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Maybe they don't regret their degrees but their jobs. The current job market totally disregards the passions and aspirations of our generation. Maybe we should

Maybe they don't regret their degrees but their jobs. The current job market totally disregards the passions and aspirations of our generation. Maybe we should treat enrolment per degree as a sort of voting system and allocate financial resources accordingly. After all students are drown from the society, so their aspirations are society's aspirations. Unfortunately capital allocation decisions are made by managers who are rather detached from real communities.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
You want to let students' aspirations guide jobs, rather than what companies need? That seems really unlikely to work out well for the society. Society needs companies that can actually produce stuff that people need and want, worse than they need companies that create jobs that fulfill everyone's aspirations.
- malandrew 7y ago
  This. So much this. Passions and aspirations are for hobbies. Jobs are about providing value to others in society in exchange for IOUs that you can exchange with others.
  - perfunctory 7y ago
    To reply with a personal anecdote. When I went to study computer science, Google did not exit yet. Facebook did not exist. Apple was an obscure company. World Wide Web was a hobby. My parents were genuinely worried I wouldn't be able to get a job. Fast forward. Had I been more realistic and chosen a degree that better matched the job market of the time I would probably be unemployed by now. Draw your own conclusions from this.
    - malandrew 7y ago
      Sometimes the two coincide. Had you been born 20 years earlier but still had the same passions, how might things have been different? Another fun thought exercise, what subject can someone go study today that would be a hobby right now that parents would worry about with respect to job prospects, but that in 5, 10 and 20 years will have its own Google, Facebook, Apple and World Wide Web?
      - perfunctory 7y ago
        > Another fun thought exercise, what subject can someone go study today That's a nice one. As Alan Kay said - the best way to predict the future is to invent it. I guess we should let kids study what they like and then let them go explore and discover and make mistakes and invent that future. Instead of trying to shoehorn them into the existing job market.
        AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        Of the kids who take that approach, some huge fraction will not invent the future. ("The future wasn't artisanal baskets with rap lyrics enscribed? Who knew?") For the ones who succeed, your approach will work brilliantly. For the ones who are off on a dead end that they imagine to be obviously right... some other approach might be more useful.
malandrew 7y ago
The job market totally disregards the passions and aspirations of any generation. There is nothing special about the current generation except that they have been given unrealistic expectations by their parents. The job market is all about doing things that other people are willing to pay for. They are willing to pay for that work to be done for a variety of reasons like: (1) they don't have the skills to do that job or time/capacity to learn; (2) they could do that job, but would prefer not to and are willing to pay to avoid doing that job; or (3) they could do that job, but their time is better spent earning more money doing some different job. None of these three reasons makes any guarantee that the job will match the passions and aspirations of those in the job market. Throughout history, doing a job that matches your passions and aspirations is a rarity and it continues to be a rarity to this day. Furthermore, lots of people tend to share passions and aspirations and there are only so many jobs for all those people, so typically even if you do try to land a job that matches your passions and aspirations, there are a million other people doing the same and that depresses prices because of a glut in supply. Ultimately, the real problem is that expectations were not tempered and realistic. You're far less likely to have regrets if you had more realistic expectations going in.
TallGuyShort 7y ago
It's a good thing the military that drafted him, a sugar mill, IBM and Oracle catered to my Dad's passions so much. That must be how he was able to put food on the table and keep us out of debt.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
andrewbinstock 7y ago
> The current job market totally disregards the passions and aspirations of our generation. It's been that way for generations.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

You want to let students' aspirations guide jobs, rather than what companies need? That seems really unlikely to work out well for the society. Society needs companies that can actually produce stuff that people need and want, worse than they need companies that create jobs that fulfill everyone's aspirations.

malandrew 7y ago
This. So much this. Passions and aspirations are for hobbies. Jobs are about providing value to others in society in exchange for IOUs that you can exchange with others.
- perfunctory 7y ago
  To reply with a personal anecdote. When I went to study computer science, Google did not exit yet. Facebook did not exist. Apple was an obscure company. World Wide Web was a hobby. My parents were genuinely worried I wouldn't be able to get a job. Fast forward. Had I been more realistic and chosen a degree that better matched the job market of the time I would probably be unemployed by now. Draw your own conclusions from this.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    Sometimes the two coincide. Had you been born 20 years earlier but still had the same passions, how might things have been different? Another fun thought exercise, what subject can someone go study today that would be a hobby right now that parents would worry about with respect to job prospects, but that in 5, 10 and 20 years will have its own Google, Facebook, Apple and World Wide Web?
    - perfunctory 7y ago
      > Another fun thought exercise, what subject can someone go study today That's a nice one. As Alan Kay said - the best way to predict the future is to invent it. I guess we should let kids study what they like and then let them go explore and discover and make mistakes and invent that future. Instead of trying to shoehorn them into the existing job market.
      - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        Of the kids who take that approach, some huge fraction will not invent the future. ("The future wasn't artisanal baskets with rap lyrics enscribed? Who knew?") For the ones who succeed, your approach will work brilliantly. For the ones who are off on a dead end that they imagine to be obviously right... some other approach might be more useful.

malandrew 7y ago

The job market totally disregards the passions and aspirations of any generation. There is nothing special about the current generation except that they have been given unrealistic expectations by their parents. The job market is all about doing things that other people are willing to pay for. They are willing to pay for that work to be done for a variety of reasons like: (1) they don't have the skills to do that job or time/capacity to learn; (2) they could do that job, but would prefer not to and are willing to pay to avoid doing that job; or (3) they could do that job, but their time is better spent earning more money doing some different job. None of these three reasons makes any guarantee that the job will match the passions and aspirations of those in the job market. Throughout history, doing a job that matches your passions and aspirations is a rarity and it continues to be a rarity to this day. Furthermore, lots of people tend to share passions and aspirations and there are only so many jobs for all those people, so typically even if you do try to land a job that matches your passions and aspirations, there are a million other people doing the same and that depresses prices because of a glut in supply. Ultimately, the real problem is that expectations were not tempered and realistic. You're far less likely to have regrets if you had more realistic expectations going in.

TallGuyShort 7y ago

It's a good thing the military that drafted him, a sugar mill, IBM and Oracle catered to my Dad's passions so much. That must be how he was able to put food on the table and keep us out of debt.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

andrewbinstock 7y ago

> The current job market totally disregards the passions and aspirations of our generation. It's been that way for generations.