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> for a useless degree they'll never use I went to school for such a degree. While I don't use it in my day to day now, I still consider it priceless. There's

> for a useless degree they'll never use I went to school for such a degree. While I don't use it in my day to day now, I still consider it priceless. There's some inherent value added to a person who pursues to study a bit of humanities, history, philosophy and art in college apart from their major. Scholarly work really helps shape the way you look at life for the better. Part of this is that you really understand why you need to trust academic work for general human advancement. We have too many people thinking it's okay to discredit scientists and scholars because they don't understand how research works.

cloakandswagger 9y ago
> We have too many people thinking it's okay to discredit scientists and scholars because they don't understand how research works. And a similar number of people who elevate science to the level of religion, marching in its name and developing a brand of hero worship for scientists when they too know nothing at all about the scientific process. Both are forms of anti-intellectualism that are growing in our polarized political environment.
- smallnamespace 9y ago
  I've seen this form of scientism playing out frequently on Reddit and other Internet forums lately. Discussion will be about some piece of controversial research, e.g. GMOs or vaccines. People who want to discuss the merits of the research are shouted down by what I can only describe as 'science fanbois' -- anything that is 'against science' must be wrong. They're missing the inherent tension in science between a received body of knowledge and the skepticism it takes to produce new knowledge.
  - 0xfeba 9y ago
    > Some piece of controversial research, e.g. GMOs or vaccines Who or what determines what is controversial? To me, vaccines are not controversial at all. You can pick and choose specific ones to argue about, but the concept of vaccines is literally proven, beyond a doubt. As for GMOs, there's a lot more room but even still, the fundamentals are nothing controversial. This is also proven in pretty much anything you can buy in a grocery store today.
    - wutbrodo 9y ago
      Controversial literally just means that there's strong, polarizing disagreement. It's fairly well-defined, and vaccines definitely qualify. This doesn't mean that examining the actual positions of each side would lead you to conclude that they're of equal worth: it just describes the significant disagreement that exists. (As opposed to, say, the heliocentric model)
  - simias 9y ago
    I don't think it's really about science, it's more about reddit. You'll find the same thing on any discussion on any somewhat popular subreddit regardless of the subject. There's almost always a reddit hivemind sanctioned Good Answer to any issue and if you stray away from the Good Path you'll get buried in downvotes, regardless of how much effort you put into arguing your point. Conversely if you make a completely useless one-liner comment agreeing with the Good Answer then you'll be showered with upvotes and propelled to the top of the page. Upvote/downvotes are de-facto agree/disagree buttons on reddit. As a forum it's completely useless to discuss anything beyond cat pictures and funny gifs.
    - RyanZAG 9y ago
      HN isn't all that different, so it's probably about more than just reddit. For example, you can post the same remarks criticizing functional programming in a post about C# or Java and get upvotes, while the same post in a Haskell discussion will be downvoted. You can try the experiment yourself to verify it. This applies to companies as well - you will be upvoted for pro-Microsoft or anti-Google posts in a news topic about Microsoft, and the reverse in a news topic about Google. This is because people who use Microsoft products will be very interested in Microsoft news, but not interested enough in Google news to go and downvote opinions they disagree with there.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > For example, you can post the same remarks criticizing functional programming in a post about C# or Java and get upvotes, while the same post in a Haskell discussion will be downvoted. It's simply unreasonsble to think that the value of a comment is independent of its context.
        RyanZAG 9y ago
        Certainly, although it's clear that the largest part of the context would be the audience that the comment is exposed to. And it also shows that the upvote and downvote feature is not used correctly here either - it's used to promote or hide comments that the viewer agrees or disagrees with. Just the same as Reddit. It's a deeper issue than just being 'reddit', and it's more about online discussion in general.
  - xenihn 9y ago
    >Discussion will be about some piece of controversial research, e.g. GMOs or vaccines. People who want to discuss the merits of the research are shouted down by what I can only describe as 'science fanbois' -- anything that is 'against science' must be wrong. Discussions on reddit (and all sorts of other social platforms) are being influenced and manipulated by people who are being paid to do so, and anyone who denies that at this point is delusional. Source: I know people who run firms that provide this service.
  - Fomite 9y ago
    It's always fascinating to me how little some of these people understand science. There was a forum I frequented where there was a prolific "scientism" poster, and pretty much every time several of the working scientists on the site, myself included, were like "Um...that's not how this works."
  - umbrellathorn 9y ago
    I was referring to the work one has to go through to get your research recognized in the scientific community, for example. I'm not "worshipping" science. I had in mind people who go on planes to disprove the earth being round, who believe crystals have actual healing powers, or people who refuse proven cancer treatment.
- ardit33 9y ago
  Say what? I'd say a "propper scientist" will know about the "scientific process" pretty well. Sure, there are plenty of pseudo scientists out there that promote their political or economic agendas, but you can't discredit all science because of that. Right now "hard" science is the best way to explain things around us and the universe. Sure, often it is wrong as new science gets discovered, but that's how human knowledge evolves. As for the "soft" sciences (anything social/psyc, etc), that's a completely different matter. They are more prone to trends, fads and more personal biases, hence I would put them in a different category.
  - lazyasciiart 9y ago
    I think the sentence is meant as 'too many people who don't understand research and are therefore willing to discredit scientists'
  - cloakandswagger 9y ago
    That was poor wording. It was in reference to the science "cheerleaders" who, from my own observations, are often equally as clueless about science as there anti-science counterparts.
  - czep 9y ago
    > They are more prone to trends, fads and more personal biases This is not necessarily true, and I would urge caution when making such generalizations. There is junk social science and there is also plenty of junk "hard" science. Examples of fake data, political and personal biases interfering with the scientific method, occur in all fields. Some "fads" eventually become accepted fact. It took 100 years before plate tectonics was accepted by the majority of the scientific community, there are many such examples. Don't universally discount social science: it is just as important as physical science. We actually need more social scientists to help understand the reasons behind anti-science movements in the first place, and to help legitimize science as a process, critial thinking, and to debunk illogical arguments.
    - RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
      When you have prominent social scientists arguing that pointing out statistical errors in papers is "Methodological Terrorism" (http://andrewgelman.com/2016/09/21/what-has-happened-down-here-is-the-winds-have-changed/ http://andrewgelman.com/2016/09/21/what-has-happened-down-he...), I call that junk science. And if social scientists want to "help legitimize science as a process, critial thinking, and to debunk illogical arguments.", they should start with fixing their own reproducibility crisis and p-hacking crisis before instructing other people on science as a process.
- simias 9y ago
  "A similar number of people" developing a brand of hero worship for scientists? Maybe I'm hugely biased but that doesn't really mirror what I see online and elsewhere. Are you telling me that for every climate change denier, for every anti-vaxxer, for every creationist, for every chemtrail/tap water/moon landing/flat earth conspiracy theorist there's a rabid scientist who elevates the current scientific consensus to the level of religion? That's borderline whataboutism IMO.
  - cloakandswagger 9y ago
    The "March for Science" that happened earlier this year had estimated attendance of 1.07 million. Now go to Google Images and search for "March for Science". Nearly every sign I see is either political in nature, elevating science to a level of religion/infallibility, or casting science as a fashion/meme ("Scientific is the new chic", "Science isn't wrong", "In science we trust").
    - dmschulman 9y ago
      Similar to Twitter, it's hard to nuance a complex thought on a garish protest sign. With the example of a sign reading "Sciences isn't wrong", that's not literally a statement of science's infallibility, it's just something some guy wrote on a sign. If you had a conversation with the individual I'm sure they would espouse to you what they meant with their sign. It feels like an act of willful ignorance to interpret the few words or catchy phrase on a protest sign and ascribe them as that person's core beliefs.
      - Domenic_S 9y ago
        That's part of the problem now though, there's no room for nuance. You almost HAVE to take an extreme position in order to be heard. For instance, the GP mentioned anti-vaxxers. There are many different kinds of "alternative" stances on vaccinations, and only one (very) extreme position is "vaccines cause autism". But if you mention anything about vaccines that isn't 100% of vaccines are amazing 100% of the time you are considered an "anti-vaxxer", lumped in with the vaccines-cause-autism crazies. Consider: I haven't made a judgement on vaccines in this comment, yet I guarantee you have a feeling/judgement about what you think I believe. Like I said, no room for nuance.
- Fomite 9y ago
  One thing I noticed going to a major conference in my academic field last year (IDWeek for those interested). Each and every one of the plenary speakers had some reference in their talks that betrayed a classic liberal arts education. The titans of a scientific field still valued arts, and history, and culture. And derived value from it. Hell, I'm a working scientist and one of the most valuable classes I ever had for thinking about the world was a feminist art history class.
smokeyj 9y ago
Can't tell if you're enlightened or institutionalized. > Scholarly work really helps shape the way you look at life for the better. Like what? What scenario did you encounter and how did your studies help you? Otherwise it sounds like a vague claim that every religious institution would make.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  > Otherwise it sounds like a vague claim that every religious institution would make. Yeah it's like when people defend hazing. "Oh it builds character!" No thanks please.
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  If I can steal your question for the parent comment and get more specific: > the way you look at life for the better Do you feel your outlook has improved, or are your life outcomes measurably better, and how? Additional question: was it worth the $37,000 in debt, and do you think that perhaps we could achieve the same better-ness with less debt?
- Xylakant 9y ago
  > Like what? What scenario did you encounter and how did your studies help you? Otherwise it sounds like a vague claim that every religious institution would make. Studying for a degree involves more than just reading a book. A good degree (no matter what major you choose) should leave you with the skills and capabilities to learn and teach yourself new skills. This - not the knowledge gained - is by far the most valuable takeaway that I have from my studies: Oh, I need to learn about the problem space X. How do I start, research, teach myself things about something previously unknown. School teaches knowledge, university learning skills.
  - smokeyj 9y ago
    Degrees are cost prohibitive and there's no incentive to increase supply. Higher costs signal exclusivity and prestige - which I would argue is the true value of a degree. It's an item of luxury that is intended to open doors for you. If we could objectively measure the tangible benefits of a degree and replicate it with a low cost alternative - it still wouldn't carry the same prestige because it's not exclusionary. I think the greatest barrier to truly accessible education is our status seeking behavior.
alexanderstears 9y ago
But did you need to go to school for that 'priceless' education? You can learn a lot about the humanities at your local library. Maybe it's not the same, but does a private school with a 60k tuition seem 'worth it' for humanities education when the alternative is a cheaper vocational education and self-study?
bluGill 9y ago
There is the problem. I have full respect for "useless" degrees. If people want one then they should get one. However since it is "useless" you should not be mortgaging your future to get it. Get a "real job" first and pay for the degree out of your pocket, perhaps taking night classes. As a member of society I need you to take care of yourself. You are a burden on society if you don't have a productive job paying your own way. We provide a "safety net", but the less who use it the better. Too many people using the safety net will make society break down. We believe is education required to be productive, so we subsidize education to get more productive people in society. Or to put it simply: If you love art, get an art degree.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  These discussions often become "either/or", ignoring the possibility of studying STEM and other pre-professional fields while also receiving a thorough introduction to the humanities. You can study Computer Science while also learning a bit of art history, or architecture, or psychology, or the sciences, or business, or... And doing so might even make you more valuable to your employer, to yourself/your family, and to society. > You are a burden on society if you don't have a productive job paying your own way... We believe is education required to be productive, so we subsidize education to get more productive people in society. This mode of thinking is a great way to churn out lots of well-behaved, competent corporate employees. From this viewpoint, it follows that the path to the upper class is reserved for the already-rich.
  - WWLink 9y ago
    Having a computer science degree does not guarantee gainful employment.
    - throwawayjava 9y ago
      Nothing guarantees gainful employment. So what?
- hmschreck 9y ago
  I think it's also important to note that even people with useless degrees having higher earning potential simply by virtue of having a degree, and there is real social value in having someone who is educated in something for its own sake.
soperj 9y ago
There are others who think it's okay to discredit scientists and scholars because they understand exactly how research works.
autokad 9y ago
"There's some inherent value added to a person who pursues to study a bit of humanities, history, philosophy and art in college apart from their major. Scholarly work really helps shape the way you look at life for the better." I dont feel this is the case, and I wouldnt say its priceless. its on average ~30k$ + 2 years of extra course work, and honestly, we are getting very little bang for our buck. it has little impact on my career, but cutting my tuition nearly in half, and giving nearly 2 years back to me would be huge.
chriskanan 9y ago
While I agree that one can gain a great deal of enrichment from studying non-lucrative majors, I think people should highly consider double majoring in this case. I majored in computer science AND philosophy as an undergraduate. Doing both took under 5 years. I think a lot of people don't realize how little they will earn with their degrees compared to how high their debt load will be. That's not including people who fail to even finish their degrees.
- mywittyname 9y ago
  Isn't a philosophy/CS double major kind of like a math/CS double major? In that it expands your knowledge in the same domain, rather than a completely new one would (like, for example, studying German literature or biology would). I remember helping my sister with her philosophy home work, and being surprised by the amount of elementary logic and set theory being taught.
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    That depends in large part on the philosophy department. More analytic [1] departments will teach lots of courses that could just as well be cross-listed as theoretical computer science courses. But some departments are less analytic (e.g. departments heavy on [2] and [3] aren't too difficult to find in the US). In those departments, the mode of thinking is very different from what you'll experience in a CS course. And in both cases, taking a lot of humanity courses will teach you how to write well. Which is definitely a skill that a lot of CS majors lack. (Also, a course of study in analytic philosophy can definitely help round out a CS major that's too light on the theory courses.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_philosophy [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classics
  - tytytytytytytyt 9y ago
    I wouldn't say either of those expand your knowledge in the same domain. Related, sure.
  - 9y ago
SamReidHughes 9y ago
Maybe you could spend one year doing it instead of four.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  Fortunately, our current education system is already set up to allow this. With a few AP credits, you can easily major in a STEM field and spend a year+ worth of time on courses outside of CS.
jmilloy 9y ago
Sure, and the relationship you have with your dog is probably "priceless", too, but that doesn't mean it should be trivially easy to get a three-figure loan to bring one home, and that animal shelters should charge three figures per adoption. I'm really not belittling your degree. I value such degrees highly. I also don't think they should cost so much, nor that the student-loan bubble should be allowed to facilitate charging you so much for it. Ideally fixing the system wouldn't eliminate such degrees, they would just decrease the cost to something reasonable.
- umbrellathorn 9y ago
  In my case, I went to school to become a musician. Got a master's degree in music performance, but got tired of working hard and earning very little. I self taught computer science and programming, so now I have a good salary and a much more comfortable life. I feel my bachelor's was pretty special since it was a liberal arts degree and my employer seems to recognize the difference between me and someone who didn't go to school and/or just studied STEM exclusively. I was very lucky to have scholarships, that made it easier on me when I was younger. But wanting to go back for CS made it impossible later in life without getting in debt. And I refuse to get a student loan. It's sad that when someone didn't get lucky with a well off household or scholarships, they have to cripple themselves into debt.
tytytytytytytyt 9y ago
You can't sell soap to a pig.
jedberg 9y ago
Apologies if I offended, I should have put "useless" in quotes. I meant degrees that society does not give as much value to as to what you paid to get them.
usrusr 9y ago
Not just nice for the people who personally went through that change, but it is also valuable for the general public to have such people around. But balanced against having more people with crushing debt I fear that the net effect is negative. A strong "background radiation" of humanities education can have a very positive effect on democracy, it is pretty much the defining difference between a working democracy and a populist nightmare. But if student loans leaved those who have the education no other option than to maximally leverage it to get ahead of others, it will likely have the opposite effect. (I felt tempted to write weaponize instead of leverage.) Maybe humanities education is only stabilizing "background radiation" when it is wasted, on the level of personal economics?

cloakandswagger 9y ago

> We have too many people thinking it's okay to discredit scientists and scholars because they don't understand how research works. And a similar number of people who elevate science to the level of religion, marching in its name and developing a brand of hero worship for scientists when they too know nothing at all about the scientific process. Both are forms of anti-intellectualism that are growing in our polarized political environment.

smallnamespace 9y ago
I've seen this form of scientism playing out frequently on Reddit and other Internet forums lately. Discussion will be about some piece of controversial research, e.g. GMOs or vaccines. People who want to discuss the merits of the research are shouted down by what I can only describe as 'science fanbois' -- anything that is 'against science' must be wrong. They're missing the inherent tension in science between a received body of knowledge and the skepticism it takes to produce new knowledge.
- 0xfeba 9y ago
  > Some piece of controversial research, e.g. GMOs or vaccines Who or what determines what is controversial? To me, vaccines are not controversial at all. You can pick and choose specific ones to argue about, but the concept of vaccines is literally proven, beyond a doubt. As for GMOs, there's a lot more room but even still, the fundamentals are nothing controversial. This is also proven in pretty much anything you can buy in a grocery store today.
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    Controversial literally just means that there's strong, polarizing disagreement. It's fairly well-defined, and vaccines definitely qualify. This doesn't mean that examining the actual positions of each side would lead you to conclude that they're of equal worth: it just describes the significant disagreement that exists. (As opposed to, say, the heliocentric model)
- simias 9y ago
  I don't think it's really about science, it's more about reddit. You'll find the same thing on any discussion on any somewhat popular subreddit regardless of the subject. There's almost always a reddit hivemind sanctioned Good Answer to any issue and if you stray away from the Good Path you'll get buried in downvotes, regardless of how much effort you put into arguing your point. Conversely if you make a completely useless one-liner comment agreeing with the Good Answer then you'll be showered with upvotes and propelled to the top of the page. Upvote/downvotes are de-facto agree/disagree buttons on reddit. As a forum it's completely useless to discuss anything beyond cat pictures and funny gifs.
  - RyanZAG 9y ago
    HN isn't all that different, so it's probably about more than just reddit. For example, you can post the same remarks criticizing functional programming in a post about C# or Java and get upvotes, while the same post in a Haskell discussion will be downvoted. You can try the experiment yourself to verify it. This applies to companies as well - you will be upvoted for pro-Microsoft or anti-Google posts in a news topic about Microsoft, and the reverse in a news topic about Google. This is because people who use Microsoft products will be very interested in Microsoft news, but not interested enough in Google news to go and downvote opinions they disagree with there.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > For example, you can post the same remarks criticizing functional programming in a post about C# or Java and get upvotes, while the same post in a Haskell discussion will be downvoted. It's simply unreasonsble to think that the value of a comment is independent of its context.
      - RyanZAG 9y ago
        Certainly, although it's clear that the largest part of the context would be the audience that the comment is exposed to. And it also shows that the upvote and downvote feature is not used correctly here either - it's used to promote or hide comments that the viewer agrees or disagrees with. Just the same as Reddit. It's a deeper issue than just being 'reddit', and it's more about online discussion in general.
- xenihn 9y ago
  >Discussion will be about some piece of controversial research, e.g. GMOs or vaccines. People who want to discuss the merits of the research are shouted down by what I can only describe as 'science fanbois' -- anything that is 'against science' must be wrong. Discussions on reddit (and all sorts of other social platforms) are being influenced and manipulated by people who are being paid to do so, and anyone who denies that at this point is delusional. Source: I know people who run firms that provide this service.
- Fomite 9y ago
  It's always fascinating to me how little some of these people understand science. There was a forum I frequented where there was a prolific "scientism" poster, and pretty much every time several of the working scientists on the site, myself included, were like "Um...that's not how this works."
- umbrellathorn 9y ago
  I was referring to the work one has to go through to get your research recognized in the scientific community, for example. I'm not "worshipping" science. I had in mind people who go on planes to disprove the earth being round, who believe crystals have actual healing powers, or people who refuse proven cancer treatment.
ardit33 9y ago
Say what? I'd say a "propper scientist" will know about the "scientific process" pretty well. Sure, there are plenty of pseudo scientists out there that promote their political or economic agendas, but you can't discredit all science because of that. Right now "hard" science is the best way to explain things around us and the universe. Sure, often it is wrong as new science gets discovered, but that's how human knowledge evolves. As for the "soft" sciences (anything social/psyc, etc), that's a completely different matter. They are more prone to trends, fads and more personal biases, hence I would put them in a different category.
- lazyasciiart 9y ago
  I think the sentence is meant as 'too many people who don't understand research and are therefore willing to discredit scientists'
- cloakandswagger 9y ago
  That was poor wording. It was in reference to the science "cheerleaders" who, from my own observations, are often equally as clueless about science as there anti-science counterparts.
- czep 9y ago
  > They are more prone to trends, fads and more personal biases This is not necessarily true, and I would urge caution when making such generalizations. There is junk social science and there is also plenty of junk "hard" science. Examples of fake data, political and personal biases interfering with the scientific method, occur in all fields. Some "fads" eventually become accepted fact. It took 100 years before plate tectonics was accepted by the majority of the scientific community, there are many such examples. Don't universally discount social science: it is just as important as physical science. We actually need more social scientists to help understand the reasons behind anti-science movements in the first place, and to help legitimize science as a process, critial thinking, and to debunk illogical arguments.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
    When you have prominent social scientists arguing that pointing out statistical errors in papers is "Methodological Terrorism" (http://andrewgelman.com/2016/09/21/what-has-happened-down-here-is-the-winds-have-changed/ http://andrewgelman.com/2016/09/21/what-has-happened-down-he...), I call that junk science. And if social scientists want to "help legitimize science as a process, critial thinking, and to debunk illogical arguments.", they should start with fixing their own reproducibility crisis and p-hacking crisis before instructing other people on science as a process.
simias 9y ago
"A similar number of people" developing a brand of hero worship for scientists? Maybe I'm hugely biased but that doesn't really mirror what I see online and elsewhere. Are you telling me that for every climate change denier, for every anti-vaxxer, for every creationist, for every chemtrail/tap water/moon landing/flat earth conspiracy theorist there's a rabid scientist who elevates the current scientific consensus to the level of religion? That's borderline whataboutism IMO.
- cloakandswagger 9y ago
  The "March for Science" that happened earlier this year had estimated attendance of 1.07 million. Now go to Google Images and search for "March for Science". Nearly every sign I see is either political in nature, elevating science to a level of religion/infallibility, or casting science as a fashion/meme ("Scientific is the new chic", "Science isn't wrong", "In science we trust").
  - dmschulman 9y ago
    Similar to Twitter, it's hard to nuance a complex thought on a garish protest sign. With the example of a sign reading "Sciences isn't wrong", that's not literally a statement of science's infallibility, it's just something some guy wrote on a sign. If you had a conversation with the individual I'm sure they would espouse to you what they meant with their sign. It feels like an act of willful ignorance to interpret the few words or catchy phrase on a protest sign and ascribe them as that person's core beliefs.
    - Domenic_S 9y ago
      That's part of the problem now though, there's no room for nuance. You almost HAVE to take an extreme position in order to be heard. For instance, the GP mentioned anti-vaxxers. There are many different kinds of "alternative" stances on vaccinations, and only one (very) extreme position is "vaccines cause autism". But if you mention anything about vaccines that isn't 100% of vaccines are amazing 100% of the time you are considered an "anti-vaxxer", lumped in with the vaccines-cause-autism crazies. Consider: I haven't made a judgement on vaccines in this comment, yet I guarantee you have a feeling/judgement about what you think I believe. Like I said, no room for nuance.
Fomite 9y ago
One thing I noticed going to a major conference in my academic field last year (IDWeek for those interested). Each and every one of the plenary speakers had some reference in their talks that betrayed a classic liberal arts education. The titans of a scientific field still valued arts, and history, and culture. And derived value from it. Hell, I'm a working scientist and one of the most valuable classes I ever had for thinking about the world was a feminist art history class.

smokeyj 9y ago

Can't tell if you're enlightened or institutionalized. > Scholarly work really helps shape the way you look at life for the better. Like what? What scenario did you encounter and how did your studies help you? Otherwise it sounds like a vague claim that every religious institution would make.

dingo_bat 9y ago
> Otherwise it sounds like a vague claim that every religious institution would make. Yeah it's like when people defend hazing. "Oh it builds character!" No thanks please.
peterwwillis 9y ago
If I can steal your question for the parent comment and get more specific: > the way you look at life for the better Do you feel your outlook has improved, or are your life outcomes measurably better, and how? Additional question: was it worth the $37,000 in debt, and do you think that perhaps we could achieve the same better-ness with less debt?
Xylakant 9y ago
> Like what? What scenario did you encounter and how did your studies help you? Otherwise it sounds like a vague claim that every religious institution would make. Studying for a degree involves more than just reading a book. A good degree (no matter what major you choose) should leave you with the skills and capabilities to learn and teach yourself new skills. This - not the knowledge gained - is by far the most valuable takeaway that I have from my studies: Oh, I need to learn about the problem space X. How do I start, research, teach myself things about something previously unknown. School teaches knowledge, university learning skills.
- smokeyj 9y ago
  Degrees are cost prohibitive and there's no incentive to increase supply. Higher costs signal exclusivity and prestige - which I would argue is the true value of a degree. It's an item of luxury that is intended to open doors for you. If we could objectively measure the tangible benefits of a degree and replicate it with a low cost alternative - it still wouldn't carry the same prestige because it's not exclusionary. I think the greatest barrier to truly accessible education is our status seeking behavior.

alexanderstears 9y ago

But did you need to go to school for that 'priceless' education? You can learn a lot about the humanities at your local library. Maybe it's not the same, but does a private school with a 60k tuition seem 'worth it' for humanities education when the alternative is a cheaper vocational education and self-study?

bluGill 9y ago

There is the problem. I have full respect for "useless" degrees. If people want one then they should get one. However since it is "useless" you should not be mortgaging your future to get it. Get a "real job" first and pay for the degree out of your pocket, perhaps taking night classes. As a member of society I need you to take care of yourself. You are a burden on society if you don't have a productive job paying your own way. We provide a "safety net", but the less who use it the better. Too many people using the safety net will make society break down. We believe is education required to be productive, so we subsidize education to get more productive people in society. Or to put it simply: If you love art, get an art degree.

throwawayjava 9y ago
These discussions often become "either/or", ignoring the possibility of studying STEM and other pre-professional fields while also receiving a thorough introduction to the humanities. You can study Computer Science while also learning a bit of art history, or architecture, or psychology, or the sciences, or business, or... And doing so might even make you more valuable to your employer, to yourself/your family, and to society. > You are a burden on society if you don't have a productive job paying your own way... We believe is education required to be productive, so we subsidize education to get more productive people in society. This mode of thinking is a great way to churn out lots of well-behaved, competent corporate employees. From this viewpoint, it follows that the path to the upper class is reserved for the already-rich.
- WWLink 9y ago
  Having a computer science degree does not guarantee gainful employment.
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    Nothing guarantees gainful employment. So what?
hmschreck 9y ago
I think it's also important to note that even people with useless degrees having higher earning potential simply by virtue of having a degree, and there is real social value in having someone who is educated in something for its own sake.

soperj 9y ago

There are others who think it's okay to discredit scientists and scholars because they understand exactly how research works.

autokad 9y ago

"There's some inherent value added to a person who pursues to study a bit of humanities, history, philosophy and art in college apart from their major. Scholarly work really helps shape the way you look at life for the better." I dont feel this is the case, and I wouldnt say its priceless. its on average ~30k$ + 2 years of extra course work, and honestly, we are getting very little bang for our buck. it has little impact on my career, but cutting my tuition nearly in half, and giving nearly 2 years back to me would be huge.

chriskanan 9y ago

While I agree that one can gain a great deal of enrichment from studying non-lucrative majors, I think people should highly consider double majoring in this case. I majored in computer science AND philosophy as an undergraduate. Doing both took under 5 years. I think a lot of people don't realize how little they will earn with their degrees compared to how high their debt load will be. That's not including people who fail to even finish their degrees.

mywittyname 9y ago
Isn't a philosophy/CS double major kind of like a math/CS double major? In that it expands your knowledge in the same domain, rather than a completely new one would (like, for example, studying German literature or biology would). I remember helping my sister with her philosophy home work, and being surprised by the amount of elementary logic and set theory being taught.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  That depends in large part on the philosophy department. More analytic [1] departments will teach lots of courses that could just as well be cross-listed as theoretical computer science courses. But some departments are less analytic (e.g. departments heavy on [2] and [3] aren't too difficult to find in the US). In those departments, the mode of thinking is very different from what you'll experience in a CS course. And in both cases, taking a lot of humanity courses will teach you how to write well. Which is definitely a skill that a lot of CS majors lack. (Also, a course of study in analytic philosophy can definitely help round out a CS major that's too light on the theory courses.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_philosophy [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classics
- tytytytytytytyt 9y ago
  I wouldn't say either of those expand your knowledge in the same domain. Related, sure.
- 9y ago

SamReidHughes 9y ago

Maybe you could spend one year doing it instead of four.

throwawayjava 9y ago
Fortunately, our current education system is already set up to allow this. With a few AP credits, you can easily major in a STEM field and spend a year+ worth of time on courses outside of CS.

jmilloy 9y ago

Sure, and the relationship you have with your dog is probably "priceless", too, but that doesn't mean it should be trivially easy to get a three-figure loan to bring one home, and that animal shelters should charge three figures per adoption. I'm really not belittling your degree. I value such degrees highly. I also don't think they should cost so much, nor that the student-loan bubble should be allowed to facilitate charging you so much for it. Ideally fixing the system wouldn't eliminate such degrees, they would just decrease the cost to something reasonable.

umbrellathorn 9y ago
In my case, I went to school to become a musician. Got a master's degree in music performance, but got tired of working hard and earning very little. I self taught computer science and programming, so now I have a good salary and a much more comfortable life. I feel my bachelor's was pretty special since it was a liberal arts degree and my employer seems to recognize the difference between me and someone who didn't go to school and/or just studied STEM exclusively. I was very lucky to have scholarships, that made it easier on me when I was younger. But wanting to go back for CS made it impossible later in life without getting in debt. And I refuse to get a student loan. It's sad that when someone didn't get lucky with a well off household or scholarships, they have to cripple themselves into debt.

tytytytytytytyt 9y ago

You can't sell soap to a pig.

jedberg 9y ago

Apologies if I offended, I should have put "useless" in quotes. I meant degrees that society does not give as much value to as to what you paid to get them.

usrusr 9y ago

Not just nice for the people who personally went through that change, but it is also valuable for the general public to have such people around. But balanced against having more people with crushing debt I fear that the net effect is negative. A strong "background radiation" of humanities education can have a very positive effect on democracy, it is pretty much the defining difference between a working democracy and a populist nightmare. But if student loans leaved those who have the education no other option than to maximally leverage it to get ahead of others, it will likely have the opposite effect. (I felt tempted to write weaponize instead of leverage.) Maybe humanities education is only stabilizing "background radiation" when it is wasted, on the level of personal economics?