Harumph! No, he did not. 
Saint John’s is in a beautful setting there. I’ve been on the campus a few times.
I had a History prof who once told us as a young undergrad, he made extra money during the summer breaks by teaching Business students how to write.
I’m sure daHubby, who has to deal with documents from EPA will agree with you. Also think there’s some necromancy involved with interpreting them too.
Well at least the course I’ll be taking in Ancient Magic and Ritual will be useful for something.
I mean, besides using *defixiones *against my rival law school applicants or invoking the Furies.
I mean a liberal arts degree by itself. If you study History and then go to law school, your degree didn’t lead you to a better job. It just led you to law school. Get good grades and do well on the LSATs, any degree will lead you to law school.
Well, you have to define a “better” job, or a “good” job. One that pays well? Good benefits? Room for advancement?
Thing is, folks like me, who are seeking a degree in Liberal Arts intending not to go into the corporate world, don’t define a good job as one that pays well, but one that they love.
Will I be rich as a college professor, working in a museum, or writing books? Probably not. Will I love every minute of it? Absolutely. Particularly the working in my pajamas part of writing.
I decided at approximately the age of 12 I never wanted a desk job. It doesn’t suit me. Although my last job (at a museum) was technically a desk job, it was more tolerable than most since it involved history, my true love. Will I have trouble finding work when I finish grad school? Probably. Will I struggle to make ends meet for a while? You bet. Does it matter to me? No. As long as I’m not starving and have a roof over my head, I never want to do anything but what I love. Yeah, I’m young and idealistic, but I see going into the corporate world as selling my soul to the Devil (apologies to those happily employed in the corporate world, it’s not for me). If that changes, which I sincerely think it won’t, then my degree has certainly prepared me for it.
I admire the high-falutin’-ness of this and similar responses, but the truth is that for some of us university is a tech or trade school.
My dad paid for my university education with the understanding that I was preparing myself to get a jobby-job. I’m sure I could have majored in Underwater Basketweaving on my own dime, but certainly not on his. His feeling on most liberal arts degrees was summed up as “Major in Philosophy and then sit around and contemplate why you don’t have a job.”
That said, I majored in English and History because those were the subjects that interested me and in which I excelled. He was okay with that because he knew that at a minimum I would be able to be a teacher.
Instead, I went to law school. Now, it used to be that law schools would look for people with backgrounds in things like business and accounting – other “professional” but not hard-science fields. But then they discovered that LA majors generally are better at reading and analyizing large volumes of materials; at producing written product; and at rhetorical skills like argument. So now many law schools prefer LA degrees. Mine stood me in good stead in law school and beyond, especially where writing is concerned.
So I think there’s a great deal of middle ground between “I’m majoring in geology and I’ll be a geologist” and “I’m majoring in Medieval French Lute Music and I’ll be jobless.”
But this isn’t necessarily true. I happen to be really good at English and History, in part due to ability and in part due to the fact that my motivation to work hard follows my interests. So it is NOT true that “any degree” would have led me to law school; in fact, it’s likely that only the degree I got would have led me to law school, because it was not within my ability to “get good grades” in a subject that didn’t interest me and that I wasn’t good at. So why should your artificial limitation of “a liberal arts degree by itself” be respected? My LA degree led directly to my ability to go to law school, which led directly to the career I have today. It’s true that I wouldn’t be here without the law degree, but it’s also true I probably wouldn’t be here without the LA degree, because the latter enabled the former.
I think there is a sort of sticky issue with liberal arts, as well: the skills that a liberal arts degree trains you in are ones that everyone secretly thinks they are pretty good at, anyway. IME, most people think they are pretty good writers. Most people think they read and analyze well. Most people think they are pretty good citizens. Most people think they have pretty good people skills, and are skilled communicators. So when I say that my liberal arts degree trained me in all these things, most people are thinking they are already good at all that. And who am I to tell any individual that they are not? All I know is that while I was at the top of the charts, standardized test wise, going into my liberal arts studies, I know I learned so damned much in my years of study. So I kinda doubt that the people that started below me in these skills learned anywhere near enough to catch up to where I am now after all the work I did, anymore than I know anything about the skills they spent their time learning.
My mentee is currently enrolled in two extremely rigorous honors programs at a very good state school–both these programs were Ivy-league difficult to get into. One is a liberal arts program and one is a business program. He will tell you that the business program will help more with getting a job–the recruiting alone is unreal–but that the liberal arts program will help more in excelling in a job. he has a lot more context for the world around him. And he’d also tell you that the liberal arts program is more intellectually demanding.
Who is going to design the elegant yet functional interface to the software the programmer writes? Who is going to create the art that gets hung in the building the architect lays out? Who is going to write the Sci Fi books that insire the next generation of engineers?
I think in the end all the professions need to appreciate and respect the skills and talents that people trained in other fields can bring to the table.
Let’s face it, not everyone is cut out to a doctor, lawyer, engineer, manager, accounant, or whatever technical professions you want to put opposite of a Liberal Arts degree.
The world needs its authors, poets, [del]baristas[/del](I kid) and artists too.
Not to mention, who is going to proofread the contract proposals and drawings for the engineers?
At my last job they’d bitch and complain about losing contracts, when I told them before release that they misspelled “transmission”. And then management would let it go anyway. Le sigh.
Ultimately, doesn’t it depend on the personality as much as the major? I’d willingly bet money on the prospects of a bright, confident, somewhat extroverted liberal arts grad doing well in the business world. On the other hand, if you don’t have that extrovertedness and confidence, you’d be better off in a more skill-oriented major where you can compensate, to an extent, by trading on tech skills. I admit, we computer people do tend to be more introverted and nerdy, as an example of that.
Disclaimer: These are the very IMHO rantings of a self-identified Liberal Arts major jumping in here…my personal biases may not reflect others’ perspectives, YMMV, don’t stare into the laser, yadda yadda.
San Francisco State University (my old academic haunting grounds) was one of the first (if not the first) schools to offer a Liberal Studies program. IMHO, they may have changed the name slightly, but the purpose is to invoke the original spirit of a Liberal Arts program. So to counter the cultural perception that all a Liberal Arts degree does is to get one’s foot in the door at establishments where “Do you want pommes frites with that?” has become a tagline, I going to paraphrase from SFSU’s website (wordy stuff ahead; blue emphasis mine):
The 46-unit liberal studies major has a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary curriculum encompassing all areas of knowledge in the arts and sciences. Many employers and professional schools prefer graduates with the type of richly diversified education that this major provides. The liberal studies program is also recommended as preparation for students who aspire to become elementary school teachers.
The liberal studies major is applicable to a variety of fields. Since the major has considerable flexibility, it can be designed to meet a student’s personal and academic interests. The major along with additional subject matter preparation courses (listed after the major courses) provides the broad academic background necessary for teaching in an elementary classroom and for passing the CSET Multiple Subjects (California Subject Examinations for Teachers). The major can be planned with a particular career in mind, such as government or public service, management, or work in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, communications, or in multicultural communities. It is appropriate preparation for various professional and graduate programs such as business, counseling, law, librarianship, medicine, and for interdisciplinary graduate programs.
Let’s expound on the blue stuff to explain why I embrace the liberal arts/studies program:
Multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, all knowledge of the arts and sciences. I learned a little of everything in the arts AND sciences. I took classes in art history, world literature, and German as well as biology, physics, calculus. I also took multidisciplinary classes–think of course mash-ups, such as Expository Writing on Musical Compositions, History of Medicine, or Political Economy. From a Doper perspective, doesn’t this sound like fun?
Richly diversified education. There’s some truth to the joke that Liberal Arts people are the most fun to talk to at cocktail parties. Our weakness–compromised technical depth for broad comprehension–is our strength. We can discuss a multitude of subjects without relying too much on jargon or losing our audience.
Teaching. Many Liberal Arts majors plan to teach. Since, an elementary (or middle) school teacher has to teach a variety of subjects, the Liberal Arts program is ideal for establishing a broad foundation of knowledge.
Government, public service, management, work in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, communications, or in multicultural communities, [as well as] appropriate preparation for various professional and graduate programs such as business, counseling, law, librarianship, medicine, and for interdisciplinary graduate programs. To get the second point out of the way, graduate schools (law, business, medicine) welcome Liberal Arts majors who demonstrate an ability to learn different subjects. I’m spending more time on the first point because it emphasizes the development of two essential* employee skills that the Liberal Arts consciously addresses:
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The ability to communicate effectively orally and writing, and
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The ability to work with others/Be a team player
(*Have a nickel or take a drink for every time you’ve seen these qualifications on a job announcement. Also, since I am an office worker, my perception is more biased towards so-called white collar desk work.)
Skill One is pretty demanding. Basically, you’re a diplomat (paging False_God :)), able to persuade and explain things to wide variety of people without ticking them off. We’re talking phone conversations, memos, reports, PowerPoint presentations, speeches, and most effectively/dangerous of all, one on one talks. Liberal Arts classes often require interactivity between students and instructors, so we get plenty of practice and guidance.
Skill Two often means you have to work with people you didn’t choose to still deliver a quality product. Liberal Arts classes require so much interaction that even a shy introvert like me gets used to talking with people to the point where I’m now in the minority of Americans where public speaking is no longer my number one fear. (Okay, I exaggerate. But at least it’s not as terrifying as it used to be.)
Regarding multicultural work: our world has always been multicultural, and it’s especially important today to figure out how to work with people from different ethnic groups or socioeconomic backgrounds, or to even just learn about the various multicultural influences that have impacted us.
Skill Three: (Salutations, Opal!) You rarely find this on job announcements, but in my experience, the my past and previous employers appreciated the fact that as a generalist, I’m not afraid (and even enthusiastic) to learn new things.
However, to address the flip side of the coin:
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I admit that, except for aspiring teachers, many (including myself, initially) choose liberal arts because we thought it looked better than ‘undeclared’
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Because of the above, we have a reputation for being unfocused slackers. I probably get asked the “What do you want to do with your life?” question more times than my other Engineer, Law, or Medicine friends. Our career choices are not as sharply defined as other those majoring in other fields, so our answers tend to sound wishy-washy.
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We tend to question authority and the professors don’t help by saying things considered to be “subversive” or anti-corporate. However, our upper-level professors are pragmatic. They often say, “Don’t believe everything The Man says, but if you want to survive, you better do this.” Part of having a liberal arts education is being exposed to contrasting political viewpoints and trying to reconcile them all. Or not.
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To chime in with other posters, money isn’t everything. (Spoken like a…Liberal Arts major, you might say.) We are concerned with paying the bills, and as a single data point, my salary is not bad (although it could always be higher). What’s funny is that new people I meet often think I got my degree in whatever topic I happen to talk about at the time. People have assumed I got my degree in Design or Graphic Arts when I comment on the layout of the paper literature they give me.
Final thought: A Liberal Arts background is (or ought to be) the definition of what college provides: a well-rounded education that helps the students become aware of all the opportunities available with respect to careers, passions, life directions or otherwise. It is one (albeit important) stepping stone of many.
O.K., I made a mistake in my last post that made absolute hash of what I was trying to say. I wrote:
> You leave college with a bachelor’s degree in architecture and you get an entry-
> level job in engineering (assuming that there are jobs open).
I meant, of course:
> You leave college with a bachelor’s degree in architecture and you get an entry-
> level job in architecture (assuming that there are jobs open).
One exception to this rule is software development. An English, history, or finance student can be very well suited for writing software. Granted, they would need some basic technical training (e.g. training in the programming language). However, the most important skills for software development are organizing your thoughts and communicating them clearly.
msmith, just out of curiosity, did you go to college and what was your major?
What was wrong with what I said? I chose liberal arts because, while I do like engineering and building things, that isn’t what I want to study in school. I’ve seen several other people make other claims, being happier studying liberal arts. Sorry if it wasn’t to your satisfaction, but this is IMHO and that was MHO.
I realize I misread your post. Please accept my apology.
Yes, he’s mentioned upthread, I think, and elsewhere: he’s got a BS in civil engineering and an MBA, IIRC.
I’ve got a friend who’s studying architecture - she says it depends a lot on where students study. Some schools are known for drilling engineering into their students, and these kids get reputations as “workhorses” who you go to when you want to build something that will actually work well. Other schools focus much more on the art side of architecture, and don’t give their students much engineering exposure at all.