2 ms·
> There are huge ranges of jobs that a humanities degree qualifies you for that you can't get without one--- even a bunch of stuff that's unrelated to the degre
by swernli 16y ago
> There are huge ranges of jobs that a humanities degree qualifies you for that you can't get without one--- even a bunch of stuff that's unrelated to the degree, like HR or various secretarial jobs.
I think that's exactly the problem. Why should that degree qualify you? It's unrelated! That's what the article and some of the comments are trying to point out: we shouldn't have careers where the college degree is treated like a checkbox instead of being a relevant indicator of your ability in the field in question. What does close examination of Chaucer or Shakespeare have to do with being a secretary? Why would someone who doesn't have a degree in Comparitive Literature make a worse secretary than someone who does? The answer is that it shouldn't.
- _delirium 16y agoBasically as a proxy for "is reasonably intelligent and able to apply him/herself for some period of time to achieve goals". Not necessarily a great proxy (and a very expensive one), but for a lot of semi-generic jobs it's the best currently available. At the very least, it weeds out some of the people the companies definitely don't want to hire.