7 ms·

So you're considering a liberal arts degree

56 points by llambda 15y ago

mathattack 15y ago
Depends on the school too. Its easier to parlay a philosophy major from Princeton into a good job than philosophy from Ohio State.
jorkos 15y ago
so the argument here is to follow the steve jobs model....if you want to study liberal arts, drop out so you don't have to pay and just sit in on classes.
- mbreese 15y ago
  > drop out so you don't have to pay and just sit in on classes No, I think he was just arguing that you should go to the library and anything that you don't understand you should look up on Wikipedia. Because undirected study in a rich subject is a great way to understand it.
  - Fargren 15y ago
    I think what he's arguing is that if you spend lots of monwy on something, you should either be quite certain that it's an investement, or it should be money you don't care about. Bassically, don't get education you cna't afford. He jsut mentions the library and wikipedia as alternatives to college because they are affordable ways to get some of the same knowledge, not because they are viable replacements for one another.
    - mbreese 15y ago
      But he is arguing that they can be replacements for formal education, which they are not. For most people, the level of understanding that you can gain from lectures given by an expert in a subject is much better than what you can get just from just reading about it. For example, which would you rather do: spend a few hours/days reading about existentialism or participate in a dynamic class about 19th century philosophy? Which will you get more out of? Now switch that to machine learning algorithms versus watching Andrew Ng explain it to you in videos. The two are not the same.
      - Fargren 15y ago
        I completely agree with what you are saying: self-education is not comparable to real guided education, except maybe in a few extraordinary situations. However, I think that's not the point of the post, or even what the author is saying. What I understand he means is that you can achieve some decent level of education in any subject by yourself (by some definition of decent), and that for payed education, you should focus on something that has a higher expected return of investment. I suscribe to that chool of thought, but I was lucky enough to be interested in a lot of field of study when I had to choose what education I'd get. I could have gone for architecture, japanese translation, literature or physics, but honestly, the job market was one of the big reasons I chose to study Computer Science. I still dabble in other fields on my free time, but I chose to focus on something that would give em some stability.
      - JVirissimo 15y ago
        The Teaching Company philosophy lectures were significantly better than what I got at a state university, but were a very small fraction of the price.
      - hdctambien 15y ago
        He's arguing that you can replace (a formal education AND a $30k student loan) with (library books/the internet AND $0 student loan). If you have the cash to pay for it, then go ahead and get any education you want. If you already have the skills you need to get a job and pay off your loan, then go ahead and get any education you want. If you don't already have a marketable skill and the education you are going into debt for isn't going to increase your employability, then you might want to reconsider your options. If you think of yourself as a start-up, you should get your MVP first (a skill someone will pay you for). Then when you have a paying customer (a job or a nest egg) add all the cool, extra features (a well rounded, liberal arts background)
keiferski 15y ago
Will: See, the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you're gonna start doing some thinking on your own and you're gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One, don't do that. And two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an education you could of got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library. Clark: Yeah, but I will have a degree. And you'll be servin' my kids fries at a drive-thru on our way to a skiing trip. Unfortunately, I think that more and more liberal arts majors/grads are coming to this realization. It's become increasingly obvious that the degree is not worth the debt. Been to Starbucks lately? 9/10 of the employees there have a degree. (And in an ironic twist, the guy with the degree won't be the one going on a skiing trip; he'll be the one serving fries.)
- mbreese 15y ago
  But most people aren't Will Hunting...
  - keiferski 15y ago
    Obviously not.. it's just a movie. The point is that a liberal arts degree might not be worth going into serious debt for, especially when you can get 90% of the same information for free at the library. That's not to say that liberal arts degrees are "useless"; far from it. But not everyone has 30k+ lying around to indulge in a degree just for fun.
droob 15y ago
Self-directed study can be great, but it can also lead you into intellectual ratholes. It's important to have regular challenges to your thinking. For most people, the dialogue, structure, and deadlines of a college course make all the difference.
- prsimp 15y ago
  Exactly. All of the points made about free or semi-free education can just as easily be applied to the 'harder' subjects, and while there are plenty of examples of well-versed, successful, self-trained members of all disciplines, they are generally the exception and not the rule.
  - argv_empty 15y ago
    Not quite as easily. First, learning those subjects often requires access to specialized equipment and facilities. Second, depending on your threshold for "successful," a liberal arts degree may not be much more helpful than self-study. The typical result of a liberal arts degree seems to be that the student has spent a lot of time learning about the field in question but still has little chance of being employed in that area. By comparison, a degree in engineering brings a huge improvement in employability as an engineer.
mbreese 15y ago
I went to a liberal arts school, and the concept isn't about wasting your time studying soft subjects that can't get you a job. It's about being a well-rounded person. The idea is to learn a little about a wide variety of subjects and go in depth on one specific subject. Just because you major in English doesn't mean that you are stuck trying to be an English teacher or a writer... the subject is important, but the process is more important. I happened to study biochemistry, which was somewhat useful. I purposefully didn't major in CS, because the department wasn't very strong - I could learn more on my own projects (I minored in it). My wife went to a different school, but she studied French (including literature). She's now a doctor, which is a fairly useful career. Your major doesn't restrict what you can do later in life.
- keiferski 15y ago
  I don't think he is saying that a liberal arts degree is a waste, or that the subjects you study are useless. He is saying that, unless you have a ton of money lying around, seriously rethink that expensive "useless" degree. If you're wealthy enough or you already have earning power enough that you can decide to pursue a degree or advanced education in something that will not help you earn a living then more power to you, but I suspect that that is a very minor fraction of the population.
  - mnot 15y ago
    Yup. However, he should realise that not every country's education system is messed up as in the US; take a look at places like Germany, Australia, etc., where you can get a good education (broad or narrow) for comparatively little.
    - true_religion 15y ago
      Compariatively little is still 4 years or so of your life. You can earn money to make up for whatever you paid into college, but you can never get that time back. If going to school isn't going to help you earn more, then why focus on it full time? You could do continuing studies throughout your life to broaden your horizons, and focus your youthful studies on apprenticeship, internship, networking or a major that will actually help you earn more.
kevinalexbrown 15y ago
My problem with liberal arts is not "it's useless" it's the expectation of a job just because you have a degree, when it's fairly clear going in that there are less jobs there. If your poetry study helps you do something, that's awesome but you shouldn't be surprised that others might not find it as useful as you, and are less willing to pay you as a result.
danso 15y ago
It's true that much of what you learn in a liberal arts program can be gained by going through the library or through online resources. But that's only a piece of it; ostensibly, a strong liberal arts program not only exposes you to the best of art, but challenges you to critically examine it. If anything, it seems just as easy to learn tech skills, particularly programming, on your own. And you are easily able to test and prove them to the real world. Think you have a great idea and good design chops? Then launch a site. It doesn't even have to be profitable, just something that can impress one of the many communities of developers (such as HN). Where does that outlet exist for liberal arts majors? As most liberal arts fields don't yet primarily communicate to the web, you could publish a brilliant research paper that is never seen by the "serious" academics; same as if you disseminated your theory and findings through a blog. Of course there are exceptions. It's possible that the next Harry Potter could come from a computer scientist who spends his/her off-hours writing a novel and then self-publishes with a viral marketing campaign. But it's far more likely for a self-taught programmer to build out a great concept, make it Web accessible, and have it seen and spread among the people who are most likely to hire him/her.
grot 15y ago
A liberal arts education teaches you many useful things: grammar, for example. Read his opening paragraph again. "As usual I get a ton of mail on subjects that are controversial, and one of the more painful ones was the fact that the Dropping out is probably not for you post gave people the impression that I'm against studying the arts, literature or any other non hard science." Awkward, no? That's because it's a run on sentence. The things that a liberal arts education teaches you are not always obvious. Of course you can read Plato or Homer or Augustine by yourself, but unless you're in a collegiate environment, it's very very easy to be lazy. How many times have you picked up a book, skimmed through it, and never opened it up again? How many times have you actually read a book, and then for some weird reason, forgotten all of its contents very soon after? Formal schooling forces you to reengage with texts again and again. Formal schooling forces you to be critical of yourself and your own work before someone else has a crack at it. All of these things can be accomplished by a very motivated and disciplined individual. But how many of us are actually that motivated and that disciplined?
- DanBC 15y ago
  I've read stuff from liberal arts graduates that was just as bad as the example, if not worse. See the trend in the late 70s, 80s and early 90s for "freedom" and "creativity" without "stiffling" grammar and spelling rules.
- bermanoid 15y ago
  Awkward, no? That's because it's a run on sentence. Awkward, perhaps, especially when cut-and-paste de-highlights the link around "Dropping out is probably not for you". But it wasn't a run-on sentence, jacquesm properly connected the independent clauses with a conjunction instead of just smooshing them together. As opposed to the sentence that I just wrote, which did not, and actually constitutes a run-on sentence (though some purists might object to lumping comma-splices together with run-on sentences). If you're going to insinuate that someone's education is lacking based on their grammar, please make sure to actually point out a grammatical mistake. Or better yet, let's leave the grammar policing aside, it doesn't add much to the discussion given that jacquesm writes plenty good English for blog-format prose...
EiZei 15y ago
Not directly related to the article but I have noticed this tendency that in countries where education is tuition-free the proportion of STEM students to liberal arts student seems actually higher. I haven't found good enough data for comparison for this but I do find it a little curious that there are so many English majors in a country where getting a degree is quite possibly the second most expensive thing you will ever do in your life. Meanwhile countries that provide universal access to education often seem to have a glut of engineers.
- Swizec 15y ago
  Perhaps explained by the fact that engineering degrees are hard. You wouldn't want to fail getting a degree if you're paying that much for it now would you?
lists 15y ago
>I hope that clears up any misunderstandings. If you're wealthy enough or you already have earning power enough that you can decide to pursue a degree or advanced education in something that will not help you earn a living then more power to you, but I suspect that that is a very minor fraction of the population. Aristotle said approximately the same thing over two thousand years ago in two different places: (1) that philosophy is possible only once a society has secured subsistence (Metaphysics); (2)virtue can only be pursued as as goal once one is financially secure (Nichomachean Ethics). Is it significant for any idea of progress that such statements are still possible despite occurring in distinct historical contexts, one of which premised itself on slavery? Is this evidence of an antinomy between the claims of democracy (Yes, we live in a constitutional republic, but it is dressed as the guarantee of equal opportunity and this is what public activism premises itself on lest I'm mistaken) and the claims of the market?
irahul 15y ago
Study "History of art" if you are inclined to. Everybody will be happy if you acknowledge: 1. It isn't relevant to most of the jobs. 2. You aren't entitled to a job. 3. Your well-roundedness and other things you bring to the table is your perception - it might or might not be real and the employers might not feel that way. 4. "You are a English Major. Great. So why aren't you doing what English majors do." "You majored in Music. But this is a software development position." You might not even get a chance to prove you are good(and justifiably so - you aren't qualified), and you might blow up given a chance because you somehow thought your English major makes you qualified for all jobs. If you are majoring in English, and you want a job in software development, you will have to develop software, build your github profile before people start taking you seriously. Don't expect your degree to play a part. 5. You realize that science and engineering disciplines require a certain amount of time and labor, before you can be considered qualified to work. You can not weasel your way in citing "bah but I learned critical thinking". 6. Steve Jobs' quotes about Mac and liberal arts isn't going to do you any good. Apple hires A grade designers(both UI and industrial designers), and won't care about your English degree unless you have a track record of delivering great designs.
- alextingle 15y ago
  Study "Theoretical Physics" if you are inclined to. Everybody will be happy if you acknowledge: 1. It isn't relevant to most of the jobs. 2. You aren't entitled to a job. 3. etc... This condescending arrogance is a simple example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Most academic disciplines have little application in the workplace. Education has a deeper purpose than you think. The mechanism by which educated people get ahead in society is far more complex and subtle than the "learn useful work skills => better at work => more promotions" caricature.
  - felipemnoa 15y ago
    >> It isn't relevant to most of the jobs. You learn math, programming, statistics, a lot of more math, physics. You can get a job in a multitude of fields. Finance, programming, game development (advanced physics engine), etc. etc. Math is the foundation for all technologies, if you have a degree in Theoretical Physics you can pick a lot of other technical fields much easier than say, an English major. A lot of engineering knowledge comes directly from physics. I think his point is that if you want to work on a technical field (programming, server admin, etc.) why are you getting a liberal arts degree? Which is a fair point in my opinion. The reverse is also true, if you want to do creative writing, media,English teacher, etc. why would you get a "Theoretical Physics" degree.
Mz 15y ago
Discussion of this sort comes up quite often on homeschooling lists (or did, back in the day). The short version is that this is the difference between "training" and "education". "Training" is what America generally wants to provide to, say, people on welfare so we can tell them "get off the dole and get a job" (while simultaneously making it outright illegal to aspire to a better life/follow your dreams -- last I heard, you can attend a two year degree program while on welfare but not a four year degree program). "Education" is broader preparation for life, not just preparation for a job per se. Lots of American universities are increasingly offering degrees that are essentially intended as "job training" of some sort. Slice of life: I happen to have an Associate of Arts in Humanities and a Certificate in GIS. The certificate in GIS was gotten as "job training" and I am still paying on the student loan that was needed. I have never worked in GIS and the job I do have started at about half the pay as the GIS-related jobs I was interviewing for. On the upside, attending GIS school helped me get boatloads of life-saving drugs from doctors who wouldn't prescribe me anything while I was mostly bedridden. So I consider that student loan kind of a "medical bill"/cost of survival, never mind my (relatively mild) bitterness at how utterly my well-laid career plans* fell through. <shrug> * FWIW: those career plans included a future Master's in Urban Planning. There are relatively few bachelor's programs in urban planning. For this reason, most planners have some other major at the bachelor's level. Liberal Arts majors (at the bachelor level) are not terribly uncommon in that profession, from what I gather.
- DavidChouinard 15y ago
  I am reminded of a quote by Mark Twain: "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education"
  - Mz 15y ago
    That's a beloved quote among homeschoolers. :-)
muhfuhkuh 15y ago
I majored in English, and that led me to becoming a technical writer. I could've become a journalist/blog writer, novelist, advertising copywriter, movie or TV show writer, academic, etc. I had an aptitude and interest in technology that pushed me to technical writing. After 5 years writing professionally, I was making 80k; last year (my 11th in technical writing) I'm into 6 figures (and in the Southeast US, to boot) including bonuses. Not bad for an English major. And, not at all rare.[1] I knew from the beginning that you can't pick just any major unless you wanted a deep, abiding knowledge of that concentration and/or had a natural inclination or aptitude for it. The "losers" making your coffee as you go to your programming job? They were always going to end up there, just like I read in forums how programmers in flyover states in the US Midwest have been out of work for over 99 weeks or what have you. Ultimately, it matters less what you major in. If you're motivated and talented. you'll find a satisfying, relatively well-paying job; if you were amotivated and/or did poorly in college, wake up and make them lattes. Sure, even the mediocre computer science major can get work, but you think they'd survive in Silicon Valley? Just like you can't write off every English major as a coffee whipper-upper, you can't automatically say a computer science degree is a path to a six-figure salary. [1]http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Senior+Technical+Writer&l1=san+jose%2C+ca http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Senior+Technical+Writer&...
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- irahul 15y ago
  > I could've become a journalist/blog writer, novelist, advertising copywriter, movie or TV show writer, academic, etc. That's what I am trying to say in another thread here. You picked a major, now pick a job which is backed up by it, or augment your education on your own and grab the job you want. One can't just claim "education is more than training for jobs", "I am well rounded" and grab a totally unrelated job.
  - mbreese 15y ago
    There are lots of jobs (good ones) whose job description is little more than "don't be an idiot". I'd go so far as to say that for most non-technical jobs, it doesn't matter what your degree was in. If you need a programmer, you'll look for someone with some experience or training in programming, but for most jobs, the major just isn't as important. HN in general is a pretty specialized group of people that skews heavily towards engineering and technical jobs. And those aren't the other jobs out there. Just as the GP could have been a journalist, copywriter, etc... they just as easily could have been a doctor, or a lawyer, or gotten an MBA.
marchustvedt 15y ago
Every time this discussion comes up eventually it's necessary to invoke the power of the signaling effect that a completed college degree has, particularly from a top tier university. In an inefficient labor market with weak signals a degree is still relevant in demonstrating academic rigor, commitment, and follow-through. The drop-out sends a countersignal that would need to be balanced with a strong body of work outside of school. Look, I think no matter what your degree was in, we're at a point where some amount self-directed study is expected of all job seekers. Most of my peers in CS at Michigan studied languages outside of the curriculum and regularly built side projects. That's expected with or without a degree. An English degree at most top schools is no cakewalk. I would look seriously at hiring one, even for a product/technical position if they complemented it with self-taught skills that we needed. Plus, you can build a team culture that isn't solely homogenous.
- cperciva 15y ago
  That signalling effect mattered when 5% of the population had post-secondary education. It still matters a bit if you can get a degree from a top tier institution. If you get a degree from a non-top-tier institution (and there isn't anything exceptional about your degree as compared to everybody else graduating from the same institution) you haven't sent a meaningful signal at all.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    True, but it still sends a baseline "did the normal thing" signal, or put differently, avoids sending the "college dropout or didn't go to college" negative signal.
wyclif 15y ago
I'm pro eduction You've got to spell check posts on this subject.
- jacquesm 15y ago
  Thank you, fixed. It's absolutely inexcusable that any post on any subject would contain typos, let alone one about education.
jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
I've hired about fifty people over the past five years. With maybe one or two exceptions, I can't tell you what any of their college majors were.
jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
The first sentence of that post is a run-on sentence. This fact brought to you by a liberal arts education.
- jacquesm 15y ago
  Actually, it wasn't but I've removed the comma and made it a bit easier to read. This fix brought to you by someone with just grade school. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_%28grammar%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_%28grammar%29 versus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-on_sentence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-on_sentence And thank you for making my point in a much more eloquent way than I ever could.
  - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
    One of the other things that a liberal arts education teaches you is to take criticism gracefully. Just a thought.
    - rcfox 15y ago
      But not how to give it gracefully, apparently.
  - pmiller2 15y ago
    I'm only replying to tell you this because you mentioned being a non-native speaker of English, but, typically, in English, "grade school" is what comes before "high school," which typically starts at 9th grade. The fact that we refer to students by the "grade" they're in in high school as well doesn't mean anything. Saying you have "just grade school" implies you dropped out of high school.
    - jacquesm 15y ago
      > Saying you have "just grade school" implies you dropped out of high school. And that is exactly what I meant.
protomyth 15y ago
When I was in college, what struck me about many of the liberal arts professors was their absolute disdain for my major (CSci). I'm hoping its much different now, but when the environment was so "technology ruins art" or "I don't need to learn science / math", it makes it very hard to believe that their subjects are worth my time. // I really love history and economics books, but the classes were painful
- impendia 15y ago
  There are assholes in every walk of life. Please do not think that they speak for everyone with whom they have something in common.
  - protomyth 15y ago
    Doesn't really matter that they don't speak for everyone if they are the gatekeepers.
sedachv 15y ago
Philosophy and mathematics are both liberal arts. Software is nothing but applied analytic philosophy, with some mathematics thrown in here and there in specialized domains. My first degree was in pure mathematics. Now I wish I had done more philosophy, but thankfully it is not a difficult field for an autodidact.
pnathan 15y ago
Round and round the college and anti-college hordes go once again. It'd be nice if people used more common sense. ROI is the proper consideration here. Two questions govern degrees: 1. What's the expected ROI of your degree? 2. Can you financially afford that? A degree is an investment into your future. It pays off in various ways: financial, social, networking, mental, etc. It financially costs a lot at some schools, less at others. Some degrees pay more money than others. What can you afford? What are you going to college for? It is indisputable that execution of the degree program is a big deal. Some students are in it for the party, others are in it for the knowledge, etc. Cost of US college has risen faster than health care costs in the last thirty years. This is becoming an acute problem. I have no idea how I will support my children in college in any significant fashion at that rate of increase. I suspect the whole business will undergo a systemic collapse and reset by then. Many engineering types are not in college for an education, they are in it for training. They have no desire or interest in underlying principles governing their work, or any other knowledge besides their degree. They want to get out and make money ASAP. I do not like that attitude, it's very short-term and narrow of thought. Liberal arts types usually are in college for a broad education, having a wide understanding of things. That doesn't work out so good financially quite often. There's little call for a philosopher in the bottom-line lean style world of business. (editorial: That might be a reason why we have ethics problems in business too...) I think it's very important that liberal arts degrees exist. The ideal government policymaker, among their other skills, has a broad knowledge of the world and its cultures. It is notable that the liberal arts (grammar, logic, rhetoric) were considered in antiquity the proper study of a free person, and slaves were the technicians/manual laborers.
- Mz 15y ago
  It is indisputable that execution of the degree program is a big deal. Some students are in it for the party, others are in it for the knowledge, etc. A lot seem to be in it for the sheepskin more than the knowledge per se. I took a college class where classmates explicitly advocated for the teacher to go easy on us and skip some stuff, it wouldn't matter, they just wanted their credits, did not want to have to work too hard for them (ie they wanted that class checked off their schedule, whether they learned anything or not). My reaction: What if you need to actually know that stuff (for a later class or your, oh, job)? This did not make me popular. It just made me more of a nerdy social outcast.
seigenblues 15y ago
It amazes me that so much writing on this subject is so reductionist. I read so many of these comments talking about the "return on your degree" and ROIs like they can be measured, and i'm kind of flabbergasted. I have two observations: A liberal-arts degree gives you perspective, context, and judgement . Contrary to popular belief, these are not innate traits. Given that we just read a very well-received essay about how important judgement is to a coder (http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2011/the-number-one-trait-of-a-great-developer/ http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2011/the-number-one-trait-of-...), it amazes me that we could just sort of forget about other ways these things can be developed. The other observation is that people talk about being well-rounded like its an inherent good. Perhaps we should spell out why: It increases your luck surface area and exposes you to positive low-probability events. Being well-rounded means you are better able to place new information in a meaningful framework, because you have a broader and wider set of contexts in which to cross-reference and evaluate your new information. The broader you are, the more likely it is that you can make some useful association with new information. Unfortunately, for the highly-specialized, not only do they not make those associations, but they also don't even know they are available to be made... How do you compute an ROI when so many of the benefits appear to be random? An example. My father majored in history and english. He ended up writing law and arbitrating disputes. His history background let him understand and contextualize the people he dealt with -- where did they come from? What did they want? What did they value & why? etc... His degree ended up being very useful, even if he didn't obtain his job because of it.
stevenelliottjr 15y ago
I majored in technical writing; all the while I was hacking with Python and contributing to open source projects. Now I am the CTO of an awesome company in NYC. People always are amazed that I got to where I am without some sort of formal computer science-type of degree and ask my secret. I always tell them not to underestimate the power of great communication skills. Sure it's very important to have the technical chops, but it's often more important to be able to bring together people from all facets of the business. Solid writing skills are very important in general and, as many have said, programming is a skill that can be learned just like anything else. Programming is just like writing good prose and good writing is often a sign of clear thinking. Just my $.02 Sent from my iPhone so please forgive grammatical errors.

56 points by llambda 15y ago

Depends on the school too. Its easier to parlay a philosophy major from Princeton into a good job than philosophy from Ohio State.

jorkos 15y ago

so the argument here is to follow the steve jobs model....if you want to study liberal arts, drop out so you don't have to pay and just sit in on classes.

mbreese 15y ago
> drop out so you don't have to pay and just sit in on classes No, I think he was just arguing that you should go to the library and anything that you don't understand you should look up on Wikipedia. Because undirected study in a rich subject is a great way to understand it.
- Fargren 15y ago
  I think what he's arguing is that if you spend lots of monwy on something, you should either be quite certain that it's an investement, or it should be money you don't care about. Bassically, don't get education you cna't afford. He jsut mentions the library and wikipedia as alternatives to college because they are affordable ways to get some of the same knowledge, not because they are viable replacements for one another.
  - mbreese 15y ago
    But he is arguing that they can be replacements for formal education, which they are not. For most people, the level of understanding that you can gain from lectures given by an expert in a subject is much better than what you can get just from just reading about it. For example, which would you rather do: spend a few hours/days reading about existentialism or participate in a dynamic class about 19th century philosophy? Which will you get more out of? Now switch that to machine learning algorithms versus watching Andrew Ng explain it to you in videos. The two are not the same.
    - Fargren 15y ago
      I completely agree with what you are saying: self-education is not comparable to real guided education, except maybe in a few extraordinary situations. However, I think that's not the point of the post, or even what the author is saying. What I understand he means is that you can achieve some decent level of education in any subject by yourself (by some definition of decent), and that for payed education, you should focus on something that has a higher expected return of investment. I suscribe to that chool of thought, but I was lucky enough to be interested in a lot of field of study when I had to choose what education I'd get. I could have gone for architecture, japanese translation, literature or physics, but honestly, the job market was one of the big reasons I chose to study Computer Science. I still dabble in other fields on my free time, but I chose to focus on something that would give em some stability.
    - JVirissimo 15y ago
      The Teaching Company philosophy lectures were significantly better than what I got at a state university, but were a very small fraction of the price.
    - hdctambien 15y ago
      He's arguing that you can replace (a formal education AND a $30k student loan) with (library books/the internet AND $0 student loan). If you have the cash to pay for it, then go ahead and get any education you want. If you already have the skills you need to get a job and pay off your loan, then go ahead and get any education you want. If you don't already have a marketable skill and the education you are going into debt for isn't going to increase your employability, then you might want to reconsider your options. If you think of yourself as a start-up, you should get your MVP first (a skill someone will pay you for). Then when you have a paying customer (a job or a nest egg) add all the cool, extra features (a well rounded, liberal arts background)

keiferski 15y ago

Will: See, the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you're gonna start doing some thinking on your own and you're gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One, don't do that. And two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an education you could of got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library. Clark: Yeah, but I will have a degree. And you'll be servin' my kids fries at a drive-thru on our way to a skiing trip. Unfortunately, I think that more and more liberal arts majors/grads are coming to this realization. It's become increasingly obvious that the degree is not worth the debt. Been to Starbucks lately? 9/10 of the employees there have a degree. (And in an ironic twist, the guy with the degree won't be the one going on a skiing trip; he'll be the one serving fries.)

mbreese 15y ago
But most people aren't Will Hunting...
- keiferski 15y ago
  Obviously not.. it's just a movie. The point is that a liberal arts degree might not be worth going into serious debt for, especially when you can get 90% of the same information for free at the library. That's not to say that liberal arts degrees are "useless"; far from it. But not everyone has 30k+ lying around to indulge in a degree just for fun.

droob 15y ago

Self-directed study can be great, but it can also lead you into intellectual ratholes. It's important to have regular challenges to your thinking. For most people, the dialogue, structure, and deadlines of a college course make all the difference.

prsimp 15y ago
Exactly. All of the points made about free or semi-free education can just as easily be applied to the 'harder' subjects, and while there are plenty of examples of well-versed, successful, self-trained members of all disciplines, they are generally the exception and not the rule.
- argv_empty 15y ago
  Not quite as easily. First, learning those subjects often requires access to specialized equipment and facilities. Second, depending on your threshold for "successful," a liberal arts degree may not be much more helpful than self-study. The typical result of a liberal arts degree seems to be that the student has spent a lot of time learning about the field in question but still has little chance of being employed in that area. By comparison, a degree in engineering brings a huge improvement in employability as an engineer.

mbreese 15y ago

I went to a liberal arts school, and the concept isn't about wasting your time studying soft subjects that can't get you a job. It's about being a well-rounded person. The idea is to learn a little about a wide variety of subjects and go in depth on one specific subject. Just because you major in English doesn't mean that you are stuck trying to be an English teacher or a writer... the subject is important, but the process is more important. I happened to study biochemistry, which was somewhat useful. I purposefully didn't major in CS, because the department wasn't very strong - I could learn more on my own projects (I minored in it). My wife went to a different school, but she studied French (including literature). She's now a doctor, which is a fairly useful career. Your major doesn't restrict what you can do later in life.

keiferski 15y ago
I don't think he is saying that a liberal arts degree is a waste, or that the subjects you study are useless. He is saying that, unless you have a ton of money lying around, seriously rethink that expensive "useless" degree. If you're wealthy enough or you already have earning power enough that you can decide to pursue a degree or advanced education in something that will not help you earn a living then more power to you, but I suspect that that is a very minor fraction of the population.
- mnot 15y ago
  Yup. However, he should realise that not every country's education system is messed up as in the US; take a look at places like Germany, Australia, etc., where you can get a good education (broad or narrow) for comparatively little.
  - true_religion 15y ago
    Compariatively little is still 4 years or so of your life. You can earn money to make up for whatever you paid into college, but you can never get that time back. If going to school isn't going to help you earn more, then why focus on it full time? You could do continuing studies throughout your life to broaden your horizons, and focus your youthful studies on apprenticeship, internship, networking or a major that will actually help you earn more.

kevinalexbrown 15y ago

My problem with liberal arts is not "it's useless" it's the expectation of a job just because you have a degree, when it's fairly clear going in that there are less jobs there. If your poetry study helps you do something, that's awesome but you shouldn't be surprised that others might not find it as useful as you, and are less willing to pay you as a result.

danso 15y ago

It's true that much of what you learn in a liberal arts program can be gained by going through the library or through online resources. But that's only a piece of it; ostensibly, a strong liberal arts program not only exposes you to the best of art, but challenges you to critically examine it. If anything, it seems just as easy to learn tech skills, particularly programming, on your own. And you are easily able to test and prove them to the real world. Think you have a great idea and good design chops? Then launch a site. It doesn't even have to be profitable, just something that can impress one of the many communities of developers (such as HN). Where does that outlet exist for liberal arts majors? As most liberal arts fields don't yet primarily communicate to the web, you could publish a brilliant research paper that is never seen by the "serious" academics; same as if you disseminated your theory and findings through a blog. Of course there are exceptions. It's possible that the next Harry Potter could come from a computer scientist who spends his/her off-hours writing a novel and then self-publishes with a viral marketing campaign. But it's far more likely for a self-taught programmer to build out a great concept, make it Web accessible, and have it seen and spread among the people who are most likely to hire him/her.

grot 15y ago

A liberal arts education teaches you many useful things: grammar, for example. Read his opening paragraph again. "As usual I get a ton of mail on subjects that are controversial, and one of the more painful ones was the fact that the Dropping out is probably not for you post gave people the impression that I'm against studying the arts, literature or any other non hard science." Awkward, no? That's because it's a run on sentence. The things that a liberal arts education teaches you are not always obvious. Of course you can read Plato or Homer or Augustine by yourself, but unless you're in a collegiate environment, it's very very easy to be lazy. How many times have you picked up a book, skimmed through it, and never opened it up again? How many times have you actually read a book, and then for some weird reason, forgotten all of its contents very soon after? Formal schooling forces you to reengage with texts again and again. Formal schooling forces you to be critical of yourself and your own work before someone else has a crack at it. All of these things can be accomplished by a very motivated and disciplined individual. But how many of us are actually that motivated and that disciplined?

DanBC 15y ago
I've read stuff from liberal arts graduates that was just as bad as the example, if not worse. See the trend in the late 70s, 80s and early 90s for "freedom" and "creativity" without "stiffling" grammar and spelling rules.
bermanoid 15y ago
Awkward, no? That's because it's a run on sentence. Awkward, perhaps, especially when cut-and-paste de-highlights the link around "Dropping out is probably not for you". But it wasn't a run-on sentence, jacquesm properly connected the independent clauses with a conjunction instead of just smooshing them together. As opposed to the sentence that I just wrote, which did not, and actually constitutes a run-on sentence (though some purists might object to lumping comma-splices together with run-on sentences). If you're going to insinuate that someone's education is lacking based on their grammar, please make sure to actually point out a grammatical mistake. Or better yet, let's leave the grammar policing aside, it doesn't add much to the discussion given that jacquesm writes plenty good English for blog-format prose...

EiZei 15y ago

Not directly related to the article but I have noticed this tendency that in countries where education is tuition-free the proportion of STEM students to liberal arts student seems actually higher. I haven't found good enough data for comparison for this but I do find it a little curious that there are so many English majors in a country where getting a degree is quite possibly the second most expensive thing you will ever do in your life. Meanwhile countries that provide universal access to education often seem to have a glut of engineers.

Swizec 15y ago
Perhaps explained by the fact that engineering degrees are hard. You wouldn't want to fail getting a degree if you're paying that much for it now would you?

lists 15y ago

>I hope that clears up any misunderstandings. If you're wealthy enough or you already have earning power enough that you can decide to pursue a degree or advanced education in something that will not help you earn a living then more power to you, but I suspect that that is a very minor fraction of the population. Aristotle said approximately the same thing over two thousand years ago in two different places: (1) that philosophy is possible only once a society has secured subsistence (Metaphysics); (2)virtue can only be pursued as as goal once one is financially secure (Nichomachean Ethics). Is it significant for any idea of progress that such statements are still possible despite occurring in distinct historical contexts, one of which premised itself on slavery? Is this evidence of an antinomy between the claims of democracy (Yes, we live in a constitutional republic, but it is dressed as the guarantee of equal opportunity and this is what public activism premises itself on lest I'm mistaken) and the claims of the market?

irahul 15y ago

Study "History of art" if you are inclined to. Everybody will be happy if you acknowledge: 1. It isn't relevant to most of the jobs. 2. You aren't entitled to a job. 3. Your well-roundedness and other things you bring to the table is your perception - it might or might not be real and the employers might not feel that way. 4. "You are a English Major. Great. So why aren't you doing what English majors do." "You majored in Music. But this is a software development position." You might not even get a chance to prove you are good(and justifiably so - you aren't qualified), and you might blow up given a chance because you somehow thought your English major makes you qualified for all jobs. If you are majoring in English, and you want a job in software development, you will have to develop software, build your github profile before people start taking you seriously. Don't expect your degree to play a part. 5. You realize that science and engineering disciplines require a certain amount of time and labor, before you can be considered qualified to work. You can not weasel your way in citing "bah but I learned critical thinking". 6. Steve Jobs' quotes about Mac and liberal arts isn't going to do you any good. Apple hires A grade designers(both UI and industrial designers), and won't care about your English degree unless you have a track record of delivering great designs.

alextingle 15y ago
Study "Theoretical Physics" if you are inclined to. Everybody will be happy if you acknowledge: 1. It isn't relevant to most of the jobs. 2. You aren't entitled to a job. 3. etc... This condescending arrogance is a simple example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Most academic disciplines have little application in the workplace. Education has a deeper purpose than you think. The mechanism by which educated people get ahead in society is far more complex and subtle than the "learn useful work skills => better at work => more promotions" caricature.
- felipemnoa 15y ago
  >> It isn't relevant to most of the jobs. You learn math, programming, statistics, a lot of more math, physics. You can get a job in a multitude of fields. Finance, programming, game development (advanced physics engine), etc. etc. Math is the foundation for all technologies, if you have a degree in Theoretical Physics you can pick a lot of other technical fields much easier than say, an English major. A lot of engineering knowledge comes directly from physics. I think his point is that if you want to work on a technical field (programming, server admin, etc.) why are you getting a liberal arts degree? Which is a fair point in my opinion. The reverse is also true, if you want to do creative writing, media,English teacher, etc. why would you get a "Theoretical Physics" degree.

Mz 15y ago

Discussion of this sort comes up quite often on homeschooling lists (or did, back in the day). The short version is that this is the difference between "training" and "education". "Training" is what America generally wants to provide to, say, people on welfare so we can tell them "get off the dole and get a job" (while simultaneously making it outright illegal to aspire to a better life/follow your dreams -- last I heard, you can attend a two year degree program while on welfare but not a four year degree program). "Education" is broader preparation for life, not just preparation for a job per se. Lots of American universities are increasingly offering degrees that are essentially intended as "job training" of some sort. Slice of life: I happen to have an Associate of Arts in Humanities and a Certificate in GIS. The certificate in GIS was gotten as "job training" and I am still paying on the student loan that was needed. I have never worked in GIS and the job I do have started at about half the pay as the GIS-related jobs I was interviewing for. On the upside, attending GIS school helped me get boatloads of life-saving drugs from doctors who wouldn't prescribe me anything while I was mostly bedridden. So I consider that student loan kind of a "medical bill"/cost of survival, never mind my (relatively mild) bitterness at how utterly my well-laid career plans* fell through. <shrug> * FWIW: those career plans included a future Master's in Urban Planning. There are relatively few bachelor's programs in urban planning. For this reason, most planners have some other major at the bachelor's level. Liberal Arts majors (at the bachelor level) are not terribly uncommon in that profession, from what I gather.

DavidChouinard 15y ago
I am reminded of a quote by Mark Twain: "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education"
- Mz 15y ago
  That's a beloved quote among homeschoolers. :-)

muhfuhkuh 15y ago

I majored in English, and that led me to becoming a technical writer. I could've become a journalist/blog writer, novelist, advertising copywriter, movie or TV show writer, academic, etc. I had an aptitude and interest in technology that pushed me to technical writing. After 5 years writing professionally, I was making 80k; last year (my 11th in technical writing) I'm into 6 figures (and in the Southeast US, to boot) including bonuses. Not bad for an English major. And, not at all rare.[1] I knew from the beginning that you can't pick just any major unless you wanted a deep, abiding knowledge of that concentration and/or had a natural inclination or aptitude for it. The "losers" making your coffee as you go to your programming job? They were always going to end up there, just like I read in forums how programmers in flyover states in the US Midwest have been out of work for over 99 weeks or what have you. Ultimately, it matters less what you major in. If you're motivated and talented. you'll find a satisfying, relatively well-paying job; if you were amotivated and/or did poorly in college, wake up and make them lattes. Sure, even the mediocre computer science major can get work, but you think they'd survive in Silicon Valley? Just like you can't write off every English major as a coffee whipper-upper, you can't automatically say a computer science degree is a path to a six-figure salary. [1]http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Senior+Technical+Writer&l1=san+jose%2C+ca http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Senior+Technical+Writer&...

deleted 15y ago
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irahul 15y ago
> I could've become a journalist/blog writer, novelist, advertising copywriter, movie or TV show writer, academic, etc. That's what I am trying to say in another thread here. You picked a major, now pick a job which is backed up by it, or augment your education on your own and grab the job you want. One can't just claim "education is more than training for jobs", "I am well rounded" and grab a totally unrelated job.
- mbreese 15y ago
  There are lots of jobs (good ones) whose job description is little more than "don't be an idiot". I'd go so far as to say that for most non-technical jobs, it doesn't matter what your degree was in. If you need a programmer, you'll look for someone with some experience or training in programming, but for most jobs, the major just isn't as important. HN in general is a pretty specialized group of people that skews heavily towards engineering and technical jobs. And those aren't the other jobs out there. Just as the GP could have been a journalist, copywriter, etc... they just as easily could have been a doctor, or a lawyer, or gotten an MBA.

marchustvedt 15y ago

Every time this discussion comes up eventually it's necessary to invoke the power of the signaling effect that a completed college degree has, particularly from a top tier university. In an inefficient labor market with weak signals a degree is still relevant in demonstrating academic rigor, commitment, and follow-through. The drop-out sends a countersignal that would need to be balanced with a strong body of work outside of school. Look, I think no matter what your degree was in, we're at a point where some amount self-directed study is expected of all job seekers. Most of my peers in CS at Michigan studied languages outside of the curriculum and regularly built side projects. That's expected with or without a degree. An English degree at most top schools is no cakewalk. I would look seriously at hiring one, even for a product/technical position if they complemented it with self-taught skills that we needed. Plus, you can build a team culture that isn't solely homogenous.

cperciva 15y ago
That signalling effect mattered when 5% of the population had post-secondary education. It still matters a bit if you can get a degree from a top tier institution. If you get a degree from a non-top-tier institution (and there isn't anything exceptional about your degree as compared to everybody else graduating from the same institution) you haven't sent a meaningful signal at all.
- _delirium 15y ago
  True, but it still sends a baseline "did the normal thing" signal, or put differently, avoids sending the "college dropout or didn't go to college" negative signal.

wyclif 15y ago

I'm pro eduction You've got to spell check posts on this subject.

jacquesm 15y ago
Thank you, fixed. It's absolutely inexcusable that any post on any subject would contain typos, let alone one about education.

jeffreymcmanus 15y ago

I've hired about fifty people over the past five years. With maybe one or two exceptions, I can't tell you what any of their college majors were.

jeffreymcmanus 15y ago

The first sentence of that post is a run-on sentence. This fact brought to you by a liberal arts education.

jacquesm 15y ago
Actually, it wasn't but I've removed the comma and made it a bit easier to read. This fix brought to you by someone with just grade school. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_%28grammar%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_%28grammar%29 versus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-on_sentence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-on_sentence And thank you for making my point in a much more eloquent way than I ever could.
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
  One of the other things that a liberal arts education teaches you is to take criticism gracefully. Just a thought.
  - rcfox 15y ago
    But not how to give it gracefully, apparently.
- pmiller2 15y ago
  I'm only replying to tell you this because you mentioned being a non-native speaker of English, but, typically, in English, "grade school" is what comes before "high school," which typically starts at 9th grade. The fact that we refer to students by the "grade" they're in in high school as well doesn't mean anything. Saying you have "just grade school" implies you dropped out of high school.
  - jacquesm 15y ago
    > Saying you have "just grade school" implies you dropped out of high school. And that is exactly what I meant.

protomyth 15y ago

When I was in college, what struck me about many of the liberal arts professors was their absolute disdain for my major (CSci). I'm hoping its much different now, but when the environment was so "technology ruins art" or "I don't need to learn science / math", it makes it very hard to believe that their subjects are worth my time. // I really love history and economics books, but the classes were painful

impendia 15y ago
There are assholes in every walk of life. Please do not think that they speak for everyone with whom they have something in common.
- protomyth 15y ago
  Doesn't really matter that they don't speak for everyone if they are the gatekeepers.

sedachv 15y ago

Philosophy and mathematics are both liberal arts. Software is nothing but applied analytic philosophy, with some mathematics thrown in here and there in specialized domains. My first degree was in pure mathematics. Now I wish I had done more philosophy, but thankfully it is not a difficult field for an autodidact.

pnathan 15y ago

Round and round the college and anti-college hordes go once again. It'd be nice if people used more common sense. ROI is the proper consideration here. Two questions govern degrees: 1. What's the expected ROI of your degree? 2. Can you financially afford that? A degree is an investment into your future. It pays off in various ways: financial, social, networking, mental, etc. It financially costs a lot at some schools, less at others. Some degrees pay more money than others. What can you afford? What are you going to college for? It is indisputable that execution of the degree program is a big deal. Some students are in it for the party, others are in it for the knowledge, etc. Cost of US college has risen faster than health care costs in the last thirty years. This is becoming an acute problem. I have no idea how I will support my children in college in any significant fashion at that rate of increase. I suspect the whole business will undergo a systemic collapse and reset by then. Many engineering types are not in college for an education, they are in it for training. They have no desire or interest in underlying principles governing their work, or any other knowledge besides their degree. They want to get out and make money ASAP. I do not like that attitude, it's very short-term and narrow of thought. Liberal arts types usually are in college for a broad education, having a wide understanding of things. That doesn't work out so good financially quite often. There's little call for a philosopher in the bottom-line lean style world of business. (editorial: That might be a reason why we have ethics problems in business too...) I think it's very important that liberal arts degrees exist. The ideal government policymaker, among their other skills, has a broad knowledge of the world and its cultures. It is notable that the liberal arts (grammar, logic, rhetoric) were considered in antiquity the proper study of a free person, and slaves were the technicians/manual laborers.

Mz 15y ago
It is indisputable that execution of the degree program is a big deal. Some students are in it for the party, others are in it for the knowledge, etc. A lot seem to be in it for the sheepskin more than the knowledge per se. I took a college class where classmates explicitly advocated for the teacher to go easy on us and skip some stuff, it wouldn't matter, they just wanted their credits, did not want to have to work too hard for them (ie they wanted that class checked off their schedule, whether they learned anything or not). My reaction: What if you need to actually know that stuff (for a later class or your, oh, job)? This did not make me popular. It just made me more of a nerdy social outcast.

seigenblues 15y ago

It amazes me that so much writing on this subject is so reductionist. I read so many of these comments talking about the "return on your degree" and ROIs like they can be measured, and i'm kind of flabbergasted. I have two observations: A liberal-arts degree gives you perspective, context, and judgement . Contrary to popular belief, these are not innate traits. Given that we just read a very well-received essay about how important judgement is to a coder (http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2011/the-number-one-trait-of-a-great-developer/ http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2011/the-number-one-trait-of-...), it amazes me that we could just sort of forget about other ways these things can be developed. The other observation is that people talk about being well-rounded like its an inherent good. Perhaps we should spell out why: It increases your luck surface area and exposes you to positive low-probability events. Being well-rounded means you are better able to place new information in a meaningful framework, because you have a broader and wider set of contexts in which to cross-reference and evaluate your new information. The broader you are, the more likely it is that you can make some useful association with new information. Unfortunately, for the highly-specialized, not only do they not make those associations, but they also don't even know they are available to be made... How do you compute an ROI when so many of the benefits appear to be random? An example. My father majored in history and english. He ended up writing law and arbitrating disputes. His history background let him understand and contextualize the people he dealt with -- where did they come from? What did they want? What did they value & why? etc... His degree ended up being very useful, even if he didn't obtain his job because of it.

stevenelliottjr 15y ago

I majored in technical writing; all the while I was hacking with Python and contributing to open source projects. Now I am the CTO of an awesome company in NYC. People always are amazed that I got to where I am without some sort of formal computer science-type of degree and ask my secret. I always tell them not to underestimate the power of great communication skills. Sure it's very important to have the technical chops, but it's often more important to be able to bring together people from all facets of the business. Solid writing skills are very important in general and, as many have said, programming is a skill that can be learned just like anything else. Programming is just like writing good prose and good writing is often a sign of clear thinking. Just my $.02 Sent from my iPhone so please forgive grammatical errors.