. Can I stress this more?

by the time you're almost grown, it's very hard to change. You need to have the right environment around children when they're young, because by age 17 it's too late to change them

That's why no one sings laments to the person they use to be when they were seventeen.

[Purgatio]

Flip burgers. Seriously. NO ONE should be unemployed that long, and everyone seems to think jobs are 'beneath them'.

I know someone who studied biology and forestry who is employed not in her field but as a hotel receptionist, because there aren't enough jobs in her chosen course of study in comparison to everyone who studied for it.

Narrow focus simply means that if you misjudged the marketability of your very narrow skill set, you're fucked.

Certain jobs are beneath me unless I have no choice and I've exhausted all means of avoiding it. I didn't pay a boatload of money and time to flip burgers, wait tables, work in hotels or whatever else. What is the point if I won't afford the gasoline to go to the place of work? I'm thinking that instead, I should conclude that college is worthless unless you're becoming something like a doctor or lawyer and instead borrow money to go to a trade school.

The college path is a bust, but picking up a real skill can be the ticket to prosperity. Dentists for example, can become employed absolutely anywhere because there are always people with teeth problems. It is just a matter of somehow being able to execute on it, even if you don't like it strictly speaking.

Okay what gives? Why do so many of your posts always take this unnecessarily personal tone of complaining about the state of your own life? What gives? NSG shouldn't be a forum for people to just vent out their generic existential or nihilistic angst. There are enough places on the Internet for people of that inclination to be moody.

[Cannot think of a name]

You're saying that 18-year-olds essentially can't learn or change as people. Are you even hearing yourself right now?

It's very difficult to change them as people. Yes I do hear myself, and I'm telling you from experience that a lot of people, not all people, never change. I know experience is looked down on as a reference here, but you can't totally disregard what others have witnessed first hand

In my experience, it doesn't rain during the summer time.

My experience cannot make summer showers go away.

[Rojava Free State]

It's very difficult to change them as people. Yes I do hear myself, and I'm telling you from experience that a lot of people, not all people, never change. I know experience is looked down on as a reference here, but you can't totally disregard what others have witnessed first hand

In my experience, it doesn't rain during the summer time.

My experience cannot make summer showers go away.

My point was that there was a lot of people who simply can never be expected to succeed at something like algebra or chemistry and need to be directed toward something they can do. I never said everyone. If you said there's many summer days where it doesn't rain, you would be right. There are many people who just aren't that bright, and it's easy to see if you leave your house for more than five minutes

[Rojava Free State]

by the time you're almost grown, it's very hard to change. You need to have the right environment around children when they're young, because by age 17 it's too late to change them

That's why no one sings laments to the person they use to be when they were seventeen.

Frank Sinatra's romance with a girl from his town has no relation to a guy thinking Romeo and Juliet is a story about the bloods and crips

[Jebslund]

Pockets are life, man. I generally don't leave the house with less than eight pockets. Pockets are the fucking best. Where's the march for pockets?

Ah, I see you are a fellow man of culture!

[Rojava Free State]

Flip burgers. Seriously. NO ONE should be unemployed that long, and everyone seems to think jobs are 'beneath them'.

I know someone who studied biology and forestry who is employed not in her field but as a hotel receptionist, because there aren't enough jobs in her chosen course of study in comparison to everyone who studied for it.

Narrow focus simply means that if you misjudged the marketability of your very narrow skill set, you're fucked.

Certain jobs are beneath me unless I have no choice and I've exhausted all means of avoiding it. I didn't pay a boatload of money and time to flip burgers, wait tables, work in hotels or whatever else. What is the point if I won't afford the gasoline to go to the place of work? I'm thinking that instead, I should conclude that college is worthless unless you're becoming something like a doctor or lawyer and instead borrow money to go to a trade school.

The college path is a bust, but picking up a real skill can be the ticket to prosperity. Dentists for example, can become employed absolutely anywhere because there are always people with teeth problems. It is just a matter of somehow being able to execute on it, even if you don't like it strictly speaking.

Sai I work at a restaurant where people say all kinds of dumb shit and act like animals. Everyday I and my co-workers are mistreated by both the customers and our employers and yet I still go there and get my back into my living. A job is far less beneath you than being a patron of the Chris Chan monthly tugboat. it sucks but that's life. You gotta fight

[Cannot think of a name]

In my experience, it doesn't rain during the summer time.

My experience cannot make summer showers go away.

My point was that there was a lot of people who simply can never be expected to succeed at something like algebra or chemistry and need to be directed toward something they can do. I never said everyone. If you said there's many summer days where it doesn't rain, you would be right. There are many people who just aren't that bright, and it's easy to see if you leave your house for more than five minutes

I mean, you are aware that not every major in college requires those things? Also, I don't tend to judge people's potential as a human being by my ten second encounters. But you do you.

[Cannot think of a name]

That's why no one sings laments to the person they use to be when they were seventeen.

Frank Sinatra's romance with a girl from his town has no relation to a guy thinking Romeo and Juliet is a story about the bloods and crips

Romeo and Juliet is a story about the Bloods and Crips. Or the Jets and the Sharks, if you like.

[Saiwania]

Sai I work at a restaurant where people say all kinds of dumb shit and act like animals. Everyday I and my co-workers are mistreated by both the customers and our employers and yet I still go there and get my back into my living. A job is far less beneath you than being a patron of the Chris Chan monthly tugboat. it sucks but that's life. You gotta fight

I just figure its better to borrow to go back to school (but a different kind of school than the one that didn't help me) than to try my luck getting hired when I'm too old for anything truly entry level. No one is able to trust me by default. I have to make up some story about why I'm too old but still want the sort of job I could apply for. If I have literally nothing about me thats known. The deck is always going to be stacked against me unless I can finance a fresh start or reboot.

If freshly coming out of trade school, I don't need to say anything except that I'm changing careers and that I have nothing relevant from my previous life except the trade I picked up, and that I'm more than ready to begin in the field.

Am I not wrong in thinking that its hopeless if I have accomplished nothing at 30 besides get an Associates degree that didn't help me?

[Kubra]

~theyre the same thing~ UwU

Right wing terrorist group is probably an applicable term to many Islamists, but in their conventional meaning they refer to entirely separate movements with little to no overlap.
In any case, it probably has to do with young males from ultraconservative backgrounds being pressured to take degrees with a high probable future income(like engineering) plus engineering being immediately useful for blowing things up.

if that were the case, then engineering degrees would be proportional to total grads. If this were the case, 44% of degrees handed out would have to be in engineering.

Young males from ultraconservative backgrounds are probably disproportionately likely to pick an engineering degree path because of family and social pressure to establish a career which enables a future one earner household. Like, I've seen it happen up close and personal.

Nah you might expect quite a lot of degrees perceived as high paying but then you'd be seeing a lot of STEM across the board, no?

[Katganistan]

Yes, I agree that too many people are in universities. So wouldn't having more trade schools make it easier to reroute the people who are interested in or suited for a liberal arts education?

The issue is partially social as well, considering the majority of Americans subconsciously look down on the trades. No parent is thrilled when their child becomes a plumber.

They should be.
A plumber is a skilled trade that will easily support a family comfortably.
Mechanics, too.

[Kubra]

Why dont we give the Engineers a play room instead? That way they wont get as mad and have time to unwind with the boys discussing engineer things, like which is the tool to use against the suddenly reanimated dead?

A bat studded with nails, clearly.
Doesn't need to be powered, so in the zombie apocalypse, it will be more useful and easier to maintain.

too simple, too under budget, therefore lacking in features.

[Kubra]

The issue is partially social as well, considering the majority of Americans subconsciously look down on the trades. No parent is thrilled when their child becomes a plumber.

They should be.
A plumber is a skilled trade that will easily support a family comfortably.
Mechanics, too.

I mean this is a golden era for trades, the pays gone up *considerably* but the perception keeps prospective students out.

[Cannot think of a name]

The issue is partially social as well, considering the majority of Americans subconsciously look down on the trades. No parent is thrilled when their child becomes a plumber.

They should be.
A plumber is a skilled trade that will easily support a family comfortably.
Mechanics, too.

I was going to tag this with something like "Isn't plumber a six figure job at the top?" but I thought I'd look it up. What I found is actually a window into how complex jobs, income, and location is with the wide range of pay plumbers have just based on where they live.

Which is to say college/trade is really a small piece of the overall picture.

[Saiwania]

Mechanics, too. I mean this is a golden era for trades, the pays gone up *considerably* but the perception keeps prospective students out.

Many people (including myself) are just simply unaware of any trade schools/apprenticeship programs in their locale. K-12 guidance counselors and teachers for example, are still routing graduating teens to college no matter what. Only colleges/universities are all that visible. The trades could use more advertising/recruiters.

[Cannot think of a name]

They should be.
A plumber is a skilled trade that will easily support a family comfortably.
Mechanics, too.

I mean this is a golden era for trades, the pays gone up *considerably* but the perception keeps prospective students out.

I think it was an initial desire to get out of 'back breaking work' and the idea that you're never as rich as the person writing you the check. But then it became an issue of class and things got messy.

[The Republic of Fore]

Okay, and what if I have no desire to do that? I have no desire to be well rounded. Will society collapse and die if I don't study useless subjects?

Then don't?

I'm not saying that every citizen has to go get a college education. However, I think it is good that colleges attempt to expose their students to areas of study beyond what the student wants to major in.

Or we could just not force students to study useless subjects. There's no reason wanting to be a doctor or engineer should mean wasting your time on art.

[The Republic of Fore]

Like I said, sure, only take courses related to your major and that’s it. There are also plenty of subjects that, with the guidance of a professor, are best learned but ok.

My curriculum in art history required I take biology, physics and math. Not sure what those classes had to do with my major but I took them. And guess what? They may not have been my favorite but I did learn in them. A lot.

I'll never teach college biology, but I took it twice (1001 and 1002), and I definitely came to appreciate it more. There's nothing wrong with being a well-rounded individual, and honestly we should push for more kids in higher AND lower grades to be well-rounded in a variety of topics.

There's nothing wrong with not being well rounded either. Life will go on if people aren't well rounded.

[Kubra]

Many people (including myself) are just simply unaware of any trade schools/apprenticeship programs in their locale. K-12 guidances counselors and teachers for example, are still routing kids to college no matter what. Only colleges/universities are all that visible. The trades could use more advertising/recruiters.

That's the thing: trades are much more varied than what's on offer at university, and given the nature of the jobs sometimes hard to distinguish, and well because of the public perception folks don't bother looking.
It ain't too late to consider the stuff, man. Head to your local polytechnic's open house and just see what's on offer.

[The Republic of Fore]

I like the idea of people getting some experience with subjects outside their degree. Education, especially higher education, should be about understanding more about the world, not just about getting a piece of paper that qualifies you for a job.

Indeed. And having a broad understanding of different subjects also helps people switch gears when they find the particular job they've studied for has more applicants than positions -- and lo and behold, you might discover an aptitude/love of something you would not have thought to try on your own.

And what about those of us who never have and never will study something else? Why should we suffer because other people are too incompetent to do research into whether their degree has good employment outcomes?