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I wonder if this has anything to do with how it seems that every time someone talks about colleges better preparing young people for a career, there is always s

I wonder if this has anything to do with how it seems that every time someone talks about colleges better preparing young people for a career, there is always someone here that responds saying that college is not all about getting a job, but about a "cultural experience". I guess you need something to justify the expense now.

invalidOrTaken 14y ago
Absolutely. This phrase is a distortion of the "liberal education" (that included calculus, biology, chemistry, and physics) provided by universities of the past. From what I can tell, universities used to have a much smaller student/professor ratio, and had a bit more "disciple" in the study of a particular discipline. Presumably that ended with the G.I. bill, but no one particularly minded because factory jobs were plentiful. So when baby boomers of yesteryear look back at their college experience, and try and figure out what they got out of it, can they point to stellar education that they use every day? If they majored in Communications, probably not. Do their jobs require collegiate-level knowledge or skills? If they're in marketing or sales, probably not. So they remember that they smoked their first joint there, and met that one foreign kid from Uzbekistan, and throw in the first awakenings of independent thought that come from living on one's lonesome for the first time, and call it a "cultural experience of self-discovery." I malign communications and the so-called liberal arts a bit, but that's not completely deserved. If done right, they actually seem about on par with mathematics in terms of usefulness---abstract and useless at first, but a fantastic base for further study, providing that that further study occurs.
- majelix 14y ago
  > If they majored in Communications, probably not. Do their jobs require collegiate-level knowledge or skills? How many dev jobs do you think require, say, integrals or compiler design?

invalidOrTaken 14y ago

Absolutely. This phrase is a distortion of the "liberal education" (that included calculus, biology, chemistry, and physics) provided by universities of the past. From what I can tell, universities used to have a much smaller student/professor ratio, and had a bit more "disciple" in the study of a particular discipline. Presumably that ended with the G.I. bill, but no one particularly minded because factory jobs were plentiful. So when baby boomers of yesteryear look back at their college experience, and try and figure out what they got out of it, can they point to stellar education that they use every day? If they majored in Communications, probably not. Do their jobs require collegiate-level knowledge or skills? If they're in marketing or sales, probably not. So they remember that they smoked their first joint there, and met that one foreign kid from Uzbekistan, and throw in the first awakenings of independent thought that come from living on one's lonesome for the first time, and call it a "cultural experience of self-discovery." I malign communications and the so-called liberal arts a bit, but that's not completely deserved. If done right, they actually seem about on par with mathematics in terms of usefulness---abstract and useless at first, but a fantastic base for further study, providing that that further study occurs.

majelix 14y ago
> If they majored in Communications, probably not. Do their jobs require collegiate-level knowledge or skills? How many dev jobs do you think require, say, integrals or compiler design?