4 ms·

I think what he's saying is there's a survivorship bias i.e. 100% of history bachelors don't care about job prospects because the people who did already quit th

I think what he's saying is there's a survivorship bias i.e. 100% of history bachelors don't care about job prospects because the people who did already quit the field or never entered it. As to why it wouldn't dissuade them... some people are more passionate than other I suppose.

ALittleLight 5y ago
I don't believe it's passion. You could easily study history at the undergraduate level for zero cost. Nevermind reading on your own - if you just showed up on the first day of class and acted like you are a student nobody would check. You could probably just tell the professors you just wanted to listen. I can't imagine they'd say no. I think very few people do that. I think it's not passion but just a general social pressure towards getting a college degree. On top of that, history, or the humanities, is a pretty easy degree to get. Students who like history more than their options will go there, not from passion, but a desire to get a degree at least cost.
- maximus-decimus 5y ago
  Obviously if 100% of students were free loaders, they just wouldn't offer the class so it's not a real option. Even then, you wouldn't have the assignment, the dissertations, the feed-back and I doubt the teacher will be as available. A big part of the cost of doing a degree is the opportunity cost of not working anyway. If your university fees are 10k per year (not unrealistic in Canada), but you could be working a 40k/year job instead, the real cost is 50k/year so you would only really be saving 20%... 20% for the privilege of an incomplete experience, no testing to verify you grasp the concepts, no possibility of doing a masters and no diploma to show for it. Roaming classes is like buying a Mitsubishi mirage. Sure, it's a car... but you can have a car that's twice as good for 20% more.

4 ms·

I think what he's saying is there's a survivorship bias i.e. 100% of history bachelors don't care about job prospects because the people who did already quit th

by maximus-decimus 5y ago

ALittleLight 5y ago
I don't believe it's passion. You could easily study history at the undergraduate level for zero cost. Nevermind reading on your own - if you just showed up on the first day of class and acted like you are a student nobody would check. You could probably just tell the professors you just wanted to listen. I can't imagine they'd say no. I think very few people do that. I think it's not passion but just a general social pressure towards getting a college degree. On top of that, history, or the humanities, is a pretty easy degree to get. Students who like history more than their options will go there, not from passion, but a desire to get a degree at least cost.
- maximus-decimus 5y ago
  Obviously if 100% of students were free loaders, they just wouldn't offer the class so it's not a real option. Even then, you wouldn't have the assignment, the dissertations, the feed-back and I doubt the teacher will be as available. A big part of the cost of doing a degree is the opportunity cost of not working anyway. If your university fees are 10k per year (not unrealistic in Canada), but you could be working a 40k/year job instead, the real cost is 50k/year so you would only really be saving 20%... 20% for the privilege of an incomplete experience, no testing to verify you grasp the concepts, no possibility of doing a masters and no diploma to show for it. Roaming classes is like buying a Mitsubishi mirage. Sure, it's a car... but you can have a car that's twice as good for 20% more.