Education is a farce.

Great Debates
21

Then perhaps my facetiousness was a touch too gentle for oyu.

The answer to your question is both yes and no. A college education is by no means completely disconnected to the real world. Ideally it trains individuals to be thinking, curious, and intellectual critical. Ideally it trains individuals to write, and imparts on them an ability to survive in a rigorous environment by themselves.

Is college preparation for the world? Yes. Is it specific preparation for working? I should hope not.

That is no a logical extension of anything I have said.

22

VileOrb:

What you say is true. Paint me disillusioned or bitter if you like. I probably am. It just irks me that with all the real-world “training” I’ve agonized over for the past 19 years of my academic life, the best I can do straight out of college is coalating reports.

And believe it or not — employers do not hire based on the amount of “thinking outside the box” you do. They are only interested in the skill sets you have and relevant experience (which are admittedly narrow upon graduation).

Also, (in my limited experience) many employers may view “outside box thinking” as a threat to the status quo. My manager did.

23

Dammit, VileOrb, you’ve discovered my evil secret. :wink:

Seriously, I’m rarely intentionally cryptic. In this case, I really am trying to address the issues Acco40 is bringing up.

But I just cannot come up with any way to explain why problem solving is a useful skill. Or the value of a broad-based education. You hit it dead on, VileOrb, when you said:

But what do you say when someone responds, “No, they’re not!” as it seems Acco40 is doing?

Acco40, all I can say to:

is that I disagree. It seems to me that the fundamnetals of critical thinking and problem solving are applicable everywhere all the time. It’s a matter of learning how to think, and IMO that’s part of being human. But again, I can’t come up with any way to explain it any better than that.

Well sure, they’re different. So are different jobs. Again, I think college can provide people with the opportunity to learn how to function effectively in society, and how to function well in the workplace. It’s not the only place to learn those skills, of course, and no one will learn them anywhere if they don’t want to.

:shrug: I answered that already, but you said I was being “difficult.” Vocational schools are meant to prepare you for the workplace. Nursing schools are meant to prepare you for the workplace. Business schools are meant to prepare you for the workplace.

A liberal education, while being useful and valuable in many employers’ eyes, is not intended to prepare you for the workplace. It’s intended to, well, give you a liberal education.

The other thing I was “being difficult” about involves education vs. experience. First, you complain that employers require a degree, then you complain that employers require experience. I assume you are grumpy about both requirements, but I’m not at all sure what difference it makes. So, I’ll be difficult again and ask you:

When you say that not having experience killed you in your job search, do you think it was worse than not having a degree?

24

Okay. I’m almost ashamed to admit this. But I am a PhD student who hopes to teach at the university level (Shakespeare, no less), and I think the OP has a point.

You’re right: a liberal arts education doesn’t prepare you for the working world. It’s not supposed to. It’s supposed to prepare you to become a teacher, or a scholar, or just somebody who uses his leisure time in an enjoyable and intelligent manner. Frankly – and with apologies for the elitist implications – universities were designed for the leisured classes. They are not, and were never intended to be, trade schools. However, high school counselors and employers often do encourage students to regard a university education as a stepping stone to a career rather than an end in itself, and I agree that this is misleading.

I also agree that employers are making a grave (and all too common) mistake if they value a BA over practical training and experience.

That said, I strongly disagree that “a liberal arts education is merely an expensive scam.” It is (or should be) pleasurable and enlightening in itself, and it makes the student a better reader, writer and thinker. The catch, however, is that it doesn’t work unless the student is actively engaged in thinking – and usually, this means the student has to want to be there. If you chose memorize rather than to think, and to attend classes on subjects uninteresting to you solely because you believed it would lead to a job, yes, you’ve screwed yourself. Education doesn’t work that way. You get out of it what you put into it, and if you choose not to put anything into it, you’re wasting the instructor’s time as well as your own. (Personally, I’m pursuing this degree because I love Shakespeare. I want to teach his work to students who also love Shakespeare, and who want to do some serious thinking about the issues his plays raise. I have absolutely no interest in force-feeding Macbeth to a bunch of marketing students who will regard it as useless gobbledegook.)

Whew … this is a long post, and it’s beginning to look a bit like a rant, so I’ll stop here. But in short: if you did “stumble through four years of college in a drunken haze,” nobody has ripped you off but yourself.

25

Well then where is the vocational school for marketing? Unless, of course you mean b-school, which requires even more education.

And for this:

Obviously it’s better to have a degree rather than nothing. But, I feel it would be useless compared to a true “vocational” type education featuring hands-on experience in marketing (or what have you). You get the best of both worlds: Experience (which employers look for), and focused education.

As far as the esoteric education aspect: I still don’t see why marketing students for example must learn Shakespeare. I can do that, as fretful stated at my own leisure if I so desire.

I can’t name a soul however who didn’t go to college without the expressed purpose to get a job.
And if college is solely for the critical-thinking skills and not meant as true job-prep, someone ought to have told my school counselor and everyone I’ve ever met.

26

Acco40-- by b-school do you mean business school? Isn’t this a vocational training school for a Marketing (or other)career?

What do you mean about even more education in b-school?

Do you have to take even more “unnecessary” courses at a business school?

PS-- sorry if you already answered this but, why didn’t you go to vocational (business) school if you don’t like all the extra stuff that college puts in your head?

27

Doctor:

Yes, I meant business school. Yeah, I guess it’s “vocational training” for business or marketing. But even there, it’s theory first, practicesecond.

I just think it’s a shame that one has to go through four years of (seemingly) mundane material before he or she can begin to learn the specifics of the business world.

I couldn’t have just went there straight from high school. Actually, I hadn’t planned on attending B-school, but I’m seriously rethinking it now. But then, the issue of experience (or lack thereof) becomes magnified… so I don’t know what to do.

28

Sounds like someone should’ve told your school counselor and everyone you’ve ever met. Can you find one person in academia who believes that a liberal arts education is job-prep?

29

Me!
I went to college and majored in biology, not because I intended to work in the field (except in some vague, “wouldn’t it be neat if…” sense), but because I was interested in the field. Heck, I’m currently working in information technology (for community colleges!).
My education, aside from the few programming classes I took for fun (i.e., they were not taken to satisfy any graduation requirements), did nothing to prepare me for my current job. However, it did teach me how to think rationally about the world (and the general problem-solving techniques I learned in classes like physics and chemistry have been a great help), cleared up many misconceptions which I had beforehand about several things, and generally “enlightened” me.

I would say that, generally speaking, a college education is more about developing as a person than receiving job skills.

30

It might not be job-prep, but that’s how it’s sold. All I’m saying is this. I absorb knowledge like a sponge in all areas because I want to enrich my life. I too enjoyed all those classes, but not at the expense of sending me into the work force completely unprepared. I have my entire life to enjoy masterworks of literature. I could even go back to college to learn more about those areas of study outside of my field if I wanted to. But guess what? I went to school to get a career. Just like Will Hunting said, "You dropped thousands of dollars into an education you could have got for $1.50 in late charges at the public library. I agree with other posts. I’d be the last to say knowledge of the liberal arts isn’t important, but it’s the wrong stuff at the wrong time. The skills you attain studying these subjects are important, but if they’re so important, why can’t I master them within the context of my selected profession, and study Sigmund later? I have my entire life to learn about the world. When people go back to school for more education, it’s generally skill oriented. If it’s so important to go back to school for more training, why isn’t training emphasized in the first place? Training now…Ulysses later.

What good is Shakespeare if I can’t pay off my student loans?

31

Acco40:

Well see, now you can :slight_smile: . I didn’t go to school to get a job, that wasn’t my goal even when I was seventeen. I went to learn stuff :slight_smile: . But I’ll happily admit that my experience probably wasn’t typical.

I know a few people in marketing. Most have degrees in business or, surprise, marketing ( sometimes a concentration within a business degree ) :wink: . Although, if you say that people hiring in the field generally desire folks with Liberal Arts degrees, I won’t disagree with you, as you’re certainly better placed than I am to know. As to why - It may be that what they are looking for is proof of basic literacy and analytical skills, which a Liberal Arts degree certainly provides.

But I have to agree with most of the posters before me - the Liberal Arts degree is not designed to train you in a specific job. Most of those who get one, do not go on to become marketers. If you are upset that folks in the field of marketing insist on hiring only Liberal Arts students, I think your beef is with them, not universities. I’ve yet to see a description of a Liberal Arts program that stresses the marketing acumen you will develop by pursuing the degree :smiley: .

I am genuinely sorry you didn’t enjoy your college experience. How much you learn and how much you enjoyed what you learned, is by far the most important component of a degree, to me. The degree of job training is strictly secondary, IMHO. I would never spend four years of my life studying something that I don’t care about, just to get a job. But that’s just me and I don’t mean to denigrate your choice.

But to address the specific question in that quote - Maybe business degrees and the like stress theory, because the actual job duties can vary so enormously within the general field of “business”, that trying to teach the specifics of every sort of business job would be a lost cause and require a twenty-year program. That’s my guess, anyway ( I didn’t study business ).

At any rate, good luck on your career. I hope it becomes a happier situation for you soon :slight_smile: .

  • Tamerlane ( who happens to have a Trades job that did require an apprenticeship :wink: )
32

High School administrators seem geared towards getting kids into college. For example my high school made a big deal about sending X percentage of graduates to college each year. I never heard them make a big deal out of sending students who could think for themselves out into the world.

To be fair to the OP I myself have never heard of any person going for any degree without the expectation of having it help them make money when they graduate.

Marc

33

A question: let’s say I go to a technical school or some such and learn to be an electrician, and later on decide I don’t really want to be an electrician after all, I want to be a mechanic. I’m now back exactly where I started when I left high school, more or less, except that I have experience in some field that is (perhaps) completely unrelated to what I want to do now. Is this a good thing?

The way I see it, a liberal arts education isn’t about training for a specific job or type of job, it’s about learning a set of general skills (critical thinking, communication skills, and whatnot) that will be valuable in a great number of different fields. I am a graduate student, not yet in the work force, so obviously my experiences will differ from someone who goes for a job straight from college, but I’ve certainly found the skills I picked up in, say, my literature classes to be of value to me even though I’m in a scientific field. I also know that, were I to change my mind about working in science later on, the skills I’ve learned will prepare me for a wide variety of jobs, each of which will naturally require some training as to the particulars but all of which will be made easier by what I’ve learned thus far.

And realistically, I’m not convinced that Joe Sixpack can just pick up a decent knowledge of Chaucer by heading on down to the library and reading a few books, any more than I could pick up a decent knowledge of some technical subject by reading a few manuals. There are surely people out there who could do it (probably many of you here on this board), but I doubt it’s a universal ability.

34

There’s a difference between a degree helping you get a job and a degree training you for a job. Most people who go to college expect that it will help them to get a job because that’s what employers in our society look for.

The larger the percentage of a high school graduating class that goes to college, the better the high school looks on paper. That’s probably a factor in the administration’s emphasis on sending people to college, although I doubt it’s the only one.

Most of the people I know who are in a liberal arts program did not come expecting job training. Maybe I know people who are different from the population at large, but it is my experience.

35

I remember when I originally went to college, and my mom kept telling me to choose a major which would help me to become “gainfully employed” (her words, repeated ad nauseum). I tried taking some classes in majors (computer engineering, math) which didn’t really interest me then. Big mistake. It wasn’t until I became a history major, pursuing a field that really personally interested me, that I became a good student and began to enjoy college. Even though I never had an notion of my history degree leading me to a job (it hasn’t; I’m a graphic artist by trade).

The folks who’ve posted here who have noted that college is about teaching you to THINK are on the right track. It is NOT a training program. It’s about learning to use your brain. A brain that is better trained at analyzing and understanding will get a job (any job) done better than one that has not had that training. Even though college does not directly train you with “job skills,” it does help your mind work better (in most cases, if you make the effort and actually have some gray matter under your hat in the first place).

The real question is, what to do about high school? That’s the real toilet of american education. It’s in high school where most people should learn their “basic skills” (Fretful Porpentine is right; college is intended for “the few,” like it or not). I recently posted a column on that topic on my website (click the home page icon below) with a (half-serious) suggestion, but I don’t really know what can make things better in the country’s secondary schools.

36

B-school (graduate level business school AKA MBA school) is not vocational training for marketing. It is a combination of management training and a rubber stamp that tells people how smart you are.

The course load itself is pretty general. A little marketing, finance, economics, accounting, org B, strategy and so on. Basically an MBA goes for breadth, not depth.

The value of an MBA is that it tells everyone how smart you are. Not because you completed an MBA program (which is not that hard) but because in order to get into the top programs like HBS, Wharton, or Stamford you generally need to have already shown a great deal of leadership and professional and academic excellance.

37

It sounds to me like you’ve had some bad counseling. How did you manage to get through high school and college with no experience at all – especially in marketing, a field that offers all sorts of entry level positions to aspiring students?

If you knew where you wanted to be after college, you should have been looking there during college – for internships or low-level paying jobs which would give you a basic level of experience to bring into the workplace (not to mention helping out with those loans).

I did volunteer and low-paying jobs in my field and related fields all through college. By my senior year I was attending classes three days a week and working the other two.

Of course, I ended up switching fields completely later on, but both my work experience and my liberal arts education continue to be useful to me in my current career.

If someone told you that your college diploma could be used as a ticket to a good job, they steered you wrong. Employers want to know that you have the brains and the basic thinking ability to do the job, but they also want to see initiative, energy, willingness to learn the specifics, persistence, and all of the other qualities that come with experience.

38

When I become King of the USA I’ll start a new type of university. I’ll call it “College for Capitalists.”

In this economic ecole no humanities or arts will be taught at all, for they are not necessary for job training. All courses will teach only those skills that can be directly utilized in the workplace. For example:

Time clock-punching, boss ass-kissing, intern ass-watching, co-worker back-stabbing, coffee-break stretching, expense-report padding, lunchtime boozing, etc. etc. etc…

Let those miserable Harvards, Chicagos and Berkeleys keep on teaching their worthless, timewasting tripe. I’m positive employers will be killing each other to get their hands on my Capitalist College graduates.

39

**

It seems silly to me to spend 4 years of college to get a degree that has nothing to do with what you want to do for a living. Most of the people I hang out with have science degrees. Those that have liberal arts degrees did so for the specific purpose of going on with their education for whatever reasons. I think maybe to many people go for a liberal arts degree and then graduate without knowing what they want to do.

**

This is another problem I have with public schools. But this isn’t the right thread for it.

No I suppose they don’t expect actual job training. But they do expect that the degree will enable them to get a decent job after graduation. But with so many people getting a degree these days is the value of the degree really the same?

Marc

40

That’s probably true. Either that, or they’re expected to get a degree, and chose to get the easiest one they could find.

I say it is. Having a degree still shows a certain amount of skill on your part. Why that should be diminished by the number of other people that have degrees is not obvious to me.