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This makes me sad and mad. I work at a small liberal arts university in IT and they are still telling the students to take whatever Arts and Sciences major. T

by epalmer 10y ago

This makes me sad and mad. I work at a small liberal arts university in IT and they are still telling the students to take whatever Arts and Sciences major. The school I work at does limit student debt and is a needs based school (they provide a lot of debt free aid in the form of grants), so that is good. But still majoring in the classics or art (especially from a school not known for art), art history and art management is not good for long term career options. I was in a meeting yesterday where a professor was lamenting that too many students are majoring in business and not arts and sciences. The interesting thing about that is our biggest alumni donors are business school majors and not A&S. If you can't major in a science, CS or engineering then major in business. I guess you can't fix stupid. I am so glad my youngest will be attending an engineering school next fall and will get a mechanical engineering degree with an emphasis in systems.

xname2 10y ago
It is not just stupid. It is politically motivated. The idea that people should be responsible for individual decision making is somehow contradict with today's teaching in humanities and liberal arts. It is no coincidence that almost all of those professors are far left and they advocate students should just major in whatever they like, and at the same time they hate business school, and at the same time them agree with free college to everyone, etc.
- epalmer 10y ago
  @xname1 I agree. I see this up close.
BeetleB 10y ago
>If you can't major in a science, CS or engineering then major in business. When I was in school, people had the most contempt for business majors. The engineering people got respect for the technical difficulty of what they did. The liberal arts folks got respect for the intellectual pursuit. When we would look at a business major, all we would see was style with no substance. Almost all their education was geared towards appearances. When my undergrad forced all business undergrads to own laptops, the reason was "No one will take you seriously without one". A business professor told me that when students give presentations, he never listens to the content. His feedback is entirely about appearance (suitable clothes, appropriate voice, sexy presentation, etc). As far as actual content goes, you could more easily learn it all on your own than you could for, say, software or programming (since that is a concern in this thread somewhere). The primary utility of the business degree is: 1. Learn to look good. 2. Join a somewhat exclusive club.
- epalmer 10y ago
  I mentored two international business majors (from bosnia). They graduated at the top of the class for all business majors. They learned at the school I work at much more than that. But I have heard about programs like you describe.

by epalmer 10y ago

xname2 10y ago

It is not just stupid. It is politically motivated. The idea that people should be responsible for individual decision making is somehow contradict with today's teaching in humanities and liberal arts. It is no coincidence that almost all of those professors are far left and they advocate students should just major in whatever they like, and at the same time they hate business school, and at the same time them agree with free college to everyone, etc.

epalmer 10y ago
@xname1 I agree. I see this up close.

BeetleB 10y ago

>If you can't major in a science, CS or engineering then major in business. When I was in school, people had the most contempt for business majors. The engineering people got respect for the technical difficulty of what they did. The liberal arts folks got respect for the intellectual pursuit. When we would look at a business major, all we would see was style with no substance. Almost all their education was geared towards appearances. When my undergrad forced all business undergrads to own laptops, the reason was "No one will take you seriously without one". A business professor told me that when students give presentations, he never listens to the content. His feedback is entirely about appearance (suitable clothes, appropriate voice, sexy presentation, etc). As far as actual content goes, you could more easily learn it all on your own than you could for, say, software or programming (since that is a concern in this thread somewhere). The primary utility of the business degree is: 1. Learn to look good. 2. Join a somewhat exclusive club.

epalmer 10y ago
I mentored two international business majors (from bosnia). They graduated at the top of the class for all business majors. They learned at the school I work at much more than that. But I have heard about programs like you describe.