# Do people with advanced degrees in the liberal arts have any right to complain about lack of jobs? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 16, 2010, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668 "2010-05-16T19:42:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Q.N.Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/3da27b/32.png) [@Q.N.Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.N.Jones)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/41 "2010-05-17T05:53:02Z")
I have friends with Ph.D.s (or other terminal degrees) in practically every subject from art to chemistry. All are employed in the private sector, in non-teaching jobs, and all of them feel that their Ph.D.s were either necessary or highly valuable. The real problem, as they see it, is that career counseling is so poor for people who pursue advanced non-professional degrees. Smart kids are urged to go straight to graduate school after college. This gives them little to no time in the “real world” to discover jobs they would actually like to do. So they go to graduate school for a subject they like, with the vague idea of getting a job in that field. Once in graduate school, professors are your mentors. And they mainly know about academia and teaching jobs. Many of my Ph.D. holding friends said they could not even hint that they were interested in the private sector to the professors, or they would immediately be out of favor with the very people determining their academic fates. Even suggesting they might want to teach as opposed to doing research was a guaranteed path to being treated like a second-class citizen. So they lacked any guidance as to what jobs might be available outside of the university setting. Eventually, all my friends who went straight to grad school out of college figured out a non-academic job that they could do and would like to do, that required the skills they learned in grad school. But the process of learning about these jobs was unnecessarily long and haphazard. These graduate programs know they are producing more graduates than can ever be hired into academic settings. Why don’t they have Offices of Career Services like my law school had, to present even rudimentary help finding various types of jobs? It’s nonsensical, especially when these universities know there are almost no academic jobs out there right now. And, of course, we should really have better counseling at the college level, to advise smart undergraduates to get a bachelor’s, then go out and start building a career first, and then return to graduate school if and when they need a graduate degree to attain a specific career goal. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/42 "2010-05-17T05:57:37Z")
I don’t think academic, tenure-track jobs are completely unavailable…but, they’re going to the top 10%, not the other 90%. If you are published and have recognizable work in the field, you are sure to get an offer from any major school in the country. Put it this way: the job at MIT isn’t going to go to the guy who memorized a particular cell structure…it’s going to the guy that discovered it. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/43 "2010-05-17T06:02:58Z")
> [@horsetech](#): > > 😕 > > IANAPhD, but both of my parents have PhD’s in the sciences and I’ve spent my whole life surrounded by people with science PhD’s working in research in government and academia. I will readily admit that I do not know much about research in private industry. > > I think you underestimate the role of post-bac degrees in the sciences. In a B.S. or course-based M.S., you are learning information and how to learn from what others have done. In a research-based M.S. or PhD, you are learning how to conduct high-quality research and how to play within the system so that you get paid to conduct research. I’m sure there are exceptions out there, but most of the positions at universities and in government which allow you to create your own research program and get taken seriously by funding agencies require you to have this sort of training. Most papers in life science journals are published with at least on PhD on the paper who is usually the PI, i.e., responsible for running the research program which provides the space, training, and quite possibly funding for everyone in the lab. As a gross generalization, the higher your degree, the more of the intellectual heavy lifting and the less of the pipetting/animal husbandry/repetitive observations you have to do (although there are PI’s who choose to do fair amounts of the latter as well). It depends on what you are interested in. What I have heard is that in industry, the MS really doesn’t offer much more than a BS with work experience. As far as PhDs offering more responsibility, influence and power, yeah that is true. However I am under the impression that those jobs are harder to find. I guess it depends on what you are looking for. I’m looking for job security, not pioneering research. I did research in college and that had a lot of drudgery too. [http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html](http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html) ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/44 "2010-05-17T06:08:05Z")
> [@](#): > > I ask because it seems there are vastly more liberal arts PHDs minted than there are academic slots to absorb them. Are you putting this forward as being an actual real life phenomenon, supported by evidence? Or just purely anecdote and speculation? If it’s the latter, then it is possible that you just hang out with losers and whiners. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/45 "2010-05-17T06:19:22Z")
“The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship.” –Robert A. Heinlein ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/46 "2010-05-17T06:21:00Z")
> [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](#): > > Are you putting this forward as being an actual real life phenomenon, supported by evidence? Or just purely anecdote and speculation? > > If it’s the latter, then it is possible that you just hang out with losers and whiners. You got me dead to rights. The examples cited in \*\*ultrafilter’s \*\*link below must only be of losers and whiners. > [@](#): > > Here are a few relevant articles written by an English professor about the current state of grad school in the humanities: > [ul] > [li][Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go](http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846)[/li][li][Just Don’t Go, Part 2](http://chronicle.com/article/Just-Dont-Go-Part-2/44786/)[/li][li][The Big Lie About the ‘Life of the Mind’](http://chronicle.com/article/The-Big-Lie-About-the-Life-of/63937/)[/li][/ul] > [@](#): > > Those columns won renewed attention last month from multiple Web sites, and have since attracted a lot of mail and online commentary. The responses tended to split into two categories: One said that I was overemphasizing the pragmatic aspects of graduate school at the expense of the “life of the mind” for its own sake. The other set of responses, and by far the more numerous, were from graduate students and adjuncts asking why no one had told them that their job prospects were so poor and wondering what they should do now. ---
**Author:** ![horsetech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dec6dc/32.png) [@horsetech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/horsetech)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/47 "2010-05-17T06:36:37Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > What I have heard is that in industry, the MS really doesn’t offer much more than a BS with work experience. > > As far as PhDs offering more responsibility, influence and power, yeah that is true. However I am under the impression that those jobs are harder to find. > > I guess it depends on what you are looking for. I’m looking for job security, not pioneering research. I did research in college and that had a lot of drudgery too. > > [http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html](http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html) Wow, that seems like a pretty poisoned view of the sciences in that article (here’s a [different](http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2007/08/job-prospects-for-graduate-students.html) perspective), although maybe my own view is a bit rose-tinted. FWIW, my father works at a decent flagship state university. Maybe the grad students I’ve known were better than average, but the PhD grads in my circle of acquaintances (former students of my dad and his friends in biological sciences) have gone on to successful, stable careers - sometimes doing a post-doc, sometimes not - in government and academia. A couple people have dropped out and gone for other careers, but the ones who finished their PhD’s have all been successful. Perhaps the best thing to say is that a B.S. is sufficient to go in to industry or work as a research tech/assistant or teach or any number of other science-related jobs, but for those interested in doing their own research, a PhD is required. Out of curiosity, which industry jobs were you referring to that do not prefer an M.S.? In academia and government, there seems to often be a big leap between M.S. and PhD, with M.S. often seen as not worth doing (many biology programs don’t even offer terminal M.S. degrees). A lot of jobs have a minimum threshold of either a B.S. or PhD, with not much of a niche specifically for people with master’s degrees. ---
**Author:** ![Q.N.Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/3da27b/32.png) [@Q.N.Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.N.Jones)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/48 "2010-05-17T07:13:57Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > I don’t think academic, tenure-track jobs are completely unavailable…but, they’re going to the top 10%, not the other 90%. With hiring freezes at many universities, professors holding onto their jobs past retirement age, and no budget to fill jobs that are technically open, it’s more like academic jobs are going to the top 1-3%. Here’s an article that discusses some of these issues–and it’s focused on science-related fields. It’s generally accepted that people with advanced degrees in the humanities have it even worse, when trying to break into academia. [http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career\_magazine/previous\_issues/articles/2010\_01\_15/caredit.a1000006](http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2010_01_15/caredit.a1000006) ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/49 "2010-05-17T14:23:40Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > It used to be that if you were smart, you could get a respectable (if not glamorous) job right out of high school, and college was seen as a choice, not a necessity. Now, huge numbers of employers won’t even consider people without an undergrad degree for even menial, trivial positions. It’s sad. A lot of people are racking up huge student loan burdens to spend an extra four years getting the 21st-century version of a high school diploma. Sociologists have a word for that: _credentialism_. And there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. It will be in our lifetime that secretaries will require a Masters’ in Administrative Science. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/50 "2010-05-17T15:06:26Z")
> [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > Sociologists have a word for that: _credentialism_. And there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. It will be in our lifetime that secretaries will require a Masters’ in Administrative Science. And the bigger tragedy here is that this doesn’t actually result in a particularly smarter population. You just end up with more and more mediocre undergraduate and graduate programs catering to undermotivated or just boneheaded students, who are there because they feel they have to be. The smart ones will always be a minority, and they will, on average, be successful by virtue of their smartness whether they get a bunch of degrees or none at all. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/51 "2010-05-17T15:07:13Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Are you hearing a lot of complaints? I’ve never heard someone complain about difficulty getting job after obtaining an advance degree. (and I am on the Board of an educational institution that awards advanced degrees). > > Do you really hear someone say something like “I have a Ph.D. in Art but can’t find a job, why is this happening to me?” I hear things more like, “I knew it wouldn’t be easy to find a job with my PhD history.”) I’ve also never heard someone complain about an inability to find a job when they have an advanced liberal arts degree. By that point, I would imagine that most people have had their eyes opened by going through college, and often being in the regular business world. In fact, most people I know who have advanced liberal arts degrees have returned to get said degrees _because_ of their experience in corporate America. That said, an advanced degree in anything can be a hinderance in a job search, especially if you’re looking for an entry-level position, and when said entry-level position does not have anything to do with the degree you have. Personal anecdote: I had to remove my masters degree in linguistics from my resume to get a job when I was starting out, although it’s been a bonus for me since I’ve gained more business experience. Initially, employers assumed that since I was so educated, I’d want to leave or would require a higher salary. Now that I’m further along in my career, it’s gravy on top of my business experience and actually lends me and my research capabilities more credibility since getting the degree in the first place required me to be able to ferret out important information that wasn’t otherwise readily available and use critical thinking to parse that information. I also have a bachelor’s degree in archaeology. While initially it would appear that such a degree would be useless (despite having spent a short stint working as an archaeologist), the statistics courses I was required to take to get the degree in the first place was very hepful in business. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/52 "2010-05-17T17:04:35Z")
> [@horsetech](#): > > In academia and government, there seems to often be a big leap between M.S. and PhD, with M.S. often seen as not worth doing (many biology programs don’t even offer terminal M.S. degrees). A lot of jobs have a minimum threshold of either a B.S. or PhD, with not much of a niche specifically for people with master’s degrees. I can’t speak for everyone, but in my experience, which is the engineering industry, and not academia, an MS is considered much better than a BS, even a terminal/non-thesis MS. Plenty of schools offer non-thesis engineering MS’s, and a few still offer an ME (Master of Engineering.) The engineering fields can be pretty broad (especially mine, biomedical) and often times if you don’t have some sort of specialization, either through work experience or a master’s, a company won’t hire you. When I was job searching for a year and a half, I found maybe half a dozen, out of well over a hundred jobs I applied to, that were ok with just a BS and 0-2 years experience, every other one wanted a BS plus 2-5 years or an MS and 0-2 years. ---
**Author:** ![lavenderviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/53 "2010-05-17T21:34:21Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > And the bigger tragedy here is that this doesn’t actually result in a particularly smarter population. You just end up with more and more mediocre undergraduate and graduate programs catering to undermotivated or just boneheaded students, who are there because they feel they have to be. The smart ones will always be a minority, and they will, on average, be successful by virtue of their smartness whether they get a bunch of degrees or none at all. Agreed. It wasn’t that long ago that just graduating high school, let alone attending college, was something of an accomplishment. Now as time goes on, the worth of these accomplishments just becomes more and more watered down to make it accessible to more of the population. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/54 "2010-05-17T21:51:27Z")
> [@horsetech](#): > > Wow, that seems like a pretty poisoned view of the sciences in that article (here’s a [different](http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2007/08/job-prospects-for-graduate-students.html) perspective), although maybe my own view is a bit rose-tinted. FWIW, my father works at a decent flagship state university. Maybe the grad students I’ve known were better than average, but the PhD grads in my circle of acquaintances (former students of my dad and his friends in biological sciences) have gone on to successful, stable careers - sometimes doing a post-doc, sometimes not - in government and academia. A couple people have dropped out and gone for other careers, but the ones who finished their PhD’s have all been successful. > > Perhaps the best thing to say is that a B.S. is sufficient to go in to industry or work as a research tech/assistant or teach or any number of other science-related jobs, but for those interested in doing their own research, a PhD is required. > > Out of curiosity, which industry jobs were you referring to that do not prefer an M.S.? In academia and government, there seems to often be a big leap between M.S. and PhD, with M.S. often seen as not worth doing (many biology programs don’t even offer terminal M.S. degrees). A lot of jobs have a minimum threshold of either a B.S. or PhD, with not much of a niche specifically for people with master’s degrees. That article largely parroted what Ultrafilter’s links talked about, the fact that graduate school has to be seen as a calling or something done for fun rather than career training. > [@](#): > > But behind all this debate and discussion is a more serious issue. Why do students go to graduate school? Is it only because they want to be trained for a future job? Should Professors look upon every graduate student as a job trainee and behave accordingly? I’d like to think that there are still students out there who go to graduate school for the love of science. I did. > > The graduate school experience is an end all by itself and not always a means to an end. Sure, it would be nice if things work out and the student gets a nice post-doc and an academic position—if that’s what they want—but there’s other things to do after graduate school. I’ve known lots of students who went into teaching, medicine, or law for example. I’ve known students who choose to be full-time parents even though they did well in graduate school and enjoyed the experience. > > I’m very reluctant to fall into the mindset where I view every graduate student as a trainee for a job in industry and academia and not as a young inquisitive scientist. If Professors adopt the former mindset, and some do, then the goal of graduate research is not to answer important scientific questions but to churn out enough papers in respectable journals to ensure you get a good post-doc. The fact that this goal is sometimes compatible with the ambitions of the P.I. (more papers) makes for a deadly combination. My understanding is most chemist and biologist positions do not require an MS, a BS with work experience will generally suffice. In some fields like engineering an MS is helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/55 "2010-05-17T23:11:48Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > Someone who goes to grad school for love is an idiot. Well, I went to grad school for love. Luckily what I loved was research in computer science in the late '70s, which also enabled me to get a good job. I love doing research, and for the past 30 years (except for about a year and a quarter) I’ve been doing pretty much what I want to do in industry - and I could never have done it without a PhD. If I’m an idiot, I’m a happy and well paid one. I’d imagine getting a PhD would be stressful if you didn’t love research. I spent way too long at it because I was having so much fun. The only stressful part was the last six months, when I had put myself under a time and money constraint and was writing a compiler by day and the chapters in my dissertation about it by night. As for PhDs in the liberal arts, I’d hope anyone getting one really loves what they do - and no doubt think that they will beat the odds. ---
**Author:** ![Vaevictis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Vaevictis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vaevictis)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/56 "2010-05-18T03:09:04Z")
[quote=“magnusblitz, post:22, topic:539668”] Sure, you can argue that college is worthwhile if you get a degree in math or science as opposed to a liberal arts major; Mathematics and the sciences are components of the liberal arts. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/57 "2010-05-18T19:07:31Z")
I know a number of people with masters degrees in history or literature. They’re all executive-level employees now, and they all started on the ground floor. None of them are teachers. What you do with a liberal arts degree is “be educated.” For some reason, people conflate “educated” with “technically qualified.” There’s a huge difference. “Educated” people have a contextual understanding of the world in which they live. More things have meaning to them, and they are able to get their head around different perspectives. They understand that few things they will encounter are simple, and so do not settle for simple, short term solutions. Focused degrees help you understand what’s in the box, how the box works and what the box is made of, the liberal arts degree lets you recognize a box, what other boxes affect it, and where a particular box is located. Very useful if you don’t want to be associated with a box in the middle of an expressway. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/58 "2010-05-18T20:55:55Z")
How is this different than any other field where people dedicate their lives to developing skills for a very small number of jobs? My eleven year old isn’t a bad baseball player, but we refuse to send him to camp or stick him on a traveling team - his chance of making the pros is miniscule (he’s good, he isn’t THAT good, even my parental bias can see that) - but I know a lot of parents with kids not as good as mine sending their kids to camps, paying for private coaches, because there is a scholarship and a professional career on the line. Or being a rock star, or making a living acting. There are plenty of careers where you will dedicate a large amount of time and money to succeed - suffer for your calling, and even after you do that, there are not enough jobs for everyone who dedicated the time and money. And the ones that are left behind by their calling or choose not to pursue it, find a means to support themselves elsewhere. Or don’t. But life doesn’t owe you the job you want. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/59 "2010-05-18T22:12:43Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > How is this different than any other field where people dedicate their lives to developing skills for a very small number of jobs? My eleven year old isn’t a bad baseball player, but we refuse to send him to camp or stick him on a traveling team - his chance of making the pros is miniscule (he’s good, he isn’t THAT good, even my parental bias can see that) - but I know a lot of parents with kids not as good as mine sending their kids to camps, paying for private coaches, because there is a scholarship and a professional career on the line. > > Or being a rock star, or making a living acting. > > There are plenty of careers where you will dedicate a large amount of time and money to succeed - suffer for your calling, and even after you do that, there are not enough jobs for everyone who dedicated the time and money. > > And the ones that are left behind by their calling or choose not to pursue it, find a means to support themselves elsewhere. Or don’t. But life doesn’t owe you the job you want. I’ve heard these called “glamor professions”. They are careers where a very small number of people at the top make fortunes, while almost everyone else makes very little. Typical examples are sports, entertainment, publishing, and fashion. In general, people know when they are working in a glamor profession (they are stupid if they don’t) and make appropriate allowances. Some people want the chance at stardom, and are willing to take risk. Having said that, I’m not sure that’s what this thread is really talking about. History majors, for example, are not aiming toward a glamor profession. The top history professors aren’t stars making huge sums of money that the rest of us can only dream about. They’re just doing pretty well. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/60 "2010-05-20T21:20:14Z")
This reminds me of something I saw on TV a while back. There was this guy who had a Ph.D. in medieval islamic architecture…and he had no job prospects. Now, I don’t know what the demand for people trained in MIA is, but is surely is pretty small. The guy was irate that he owed several tens of thousand $, to get a degree that was (essentially) worthless. Ddn’t he ever scope out the situation BEFORE he blew all his money (and time)? I just don’t get it-how on earth would anybody ever decide that getting such a degree would be the path toward a career? The guy is probably working in a completely unrelated field…he should have become a plumber. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668.md?page=4)