And if you can get it someplace warm, of course.
It’s helpful if you want to go a-counting.
Yes, because suggesting that finances might not be the only consideration is exactly the same as saying that they’re irrelevant.
So is your bachelors degree in philosophy or arts, as you said here?
Maybe he was speaking more generally about getting a Bachelor of Arts as opposed to a Bachelor of Science, and not about the specific field.
Presumably, a [bachelor of] arts degree in philosophy.
There are a lot of ways to get an education on a subject of interest that don’t involve going into a significant amount of student loan debt. You can read philosophy books for fun while working at a job that pays your bills. If it’s truly a subject you’re passionate about you can try to get into a fully funded PhD program.
I think that for almost everyone, going into debt for a degree that won’t improve your employment options is a poor decision (if you can afford to pay the tuition without loans, then knock yourself out). I think a lot of young people don’t understand how toxic debt can be to their future financial well-being and wrongly believe that any degree, regardless of major, will help them get a job. So they accept student loans, thinking of it as “free money”, then they don’t know what to do when the lenders come calling after they’ve graduated but can’t find a job.
Learning for the sake learning is great after you have your basic needs met. What consolation is it to be an expert on literature from the Middle Ages if you are living in a homeless shelter?
The OP was apparently not joking when he said he was thinking about trying to go on welfare. Do you really think the wise thing for someone with no money is to dig the hole deeper by getting into a significant amount of debt for a degree that isn’t going to help them get a job?
Yes, my reasoning was that it is a field where there is a demand that might appeal to someone who enjoys working with numbers!
I’m sure that there are other options out there too; it’s just the first example that came to mind.
Lots of jobs look for a Master’s degree and aren’t particular about what field it’s in. In a good job market, anyone with a degree and a good attitude can get an entry-level job somewhere, and once you have a job no one ever wonders what field your degree is in. I’ve met many, many successful execs who majored in European history or anthropology or something as useless to business people as philosophy. For that matter, I know a chemical science graduate who didn’t like the field and switched to public relations, where he has done quite well. Personally, my degree was in advertising but there were no jobs upon graduation – I was a business writer for 15 years and switched to Marketing/PR. Given my current skills and expereince I could conceivably be a sustainability officer or green building project manager in the future.
In the current bad job market, even a lot of graduating law students don’t have jobs waiting for them. It would suck to slog through years of education in a field you don’t like in order to get a good job–and then not be able to get a job. When the market comes back, law firms will go back to hiring associates out of the best schools, but they won’t be hiring the grads from this year or last year – they are SOL.
In my mind, it makes sense to pursue a degree in something that interests you rather than basing your choice solely on marketable skills. Obviously if you can do both, that’s ideal, but not necessary. I also don’t see anything wrong with wanting to spend a year or two in a place that’s appealing, especially since a lot of students stay in the place where they graduate. If the OP was asking about good places to study abroad I don’t think people would be banging on him like this.
I think I have no idea what the OP’er’s financial situation is. For all I know he could be a lottery winner or otherwise independently wealthy. Believe it or not, I don’t do a background check on every poster who starts a thread.
I think the OP asked “Where should I go to graduate school?”, not “Should I go to graduate school?”
I think I did not criticize being financially responsible. I think I criticized the fact that a group of people (who are supposedly dedicated to fighting ignorance) react to someone who is proposing studying an academic discipline by saying you can’t make a buck at it. If that’s the kind of support that scholarship for scholarship’s sake gets here, what hope does it have anywhere else?
Actually, it was ambiguous. The OP said he was thinking of getting a Master’s in philosophy, and he asked for recommendations.
Those of us who are pointing out the financial/practical aspects aren’t telling him what he should do (at least, I wasn’t), just making sure he knew what he was getting into, so that he can make as informed a decision as possible.
It’s my understanding that you should only pursue grad work in the humanities if you are getting some kind of grant/scholarship from the school. This will cut down or even eliminate your costs, and the school will give you more help in finding academic placements. I think most schools only grant money to people committed to a PhD.
I laughed.
Not sure I agree with a lot of the major-bashing in this thread.
There are a lot of jobs for one that majors in a liberal arts/humanities degree. I majored in political science because it interests me. Is that a crime? No, and I’ll never be rich, but I’ll probably never be poor, either. It made me into a FAR more well-rounded person than I was before school. I look at the world almost completely differently, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
Currently at an entry level position in the state gov’t. Love where I work and most of the people. Solid, predictable hours. More annual/sick time than I need. Countless paid holidays. The list goes on. It’s not where I want to end up, but it’s a start.
Some people just don’t really LOOK even though they convince themselves that they’re trying.
I majored in political science, too, but I didn’t for a second consider it any more useful than a degree in underwater basketweaving.
“Useful” is such a broad term, though. If we’re speaking STRICLTY in earning potential, sure, it is not nearly as useful/practical as computer engineering or something of the like.
It’s useful to me for a great number of reasons, and earning potential isn’t one of them.
My first B.A. is Art History, I fully understand the benefits of a ‘useless’ degree. I’ve found my liberal arts background very helpful.
My B.S. is Accounting though.
But there is a difference between a debtless (or low debt) B.A. and a master’s you will go into debt for. Ultraman’s plan - to go into coding - doesn’t necessarily require a degree at all, much less a master’s in Philosophy - and isn’t the best plan in a market where coding jobs have been moving offshore for two decades and don’t tend to pay well any more.
This is a “delay life” plan - which isn’t a bad way to live your life if your trust fund is around to support you. I know a guy with a master’s in Linguistics - his trust fund put him to school nicely and has continued to support him through a succession of not terribly well paying jobs. I envy him his dilettante degree and his ability to casually disregard things like “will I be able to make a living and pay off my loans.” Unfortunately, we aren’t all that lucky.
Assuming you do Direct Loans, your repayment rate will be 15% of what remains after subtracting 150% of the federal poverty line from your family’s income. After 25 years, if you haven’t finished paying, the remainder will be forgiven.
My own opinion is that this means school is now practically free (because if you’ve got money, you’ll have no problem paying, and if you don’t, your payments will be practically nil anyway) and people should take on as much “debt” as they’d like while in school.
Not a popular opinion, though.
This is true but very misleading. Federally guaranteed student loans are just about the nicest loans there are. As long as you stay in communication with them, you basically only have to pay when and what you can, where “what you can” is interpreted awfully generously. (15 percent of the difference between your income and 150% of the federal poverty line).
Student loans are by far preferable to credit card debt. The interest rate is almost certainly going to be much lower. The repayment period is very flexible. There’s just nothing I can think of that’s better about credit card debt.
One thing to consider though: I hear (and have seen it so in my experience) that grad students who are paying their own way (through loans or personal funds) find it harder to get profs to pay attention to them than do those who have a fellowship.