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> Also, if your degree is in English, the best I can do is point you here (link to Starbucks job page). I know it's supposed to be funny (i.e., it's "just a j

> Also, if your degree is in English, the best I can do is point you here (link to Starbucks job page). I know it's supposed to be funny (i.e., it's "just a joke") and I grant I may be sensitive since I have a BA in Comparative Literature (a graduating class of 1 in my major) and a PhD in Classics, but this came across as completely obnoxious and unnecessary. Don't know anything about Humanities? Fine. Don't talk about them. Still, thanks for the link to Software Carpentry. I didn't know the site, and it looks like a good place to point people for introductory material on the shell, make, and so on.

oskarth 15y ago
Slightly offtopic question: I re-read Odysseus a couple of weeks ago and was wondering about the name Telemachos. My rudimentary knowledge of etymology tells me that he's a "far away man". Given your username and the fact that you have a PhD in classics: what's your opinion of how the name/etymology of the character relates to the role that Telemachos plays in the epic? Obviously he's far away when Odysseus is out and about, but he's quite present in the beginning and end. It seems like there's more to it than that. (For those who don't remember / haven't read it, Telemachos is the only son of Odysseus in the epic. He's pretty much a younger copy of Odysseus.)
- jules 15y ago
  tele = far machos = battle Perhaps it means that he was far away from the battle or it means that he battles from afar? The latter would seem a better fit for Odysseus himself.
  - telemachos 15y ago
    You said it much more succinctly than I did. He "battles from afar" - that is with a bow - hits it on the head. It would not have been so unusual for a son to be named for an excellence of his father.
- telemachos 15y ago
  His name is usually taken to be a nod to his father's skill with a bow. You're right about the 'far' part, but the second part I think is different (the Ancient Greek word for man is anēr, andros - the root being andr): tele means "far away" or "from afar" (think 'television' it sees things from afar). The mach root comes from a word meaning "fight". So "Telemachos" is a "far-fighter", i.e. a bowman. Odysseus is primarily famous as an archer (as opposed to Achilles who is primarily famous for fighting with a spear). I think that etymology is pretty well accepted. It certainly was when I was a student. I'm not sure that there's a completely accepted explanation for how the name fits into his place in the epic. Here's my take: Telemachus must prove that he can grow up into as good a man as his father. He does that throughout the poem, as he goes from being a very immature teenager to eventually fighting alongside his father at the end of the poem. Before the trial of the bow (when all the suitors attempt to string Odysseus's bow and win Penelope), Telemachus tries to string his father's bow himself. Here's a translation of the scene I have in mind by Samuel Butler[1]. The 'he' refers to Telemachus: > As he spoke he sprang from his seat, threw his crimson cloak from him, and took his sword from his shoulder. First he set the axes in a row, in a long groove which he had dug for them, and had made straight by line. Then he stamped the earth tight round them, and everyone was surprised when they saw him set up so orderly, though he had never seen anything of the kind before. This done, he went on to the pavement to make trial of the bow; thrice did he tug at it, trying with all his might to draw the string, and thrice he had to leave off, though he had hoped to string the bow and shoot through the iron. He was trying for the fourth time, and would have strung it had not Ulysses made a sign to check him in spite of all his eagerness. So he said: > "Alas! I shall either be always feeble and of no prowess, or I am too young, and have not yet reached my full strength so as to be able to hold my own if any one attacks me. You others, therefore, who are stronger than I, make trial of the bow and get this contest settled." In that scene, I've always thought that Telemachus proves he is capable of becoming his father (he might have strung the bow), but he is willing - as a good son should - to yield to his father while he is still alive. At the same time, he also proves he is a good liar - like his father - since the little speech he gives at the end helps to encourage the suitors and think he is nobody to fear. When the fighting begins, however, he proves otherwise and he helps his father kill the suitors. [1]: http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/odyssey.21.xxi.html http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/odyssey.21.xxi.html
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
hogu 15y ago
And also wrong. My wife left academia from philosophy and is pulling in north of 100k right now doing project management stuff. She got there within 3 years, though we're in NYC so it's easier to get more cash here. It was a hard to transition, most employers don't know what to do with a humanities degree, but she was able to do it. A programmer coworker of mine also worked in philosophy, and transitioned to programming and is doing rather well for himself. He did this over the past few years, so long after computer science was well established. Transitioning out of humanities academia into non-academic jobs is difficult, much harder than for those in the sciences, but it's quite doable
- robrenaud 15y ago
  Philosophy majors tend to be a lot smarter than the rest of the humanities. http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/philo/GRE%20Scores%20by%20Intended%20Graduate%20Major.htm http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/philo/GRE%20Scores%20by%20Intended... http://www.umsl.edu/~philo/ETS%20LINK.pdf http://www.umsl.edu/~philo/ETS%20LINK.pdf
  - anotherthrow 15y ago
    Their salaries are not bad too: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Degrees_that_Pay_you_Back-sort.html http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Degree... As a philosophy PhD, I find the Philosophy > Starbucks meme obnoxious, but it's especially silly when philosophy is amongst the best Art/Humanities degrees one can do from that perspective (particularly if one then goes on to do something like work for an international law firm for a while - the rather conventional switch I've taken).
apdinin 15y ago
I'd also add (as an English PhD) that maybe the author of the post should read up on his Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/hp.html http://paulgraham.com/hp.html
hcayless 15y ago
Ha! Another Classics Ph.D. here :-). And there are lots of people in programming with advanced Humanities degrees. STEM majors aren't the only smart people around.
squishypirate 15y ago
Agreed. I'm an English PhD working in the tech industry and I am very happy. Left a great postdoc a year ago and it took me all of 3 weeks to find a job in industry. Not to mention I'm making double what I would have been making as a starting TT faculty member.
- jseliger 15y ago
  Have you written a blog post about your experience? Or something at length in another forum?
FreakLegion 15y ago
Salve! I too tend to react negatively to summary judgment of humanities degrees. But the truth is that you and I and hogu's wife are outliers. For most humanities PhDs, those judgments are accurate. In fact, part of the reason I mastered out of my English PhD program was that the faculty and other students just weren't particularly bright (the other part was the academic politics). The humanities themselves are absolutely crucial subjects that all smart people should study -- but most people who study them aren't very smart.
LetBinding 15y ago
Humanities are the hardest discipline to get a PhD in. The leap from a top student in a CS undergrad program to a CS PhD program is not a big one. Most top students in an undergrad CS program can make the intellectual leap necessary to get a PhD in CS. But for an undergrad in a humanities discipline, making the leap to getting a PhD is a significant intellectual challenge. Reasoning about ideas, communicating them, and validating them, are infinitely harder in humanities than in CS. I would say, in terms of raw critical thinking skills, i.e., not pertaining to a specific discipline-specific problem, humanities PhDs would outperform CS PhDs. And I say this as someone who is currently in a CS PhD program. I can read other engineering PhD theses and still make sense of it. When I read a humanities theses, I am completely lost.

oskarth 15y ago

Slightly offtopic question: I re-read Odysseus a couple of weeks ago and was wondering about the name Telemachos. My rudimentary knowledge of etymology tells me that he's a "far away man". Given your username and the fact that you have a PhD in classics: what's your opinion of how the name/etymology of the character relates to the role that Telemachos plays in the epic? Obviously he's far away when Odysseus is out and about, but he's quite present in the beginning and end. It seems like there's more to it than that. (For those who don't remember / haven't read it, Telemachos is the only son of Odysseus in the epic. He's pretty much a younger copy of Odysseus.)

jules 15y ago
tele = far machos = battle Perhaps it means that he was far away from the battle or it means that he battles from afar? The latter would seem a better fit for Odysseus himself.
- telemachos 15y ago
  You said it much more succinctly than I did. He "battles from afar" - that is with a bow - hits it on the head. It would not have been so unusual for a son to be named for an excellence of his father.
telemachos 15y ago
His name is usually taken to be a nod to his father's skill with a bow. You're right about the 'far' part, but the second part I think is different (the Ancient Greek word for man is anēr, andros - the root being andr): tele means "far away" or "from afar" (think 'television' it sees things from afar). The mach root comes from a word meaning "fight". So "Telemachos" is a "far-fighter", i.e. a bowman. Odysseus is primarily famous as an archer (as opposed to Achilles who is primarily famous for fighting with a spear). I think that etymology is pretty well accepted. It certainly was when I was a student. I'm not sure that there's a completely accepted explanation for how the name fits into his place in the epic. Here's my take: Telemachus must prove that he can grow up into as good a man as his father. He does that throughout the poem, as he goes from being a very immature teenager to eventually fighting alongside his father at the end of the poem. Before the trial of the bow (when all the suitors attempt to string Odysseus's bow and win Penelope), Telemachus tries to string his father's bow himself. Here's a translation of the scene I have in mind by Samuel Butler[1]. The 'he' refers to Telemachus: > As he spoke he sprang from his seat, threw his crimson cloak from him, and took his sword from his shoulder. First he set the axes in a row, in a long groove which he had dug for them, and had made straight by line. Then he stamped the earth tight round them, and everyone was surprised when they saw him set up so orderly, though he had never seen anything of the kind before. This done, he went on to the pavement to make trial of the bow; thrice did he tug at it, trying with all his might to draw the string, and thrice he had to leave off, though he had hoped to string the bow and shoot through the iron. He was trying for the fourth time, and would have strung it had not Ulysses made a sign to check him in spite of all his eagerness. So he said: > "Alas! I shall either be always feeble and of no prowess, or I am too young, and have not yet reached my full strength so as to be able to hold my own if any one attacks me. You others, therefore, who are stronger than I, make trial of the bow and get this contest settled." In that scene, I've always thought that Telemachus proves he is capable of becoming his father (he might have strung the bow), but he is willing - as a good son should - to yield to his father while he is still alive. At the same time, he also proves he is a good liar - like his father - since the little speech he gives at the end helps to encourage the suitors and think he is nobody to fear. When the fighting begins, however, he proves otherwise and he helps his father kill the suitors. [1]: http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/odyssey.21.xxi.html http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/odyssey.21.xxi.html

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

hogu 15y ago

And also wrong. My wife left academia from philosophy and is pulling in north of 100k right now doing project management stuff. She got there within 3 years, though we're in NYC so it's easier to get more cash here. It was a hard to transition, most employers don't know what to do with a humanities degree, but she was able to do it. A programmer coworker of mine also worked in philosophy, and transitioned to programming and is doing rather well for himself. He did this over the past few years, so long after computer science was well established. Transitioning out of humanities academia into non-academic jobs is difficult, much harder than for those in the sciences, but it's quite doable

robrenaud 15y ago
Philosophy majors tend to be a lot smarter than the rest of the humanities. http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/philo/GRE%20Scores%20by%20Intended%20Graduate%20Major.htm http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/philo/GRE%20Scores%20by%20Intended... http://www.umsl.edu/~philo/ETS%20LINK.pdf http://www.umsl.edu/~philo/ETS%20LINK.pdf
- anotherthrow 15y ago
  Their salaries are not bad too: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Degrees_that_Pay_you_Back-sort.html http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Degree... As a philosophy PhD, I find the Philosophy > Starbucks meme obnoxious, but it's especially silly when philosophy is amongst the best Art/Humanities degrees one can do from that perspective (particularly if one then goes on to do something like work for an international law firm for a while - the rather conventional switch I've taken).

apdinin 15y ago

I'd also add (as an English PhD) that maybe the author of the post should read up on his Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/hp.html http://paulgraham.com/hp.html

hcayless 15y ago

Ha! Another Classics Ph.D. here :-). And there are lots of people in programming with advanced Humanities degrees. STEM majors aren't the only smart people around.

squishypirate 15y ago

Agreed. I'm an English PhD working in the tech industry and I am very happy. Left a great postdoc a year ago and it took me all of 3 weeks to find a job in industry. Not to mention I'm making double what I would have been making as a starting TT faculty member.

jseliger 15y ago
Have you written a blog post about your experience? Or something at length in another forum?

FreakLegion 15y ago

Salve! I too tend to react negatively to summary judgment of humanities degrees. But the truth is that you and I and hogu's wife are outliers. For most humanities PhDs, those judgments are accurate. In fact, part of the reason I mastered out of my English PhD program was that the faculty and other students just weren't particularly bright (the other part was the academic politics). The humanities themselves are absolutely crucial subjects that all smart people should study -- but most people who study them aren't very smart.

LetBinding 15y ago

Humanities are the hardest discipline to get a PhD in. The leap from a top student in a CS undergrad program to a CS PhD program is not a big one. Most top students in an undergrad CS program can make the intellectual leap necessary to get a PhD in CS. But for an undergrad in a humanities discipline, making the leap to getting a PhD is a significant intellectual challenge. Reasoning about ideas, communicating them, and validating them, are infinitely harder in humanities than in CS. I would say, in terms of raw critical thinking skills, i.e., not pertaining to a specific discipline-specific problem, humanities PhDs would outperform CS PhDs. And I say this as someone who is currently in a CS PhD program. I can read other engineering PhD theses and still make sense of it. When I read a humanities theses, I am completely lost.