My opinion on higher education is that it should be personally rewarding. I understand that other people view college as direct preparation for the labor force, but I spent four years in college because I wanted to learn. I wanted to think philosophically about big questions of human nature, read important books, and talk about those sorts of things with other people. I majored in sociology at a university that required a very broad core curriculum, and I also took electives in music, history, math, political science, and art. (In fact, at my alma mater, there aren’t an “practical majors.” Only liberal arts.) My husband also went to school there. 15+ years after graduation, and we’ve both done just fine in the work place.
For what it’s worth, our parents funded our college educations completely. We plan to do the same for our children. I certainly hope our kids can major in whatever interests them, rather than something that trains them for a specific entry level job.
How many is that actually?
My opinion is that people should be able to study whatever major they like and schools should provide whatever major they think people want to study. Competition and the market will typically decide which ones are most valuable. How can any governing body possibly determine how many workers should be in any particular profession, let alone predict what will be needed in 4 years? They can’t.
And don’t give me this “18 year olds are not mature enough to make these decisions”. The smart ones are. And the good schools do a pretty good job of weeding out the dumb ones. And even the dumb kids eventually figure out what they want to do for a living.
Really the entire premise of the OP is silly and based on some strawman of “liberal arts majors are unemployable”. Is there anyone here who actually knows any liberal arts majors who graduated and never found a job after years (other than those who avoided doing so on purpose)?
The dumb one figure out eventually… but not at eighteen and not after spending tens of thousands on a useless piece of paper. What is the harm in providing better guidance?
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Yes, many of my classmates including myself. Do you want to see all my rejection letters?
Sure, liberal arts grads can get jobs which don’t require a degree, but that doesn’t speak highly of the degree’s market value.
I’m going to be honest here. I know I’m get shit for it, but I think English majors are useless in general. Even if you go into publishing, you’d probably be better off with a business major and an English MINOR. If you’re an American and you’ve been through the American school system, I’m assuming you should know how to speak, write, and read English. In other countries do they do things like this? I.e. in France do people actually major in French? Knowing there’s a country of people who are just like them and speak the language since birth? This seems very American and very stupid.
Good points. However, I don’t really know how to fix this problem. I think it’s just a lot of people who don’t belong in college or aren’t ready for it. I want to suggest a gap year, but that doesn’t seem to work in America. Most who don’t immediately go to college never finish it. There’s something wrong with this, but I’m not sure what…
The second part is where you differ from many. If you can afford it and not end up debt, I won’t care if your major is how to use a shovel. There comes a difference when your major is useless and you paid for it or WORSE got into debt.
I am saddened by people who paid more money for a degree than they’ll make from it.
I think English majors in general are pretty useless in most cases if one is a native speaker. Computers. Not so much useless, but good luck getting a job with that. Theater/acting/performing arts (whatever they call it) majors.
So you don’t know what an English major involves, and you don’t know the difference between computers and computer science, and you think you’re qualified to say which majors are useful? On what grounds?
BTW, yes, other countries do offer majors (or their post-secondary equivalents) in their “native” languages. Because an English major is not studying (necessarily) the structure and grammar of English. They may, but that is also something that linguistics study. They also study the literary works, the origins of the language, the changes through time, the different literary periods. Courses in that general area require some critical thinking, some comparison. Understand the different layers and meanings of the work (poem, short story, novel, etc.), and correlate them perhaps with what the social climate was at the time it was written.
And all the above is:
First, probably just part of what you do in an English major.
Second, applied to all other languages. And this I know first hand, since I did a minor in Portuguese.
And yes, Brazilian universities offer majors in Portuguese, French universities in French, various Latin American countries in Spanish, etc.
Academic advising is one of my informal responsibilities, so yes, I do have to know at least something about most majors. I may not know everything, but I do know the basics. The reason I’m “judging” you is because you don’t seem to know anything, and if you’re going to declare that a given major is useless, you had damn well better not be completely misinformed about what it involves.
As for computer science, I can’t give a better answer than Wikipedia does:
A degree in computer science is focused on programing. This is different from other degrees, such as MIS, that focus on computer applications, or EE, that (among many other things) might prepare someone for technical design.
An English degree is most often a degree in English Literature, which involves studying how language is used to create art. Less often, English Rhetoric, which involves studying how language is used persuasively. Programs also exist that focus on technical writing and creative writing, both of which are often lumped under “English”. All these majors involve extensive work in learning to construct organized, reasoned arguments supporting one’s position. They all involve almost no time dealing with the technical aspects of speaking the English language.
Do you really believe that all native speakers of English use the language with equal ability? Have you never known a strong communicator or a weak one? Those are skills that can be learned.