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The notion that millennials' woes are the result of getting a liberal arts degree in women's studies or something is a baseless claim that has been perpetuated

The notion that millennials' woes are the result of getting a liberal arts degree in women's studies or something is a baseless claim that has been perpetuated specifically because it's an emotionally resonant myth. The millennials that are suffering the hardest right now are the ones who couldn't even afford to go to college (because college tuition is priced ridiculously). The vast majority of millennials that did go to college got a degree in a traditionally "useful" field. The only place where you see a preponderance of liberal arts degrees that aren't specifically career-focused are rich kids who got to go to Ivy Leagues; these people are nothing like your average millennial. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/students-at-most-colleges-dont-pick-useless-majors/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/students-at-most-colleg... https://www.npr.org/2014/11/18/354196302/amid-the-stereotypes-some-facts-about-millennials https://www.npr.org/2014/11/18/354196302/amid-the-stereotype... And the notion that they should've all just got a job in tech is equally ridiculous. The frameworks and techniques I'm using right now didn't even exist when I went to college. And I'm someone who specifically approached my degree with the anticipation of future technology!

malvosenior 9y ago
> The frameworks and techniques I'm using right now didn't even exist when I went to college. Yes they did. Being a self taught programmer has been a thing since the dawn of personal computing. The Homebrew Computer Club was way before millennials after all.
- aalleavitch 9y ago
  Yes, it was so easy to be a self-taught programmer living in Silicon Valley in the 1980s... You see how this doesn't scale as an assumption about people and their situations, right? Just because it was possible for some people does not mean it was possible for a meaningfully large number of people. We take for granted how easy it is to train oneself as a programmer these days, but then most of us in this space have been doing this since elementary school. Who would I be today if my dad hadn't made enough money to buy me my own PC when I was in the 3rd grade?
  - malvosenior 9y ago
    You can’t expect society to instantly leap into the future immediately for everyone. That’s not how it works. In the 80s computing was starting to be accessible to a few. If you could access it, you could teach yourself. In the 90s-00s (millennial time) it was even more accessible. You also had the internet to learn from and a vastly larger market for all things tech. This trend will continue and that’s a good thing.
    - aalleavitch 9y ago
      But the trend is not that some people are taking the lead and others are following more slowly up behind them. The trend is one of continually growing wealth inequality. And the truth is that even if we can educate the rest of the labor market to a point where they can meaningfully contribute to the tech industry, it would just serve to devalue tech labor. It's already happening, and as a result hiring practices are getting significantly more selective towards requiring degrees and other expensive credentials.
      - malvosenior 9y ago
        The trend is that the 20th century American lifestyle was never sustainable for the entire globe (or even the US for more than ~50 years). It was the byproduct of the US's unique position in and after World War I & II. Technological progress is most definitely bring up the bottom rung of society. It may not be glamorous but if you go to an actual 3rd world country you can compare for yourself and see life isn't so bad here, even for the poorest. Globalization is here to stay. Yes, certain classes of lifestyle have/will run out of gas, but that is inevitable.
    - alsetmusic 9y ago
      > In the 90s-00s (millennial time) it was even more accessible. You also had the internet to learn from and a vastly larger market for all things tech. I think you're overstating the degree of access that large parts of the population had for furthering interest in this area. I was a teenager in the mid-90s. This is when I read about Linux for the first time somewhere online. I remember going to bookstores and trying to find books on learning Linux, but none existed where I lived (Midwest). I managed to install MKLinux on my PPC Mac at the time, but had no idea where to go from there. Online resources were locked behind a dial-up connection and there were no computer clubs or technology meet-ups in my area. Web searches were still a joke at the time. It wasn’t until years later that I became familiar with Unix and Unix-like systems. The change finally came as a result of widespread broadband adoption and the rise of Google. Around this time, Mac OS X had also arrived and I could finally begin learning the command line without having to dual-boot my computer. I think you’re overstating the level of access that large parts of the population had for truly going further in the 90s. I’m highly envious of young people today and the access that they now have to resources that essentially didn’t exist when I was that age. That’s probably true for every generation, however.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
megaman22 9y ago
I'd argue that the ones that are really struggling are the ones that went to some college, but didn't manage to finish. My generation was sold hard on the idea that everybody needed to go to college, but the reality is that most of them were not prepared or equipped to actually complete a college-level education. So an alarming number struggled through a few years, bounced around a couple schools, and dropped out, with little to show for it besides a heaping pile of student debt. Now they are competing for the same jobs as their compatriots that didn't waste a few years and tens of thousands of dollars, and were earning and gaining real-world skills in the meantime.
alexasmyths 9y ago
" The vast majority of millennials that did go to college got a degree in a traditionally "useful" field. " ? What ? No. Most college degrees are minted in non-professional or degrees for which one will have very little direct ability to land a job [1]. There is no rule that says 66% of society should be able to spend four years getting an English degree. Higher education is, and always will be expensive because it requires input from others. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/05/09/310114739/whats-your-major-four-decades-of-college-degrees-in-1-graph https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/05/09/310114739/what...

malvosenior 9y ago

> The frameworks and techniques I'm using right now didn't even exist when I went to college. Yes they did. Being a self taught programmer has been a thing since the dawn of personal computing. The Homebrew Computer Club was way before millennials after all.

aalleavitch 9y ago
Yes, it was so easy to be a self-taught programmer living in Silicon Valley in the 1980s... You see how this doesn't scale as an assumption about people and their situations, right? Just because it was possible for some people does not mean it was possible for a meaningfully large number of people. We take for granted how easy it is to train oneself as a programmer these days, but then most of us in this space have been doing this since elementary school. Who would I be today if my dad hadn't made enough money to buy me my own PC when I was in the 3rd grade?
- malvosenior 9y ago
  You can’t expect society to instantly leap into the future immediately for everyone. That’s not how it works. In the 80s computing was starting to be accessible to a few. If you could access it, you could teach yourself. In the 90s-00s (millennial time) it was even more accessible. You also had the internet to learn from and a vastly larger market for all things tech. This trend will continue and that’s a good thing.
  - aalleavitch 9y ago
    But the trend is not that some people are taking the lead and others are following more slowly up behind them. The trend is one of continually growing wealth inequality. And the truth is that even if we can educate the rest of the labor market to a point where they can meaningfully contribute to the tech industry, it would just serve to devalue tech labor. It's already happening, and as a result hiring practices are getting significantly more selective towards requiring degrees and other expensive credentials.
    - malvosenior 9y ago
      The trend is that the 20th century American lifestyle was never sustainable for the entire globe (or even the US for more than ~50 years). It was the byproduct of the US's unique position in and after World War I & II. Technological progress is most definitely bring up the bottom rung of society. It may not be glamorous but if you go to an actual 3rd world country you can compare for yourself and see life isn't so bad here, even for the poorest. Globalization is here to stay. Yes, certain classes of lifestyle have/will run out of gas, but that is inevitable.
  - alsetmusic 9y ago
    > In the 90s-00s (millennial time) it was even more accessible. You also had the internet to learn from and a vastly larger market for all things tech. I think you're overstating the degree of access that large parts of the population had for furthering interest in this area. I was a teenager in the mid-90s. This is when I read about Linux for the first time somewhere online. I remember going to bookstores and trying to find books on learning Linux, but none existed where I lived (Midwest). I managed to install MKLinux on my PPC Mac at the time, but had no idea where to go from there. Online resources were locked behind a dial-up connection and there were no computer clubs or technology meet-ups in my area. Web searches were still a joke at the time. It wasn’t until years later that I became familiar with Unix and Unix-like systems. The change finally came as a result of widespread broadband adoption and the rise of Google. Around this time, Mac OS X had also arrived and I could finally begin learning the command line without having to dual-boot my computer. I think you’re overstating the level of access that large parts of the population had for truly going further in the 90s. I’m highly envious of young people today and the access that they now have to resources that essentially didn’t exist when I was that age. That’s probably true for every generation, however.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

megaman22 9y ago

I'd argue that the ones that are really struggling are the ones that went to some college, but didn't manage to finish. My generation was sold hard on the idea that everybody needed to go to college, but the reality is that most of them were not prepared or equipped to actually complete a college-level education. So an alarming number struggled through a few years, bounced around a couple schools, and dropped out, with little to show for it besides a heaping pile of student debt. Now they are competing for the same jobs as their compatriots that didn't waste a few years and tens of thousands of dollars, and were earning and gaining real-world skills in the meantime.

alexasmyths 9y ago

" The vast majority of millennials that did go to college got a degree in a traditionally "useful" field. " ? What ? No. Most college degrees are minted in non-professional or degrees for which one will have very little direct ability to land a job [1]. There is no rule that says 66% of society should be able to spend four years getting an English degree. Higher education is, and always will be expensive because it requires input from others. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/05/09/310114739/whats-your-major-four-decades-of-college-degrees-in-1-graph https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/05/09/310114739/what...