# Why do so many kids earn liberal arts degrees when they are not marketable? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 27, 2008, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-kids-earn-liberal-arts-degrees-when-they-are-not-marketable/454414 "2008-06-27T08:22:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-kids-earn-liberal-arts-degrees-when-they-are-not-marketable/454414/81 "2008-07-13T15:27:51Z")
[QUOTE=scrambledeggs] Right – your political science & history degrees got you hired, without any relevant experience, as an actuary or similar. And you are 1000x smarter at quantitative reasoning (something rarely done in your academic disciplines beyond arithmetic-level) than your many Wharton/Harvard MBA’s. [/QUOTE] Again, you don’t know what you’re talking about. All of the social sciences become extremely quantitative after the undergraduate level. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-kids-earn-liberal-arts-degrees-when-they-are-not-marketable/454414/82 "2008-07-14T16:03:31Z")
[QUOTE=scrambledeggs] > [@](#): > > Right – your political science & history degrees got you hired, without any relevant experience, as an actuary or similar. And you are 1000x smarter at quantitative reasoning (something rarely done in your academic disciplines beyond arithmetic-level) than your many Wharton/Harvard MBA’s. The first is correct. AS to whether or not I am better at quantitative reasoning than my MBA colleagues, well, I am in no position to say. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and I have been eating rather well lately. > [@](#): > > Right–and the GMAT needed for them to get into those MBA schools was also meaningless. Pretty much. This is not a difficult test. There are no Kaplan or Princeton courses for the more useful or difficult things in life. > [@](#): > > Even if your story was true, you would be the exception. I know many people in person on these boards in person who can quite easily vouch for the veracity of my story. But the truth is, that is beside the point. But you are finally right about _something_. I am an exception. But you know what? So is everyone who manages, in his or her own way, to rise above corporate mediocrity. Mediocre people, no matter what they studied or got their MBAs in, are still mediocre people. They are doomed to wearing two-tone shirts and spending their lives in the controllership, accounts payable, or channel marketing. They are the kind of people who, despite their degrees, have little curiosity for the world and can talk intelligently about nothing save professional sports and some article in today’s WSJ. They are a suffocating lot. Some of them have managed to break into middle management, but this is no great accomplishment, especially for the owner of a shiny Harvard MBA. Have you ever _worked_ with these people? A few years ago I went to a finance networking night at my alma mater. There were a half dozen speakers on the panel, all top, and I mean _top_ brass in the most prestigious financial institutions in the world. Naturally, the finance dittoheads (yes, they exist, even as alumni of an Ivy League university) asked them all sorts of questions about their backgrounds. Three were English majors, one history major, one political science major, and one econ major (and PhD). Only three of them had MBAs. They all emphasized that their luck, their flexibility to take advantage of opportunities, and their personal qualities such as they are mattered far more than any degree. Two of them had gotten MBAs or JDs after college because they couldn’t find work and they had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives. It was an eye-opening session, and the memory of it stays with me to this day. They were all successful because they were lucky, adaptable, adventurous, and followed what interested them personally whenver possible. They were _interesting_. > [@](#): > > Also, students dont always base their choices of degree upon market demand. Usually, they are being subsidized by parental contribution or government backed loans, have little or no real work experience, and have a childish view of the world. They pick majors on many reasons but market forces. This logic eats itself. Parents tend to have an extremely keen concern for their child’s marketability, _especially_ when they are footing the bill. Everyone knows unhappy engineers or attorneys who ended up in the wrong career because their parents controlled their purse strings. I don’t know anyone who majored in Classics due to parental pressure and concern for getting a job afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![scrambledeggs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@scrambledeggs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scrambledeggs)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-kids-earn-liberal-arts-degrees-when-they-are-not-marketable/454414/83 "2008-07-14T17:00:25Z")
[QUOTE=ultrafilter] Again, you don’t know what you’re talking about. All of the social sciences become extremely quantitative after the undergraduate level. [/QUOTE] My question concerned baccalaureates – in any case, a master’s in political science cannot be 1/10th the math of one engineering course. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-kids-earn-liberal-arts-degrees-when-they-are-not-marketable/454414/84 "2008-07-14T17:12:31Z")
[QUOTE=scrambledeggs] > [@](#): > > Right – your political science & history degrees got you hired, without any relevant experience, as an actuary or similar. And you are 1000x smarter at quantitative reasoning (something rarely done in your academic disciplines beyond arithmetic-level) than your many Wharton/Harvard MBA’s. The first is correct. AS to whether or not I am better at quantitative reasoning than my MBA colleagues, well, I am in no position to say. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and I have been eating rather well lately. > [@](#): > > Right–and the GMAT needed for them to get into those MBA schools was also meaningless. Pretty much. This is not a difficult test. There are no Kaplan or Princeton courses for the more useful or difficult things in life. > [@](#): > > Even if your story was true, you would be the exception. I know many people in person on these boards in person who can quite easily vouch for the veracity of my story. But the truth is, that is beside the point. But you are finally right about _something_. I am an exception. But you know what? So is everyone who manages, in his or her own way, to rise above corporate mediocrity. Mediocre people, no matter what they studied or got their MBAs in, are still mediocre people. They are doomed to wearing two-tone shirts and spending their lives in the controllership, accounts payable, or channel marketing. They are the kind of people who, despite their degrees, have little curiosity for the world and can talk intelligently about nothing save professional sports and some article in today’s WSJ. They are a suffocating lot. Some of them have managed to break into middle management, but this is no great accomplishment, especially for the owner of a shiny Harvard MBA. Have you ever _worked_ with these people? A few years ago I went to a finance networking night at my alma mater. There were a half dozen speakers on the panel, all top, and I mean _top_ brass in the most prestigious financial institutions in the world. Naturally, the finance dittoheads (yes, they exist, even as alumni of an Ivy League university) asked them all sorts of questions about their backgrounds. Three were English majors, one history major, one political science major, and one econ major (and PhD). Only three of them had MBAs. They all emphasized that their luck, their flexibility to take advantage of opportunities, and their personal qualities such as they are mattered far more than any degree. Two of them had gotten MBAs or JDs after college because they couldn’t find work and they had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives. It was an eye-opening session, and the memory of it stays with me to this day. They were all successful because they were lucky, adaptable, adventurous, and followed what interested them personally whenver possible. They were _interesting_. > [@](#): > > Also, students dont always base their choices of degree upon market demand. Usually, they are being subsidized by parental contribution or government backed loans, have little or no real work experience, and have a childish view of the world. They pick majors on many reasons but market forces. This logic eats itself. Parents tend to have an extremely keen concern for their child’s marketability, _especially_ when they are footing the bill. Everyone knows unhappy engineers or attorneys who ended up in the wrong career because their parents controlled their purse strings. I don’t know anyone who majored in Classics due to parental pressure and concern for getting a job afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-kids-earn-liberal-arts-degrees-when-they-are-not-marketable/454414/85 "2008-07-14T17:22:30Z")
[QUOTE=scrambledeggs] Right – your political science & history degrees got you hired, without any relevant experience, as an actuary or similar. And you are 1000x smarter at quantitative reasoning (something rarely done in your academic disciplines beyond arithmetic-level) than your many Wharton/Harvard MBA’s. [/quote] The first is correct. AS to whether or not I am better at quantitative reasoning than my MBA colleagues, well, I am in no position to say. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and I have been eating rather well lately. > [@](#): > > Right–and the GMAT needed for them to get into those MBA schools was also meaningless. Pretty much. This is not a difficult test. There are no Kaplan or Princeton courses for the more useful or difficult things in life. > [@](#): > > Even if your story was true, you would be the exception. I know many people in person on these boards in person who can quite easily vouch for the veracity of my story. But the truth is, that is beside the point. But you are finally right about _something_. I am an exception. But you know what? So is everyone who manages, in his or her own way, to rise above corporate mediocrity. Mediocre people, no matter what they studied or got their MBAs in, are still mediocre people. They are doomed to wearing two-tone shirts and spending their lives in the controllership, accounts payable, or channel marketing. They are the kind of people who, despite their degrees, have little curiosity for the world and can talk intelligently about nothing save professional sports and some article in today’s WSJ. They are a suffocating lot. Some of them have managed to break into middle management, but this is no great accomplishment, especially for the owner of a shiny Harvard MBA. Have you ever _worked_ with these people? A few years ago I went to a finance networking night at my alma mater. There were a half dozen speakers on the panel, all top, and I mean _top_ brass in the most prestigious financial institutions in the world. Naturally, the finance dittoheads (yes, they exist, even as alumni of an Ivy League university) asked them all sorts of questions about their backgrounds. Three were English majors, one history major, one political science major, and one econ major (and PhD). Only three of them had MBAs. They all emphasized that their luck, their flexibility to take advantage of opportunities, and their personal qualities such as they are mattered far more than any degree. Two of them had gotten MBAs or JDs after college because they couldn’t find work and they had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives. It was an eye-opening session, and the memory of it stays with me to this day. They were all successful because they were lucky, adaptable, adventurous, and followed what interested them personally whenver possible. They were _interesting_. > [@](#): > > Also, students dont always base their choices of degree upon market demand. Usually, they are being subsidized by parental contribution or government backed loans, have little or no real work experience, and have a childish view of the world. They pick majors on many reasons but market forces. This logic eats itself. Parents tend to have an extremely keen concern for their child’s marketability, _especially_ when they are footing the bill. Everyone knows unhappy engineers or attorneys who ended up in the wrong career because their parents controlled their purse strings. I don’t know anyone who majored in Classics due to parental pressure and concern for getting a job afterwards. > [@](#): > > My question concerned baccalaureates – in any case, a master’s in political science cannot be 1/10th the math of one engineering course. And to think, all of that math so you can end up designing a trivial part of a trivial system that just might impact a major project. Please. You have opinions, **scrambledeggs** , we get it. They are neither interesting nor well-informed, but that can be changed. All you have to do is open Fudenberg & Tirole’s Game Theory or William Greene’s Econometric Analysis. These are starting points. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-kids-earn-liberal-arts-degrees-when-they-are-not-marketable/454414/86 "2008-07-14T17:29:54Z")
[QUOTE=scrambledeggs] My question concerned baccalaureates – in any case, a master’s in political science cannot be 1/10th the math of one engineering course. [/QUOTE] Speaking as a graduate student in engineering with an undergraduate degree in math, I can say authoritatively that knowing a lot of math and being able to analyze a real world problem are _not_ the same skills. Liberal arts curricula definitely foster the latter for dedicated students. We hope that engineering and business degrees do as well. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2008, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-kids-earn-liberal-arts-degrees-when-they-are-not-marketable/454414/87 "2008-07-14T17:57:26Z")
You know, I really don’t understand the OP. Here he’s saying that liberal arts degrees are not marketable. Over on [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=475486) he says he heard that engineers get thrown out after five years on the job. So what SHOULD a student pick for his major? (Needless to say, both of the OP’s conjectures are wrong.) Ed ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2008, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-kids-earn-liberal-arts-degrees-when-they-are-not-marketable/454414/88 "2008-07-20T00:07:27Z")
[QUOTE=scrambledeggs] But that doesn’t explain why in today’s age there are so many liberal arts majors. It’s as if the concept of modern society is beyond them – the point is to earn marketable skills and education to produce something of value to society [/QUOTE] Why is this in Great Debates? This was just a pit ranting in disguise, and poor one at that. ---
**Author:** ![scrambledeggs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@scrambledeggs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scrambledeggs)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2008, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-kids-earn-liberal-arts-degrees-when-they-are-not-marketable/454414/89 "2008-07-20T08:01:40Z")
[QUOTE=Maeglin] This logic eats itself. Parents tend to have an extremely keen concern for their child’s marketability, . And to think, all of that math so you can end up designing a trivial part of a trivial system that just might impact a major project. Please. [/QUOTE] Not sure what ‘eats itself’ means, but my logic was not circular; your assumption that parents know best is incorrect. The average middle aged dude sending his kid through college is not necessarily up to date on the latest majors, or on market trends. Exceptions exist, but many want their children to follow in the parents’ dreams, or footsteps, and market forces are not necessarily reflected. Your assertion that engineers are nobodies doing minor math calculations, while political science majors like yourself are formulating policy for the world is also bordering on ‘eats itself’. Your other mention of certain academic books appear to me as an attempt to show off knowledge that you have claimed but hitherto not shown. It appears to me that my original question about the usefulness of poli sci has offended you, which would indicate an insecurity you hold about your degree. If I had said finance majors are poor, I doubt they would have cared to respond. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2008, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-kids-earn-liberal-arts-degrees-when-they-are-not-marketable/454414/90 "2008-07-20T08:11:42Z")
Similar threads have appeared. In them, I have pointed out that my undergrad degree fit under the “liberal arts” umbrella, and it’s taken me all over the world and on a fantastic roller-coaster ride I’d probably never have gone on if I’d opted for a more “normal” degree. I know many others likewise. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-kids-earn-liberal-arts-degrees-when-they-are-not-marketable/454414.md?page=4)