# 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:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2010, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/61 "2010-05-20T21:57:26Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > 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. Bullpucky. I made a comment about the quadrivium and trivium to an idiot supervisor with a degree in history and the history of education and they had absolutely no clue what I was talking about. If someone who has a degree in the the history of the educational process that I made a reference to MAJOR COMPONENTS OF at the time of their field of study, what the frell did they waste 6 years upon? This ‘rhodes scholar’ that ‘went to Oxford for 3 years’ and has no clue about the field they were studying really needs to have their degree removed. I have more education thanks to being an avid autodidact than many people actually with a degree [mainly because they stopped learning long ago and I read everything I can get my grubby paws on, and hang out online where there are reasonably intelligent people to talk with] though I will admit that I am attempting to go back to school and get a doctorate in archeology because I would like to write about it for the popular book trade, and _not_ put in the usual bullshit errors. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2010, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/62 "2010-05-20T21:59:04Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > 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. Assasinate someone at [UNESCO](http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/) for a job? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/63 "2010-05-22T21:38:43Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > 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. But being a paleontologist or an archeologist or a museum curator or even a college professor in a liberal arts field is also a glamor job - there are very few of those positions - and while they don’t generally command the big bucks of being a pro athlete - it is similarly unlikely you will get a job. If a History major doesn’t realize that very few people are employed as Historians (my minor was History) - shame on them. I don’t see that they have any more (or less) of a standing for complaints than someone who spent 18 years getting up at 3am for ice time - then didn’t even get a college scholarship. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/64 "2010-05-22T22:17:02Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > 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. Do they help you “think outside the box”? Maybe that is part of the problem with business today. You have a great deal of people who are educated beyond their capabilities. They learn to be extremely articulate and convincing about topics they really have little to no understanding of. They are placed in charge of technical people who actually know how to do things but are deamed too “lacking soft skills” to be in charge themselves. And those technical people are forced to deal with the frustration of trying to convert half-baked fantasy into reality and they receive the blame when they can’t. I think too many 22 year old college grads think that when they come out of school, they should be in these high-level positions lending their insight to people. The reality is that they don’t have enough knowledge or experience to lend any insight on anything. Their role is to perform grunt work and analysis until they get to a point where they understand the context. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/65 "2010-05-23T14:19:04Z")
> [@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. Not where I work. I work at an Air Force Base. For civil servants, the pay is defined by the “GS” system. The more work experience you have, and the more schooling you have, the higher your GS level (and hence pay) will be. My government sponsor is a GS level 9. He is 52 years old and has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. He cannot advance to GS 10 unless he gets a master’s degree. So for the past year he has been taking online classes in an effort to get it. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/66 "2010-05-23T14:26:18Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > In some fields like engineering an MS is helpful. Eh, I dunno. I know plenty of people with BS’s in engineering, and they have no trouble finding employment. I’m 42. Up until last year I “only” had a BSEE. I have never been without a job and have always been well compensated. Nothing changed after I got my MSEE last year. I’m not complaining or anything; as mentioned, I’m paid pretty well. I’m just not sure why I got it. I think about all the time I spent studying when I \*could \*have been doing something else (e.g spending time with the family). Not sure if it was really worth it. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/67 "2010-05-23T16:56:54Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Eh, I dunno. I know plenty of people with BS’s in engineering, and they have no trouble finding employment. > > I’m 42. Up until last year I “only” had a BSEE. I have never been without a job and have always been well compensated. Nothing changed after I got my MSEE last year. I’m not complaining or anything; as mentioned, I’m paid pretty well. I’m just not sure why I got it. I think about all the time I spent studying when I \*could \*have been doing something else (e.g spending time with the family). Not sure if it was really worth it. If you stay with your current employer for the rest of your career, it probably won’t be, but if you ever switch jobs, it’ll make a difference. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Rosetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Green\_Rosetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Rosetta)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-with-advanced-degrees-in-the-liberal-arts-have-any-right-to-complain-about-lack-of-jobs/539668/68 "2010-05-24T21:47:00Z")
I am currently pursuing a BA in sociology, and have no illusions that it will do anything for me except perhaps enable me to get some kind of government job or paper-pusher position. That’s ok, because I’m already working a job I love in a completely unrelated field. There are people I work with, who have my exact position, who have advanced degrees and TONS of debt, and it makes me very sad to see them struggling. One co-worker, who got his masters in museum education, told me that he wishes more than anything that he had that time and money back. Sure, he is working in a museum now, but he’s not getting paid anywhere NEAR what is necessary to recoup his losses, and he could have just as easily gotten this job with a high school education. I realize we are talking about PhDs, but I don’t know how different that is. What does a PhD qualify you to do, besides teaching, that a Masters doesn’t? I mean in the liberal arts field here (and FWIW, where I go to school, math and science are completely different schools. Our school of lib. arts includes sociology, political science, economics, English, history, psychology, religious studies, and women’s studies. I feel like any degree in math or science is pretty marketable, and a big part of that may be that those areas of study don’t have the glut of students that lib. arts does. I feel like a lot of people go into liberal arts because they don’t feel they have the ability to do a lot of higher level math and science. That’s certainly a big reason why I chose it. If I had more time to devote to it and weren’t scared to death of math, I’d have pursued a degree in science.) This reminds me of a thread that was around here a looooong time ago about law school- has it just become the place where liberal arts-minded people end up because they panic about not being employable? [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=3)