4 ms·

The American system is like 50% general studies for an undergrad degree. So, while I believe being well-rounded is highly desirable, the cost of university toda

The American system is like 50% general studies for an undergrad degree. So, while I believe being well-rounded is highly desirable, the cost of university today is too high to force people to study what they don’t want. If humanities degrees were halved in time and cost, it would not be prohibitive to study a trade or technical academic subject in addition. Also, law school degrees are fraught, lots of schools have been accused of fudging or hiding graduate salaries. Plenty of people just aren’t cut out for destroying their lives with a biglaw job schedule or are saddled with huge debt in a public sector. There’s also no guarantee you’ll get hired, if you graduate in an off year, you can miss an opportunity you would have had the year previous or after and can never full get back, even climbing a long ladder and hoping for a lateral.

kube-system 4y ago
> the cost of university today is too high to force people to study what they don’t want. The value in a guided education is that it is guided. If you want to study what you want, just go to a library and study what you want for free.
- cwkoss 4y ago
  "Sat in a library and did self directed study for 4 years" probably wouldn't be taken seriously on a resume by many employers.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Of course it won't. There are many reasons for this, and one of those reasons is that guided educations have value.
  - davidn20 4y ago
    Of course, that's why you show value. When I dropped out of college, I knew I couldn't rely on a piece of paper to say I was smart. I was lucky, it's easy to show value in CS. I don't need anyone's permission to build an amazing web app. That said, there is always something you can do to show value or bring value.
- lapcat 4y ago
  Each college class is guided by the professor, but there is a very broad selection of classes that satisfy liberal arts requirements. Within a specific major the class requirements are stricter, but there's typically still a fairly significant range of choice there too.
- antiterra 4y ago
  I don’t mean design curriculum, I mean choose the subject at large. In other systems, you study your major, not a handful of other unrelated things for the first two years.
galangalalgol 4y ago
What do you mean by general studies? 20 of my 158 undergrad hours were something besides engineering, statistics, or math. We had no electives, only technical electives. Two of those twenty was my one english class, the engineering ethics of sci-fi. The rest was two philosophy courses (epistemology is fun), two psychology courses (cog-sci is fun) and two history courses required by the state. I did have to take technical writing and engineering ethics, which might be argued to be general studies?
- kube-system 4y ago
  I think they are referring to the fact that US higher education is generally a liberal arts style. In other places, higher education is sometimes purely vocational or professional, and you won't be taking any humanities courses when seeking an engineering degree.
gnicholas 4y ago
Going to a top-tier (top 10-15) law school is not terribly high risk. I graduated from a school ranked around 15 and anyone who wanted a big firm job got one. Things were worse during recession years, but even then it doesn't take long to pay off your loans with a job that you can get pretty easily with a degree from a good law school. Maybe you end up quitting biglaw after you put in 2-3 years and pay off your loans, but during that time you've built a good network, learned from working in the business world, and have relatively cushy options like going in-house to a Fortune 500 company where you can make $200k without working crazy hours. Law schools ranked below 30 or so are a dicier proposition. My standard advice to potential law students is: go to law school if you get into HYS, if you get into a T13 school and have good scholarships, or if you really want to be a lawyer and get into a T20 school. I followed the advice of an older friend, which was to go to the second-best school you get into, on a scholarship. You'll end up with a higher GPA/class rank, and you'll have fewer loans to pay off. This only applies if your chosen school is in the top 20 or so — after that schools get more competitive and the stricter curve can actually hurt you.
- antiterra 4y ago
  There are all kinds of anomalies. For example: one of the top Environmental Law schools ranks at 89th overall. I've seen someone at a similarly ranked school get a solid biglaw job, then be the one to choose which Ivy/Chicago applicants make the cut for a quarter-size associate class in a downturn. I saw a 'success' story, a young NYC couple where one worked at Wachtell, the other at Latham. They were often at work outside of sleeping hours. They had two nannies that worked on two different shifts to take care of their two toddlers. I don't think they liked the situation, but they knew that if they just hung in there long enough, they'd have a huge opportunity. Plenty of people break before that comes, though.

kube-system 4y ago

> the cost of university today is too high to force people to study what they don’t want. The value in a guided education is that it is guided. If you want to study what you want, just go to a library and study what you want for free.

cwkoss 4y ago
"Sat in a library and did self directed study for 4 years" probably wouldn't be taken seriously on a resume by many employers.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Of course it won't. There are many reasons for this, and one of those reasons is that guided educations have value.
- davidn20 4y ago
  Of course, that's why you show value. When I dropped out of college, I knew I couldn't rely on a piece of paper to say I was smart. I was lucky, it's easy to show value in CS. I don't need anyone's permission to build an amazing web app. That said, there is always something you can do to show value or bring value.
lapcat 4y ago
Each college class is guided by the professor, but there is a very broad selection of classes that satisfy liberal arts requirements. Within a specific major the class requirements are stricter, but there's typically still a fairly significant range of choice there too.
antiterra 4y ago
I don’t mean design curriculum, I mean choose the subject at large. In other systems, you study your major, not a handful of other unrelated things for the first two years.

galangalalgol 4y ago

What do you mean by general studies? 20 of my 158 undergrad hours were something besides engineering, statistics, or math. We had no electives, only technical electives. Two of those twenty was my one english class, the engineering ethics of sci-fi. The rest was two philosophy courses (epistemology is fun), two psychology courses (cog-sci is fun) and two history courses required by the state. I did have to take technical writing and engineering ethics, which might be argued to be general studies?

kube-system 4y ago
I think they are referring to the fact that US higher education is generally a liberal arts style. In other places, higher education is sometimes purely vocational or professional, and you won't be taking any humanities courses when seeking an engineering degree.

gnicholas 4y ago

Going to a top-tier (top 10-15) law school is not terribly high risk. I graduated from a school ranked around 15 and anyone who wanted a big firm job got one. Things were worse during recession years, but even then it doesn't take long to pay off your loans with a job that you can get pretty easily with a degree from a good law school. Maybe you end up quitting biglaw after you put in 2-3 years and pay off your loans, but during that time you've built a good network, learned from working in the business world, and have relatively cushy options like going in-house to a Fortune 500 company where you can make $200k without working crazy hours. Law schools ranked below 30 or so are a dicier proposition. My standard advice to potential law students is: go to law school if you get into HYS, if you get into a T13 school and have good scholarships, or if you really want to be a lawyer and get into a T20 school. I followed the advice of an older friend, which was to go to the second-best school you get into, on a scholarship. You'll end up with a higher GPA/class rank, and you'll have fewer loans to pay off. This only applies if your chosen school is in the top 20 or so — after that schools get more competitive and the stricter curve can actually hurt you.

antiterra 4y ago
There are all kinds of anomalies. For example: one of the top Environmental Law schools ranks at 89th overall. I've seen someone at a similarly ranked school get a solid biglaw job, then be the one to choose which Ivy/Chicago applicants make the cut for a quarter-size associate class in a downturn. I saw a 'success' story, a young NYC couple where one worked at Wachtell, the other at Latham. They were often at work outside of sleeping hours. They had two nannies that worked on two different shifts to take care of their two toddlers. I don't think they liked the situation, but they knew that if they just hung in there long enough, they'd have a huge opportunity. Plenty of people break before that comes, though.