4 ms·

citation? law degress seem more prevalent, looking at obama and romney alone.

rayiner 14y ago
I was being facetious in response to his barista comment, so no, no citation. My point is simply that while engineering is a valuable degree and leads to great jobs, a liberal arts education is the traditional foundation for careers in banking and politics. Henry Paulson ha a BA in English from Dartmouth. Romney has a BA in English from BYU. Obama has a BA in political science and international relations from Columbia. Empirically, the majority of JD's have an undergraduate degree in liberal arts or social sciences. Anecdotally, the majority of bankers have a liberal arts or social science degree.[1] I'm an engineering major myself so I'm acquainted with the disdain with which engineers view liberal arts types, but it's greatly misplaced. The simple fact is that outside STEM fields, college is more about signaling than education. It is the nature of non-STEM fields that you don't really need to know anything before you start the job. The purpose of college is to learn how to think abstractly and how to write, and to allow employers to separate out the smart, hard-working people. [1] Amusingly, Harvard, a major feeder into the big New York banks, doesn't even have a finance major.
- jacobolus 14y ago
  > Amusingly, Harvard, a major feeder into the big New York banks, doesn't even have a finance major. Schools like Harvard don’t do “professional” majors like that (there’s no “business”, “medicine”, “communications”, etc.). Even science and engineering students are mainly learning abstract tools rather than just being trained in some vocation.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- wisty 14y ago
  Also, Steven Hawking has a B.A. in arts (thought the Oxford system may be a bit different - Arts can mean just about anything).
  - elemeno 14y ago
    Oxford and Cambridge can be a little strange about the degrees they award, almost entirely due to tradition. Undergraduate degrees almost all confer a BA at Oxford and they don't award BSci or (I think) BEng so reading a STEM subject would still get you a BA. Stephen Hawking read Natural Sciences for what it's worth.

I was being facetious in response to his barista comment, so no, no citation. My point is simply that while engineering is a valuable degree and leads to great jobs, a liberal arts education is the traditional foundation for careers in banking and politics. Henry Paulson ha a BA in English from Dartmouth. Romney has a BA in English from BYU. Obama has a BA in political science and international relations from Columbia. Empirically, the majority of JD's have an undergraduate degree in liberal arts or social sciences. Anecdotally, the majority of bankers have a liberal arts or social science degree.[1] I'm an engineering major myself so I'm acquainted with the disdain with which engineers view liberal arts types, but it's greatly misplaced. The simple fact is that outside STEM fields, college is more about signaling than education. It is the nature of non-STEM fields that you don't really need to know anything before you start the job. The purpose of college is to learn how to think abstractly and how to write, and to allow employers to separate out the smart, hard-working people. [1] Amusingly, Harvard, a major feeder into the big New York banks, doesn't even have a finance major.

jacobolus 14y ago
> Amusingly, Harvard, a major feeder into the big New York banks, doesn't even have a finance major. Schools like Harvard don’t do “professional” majors like that (there’s no “business”, “medicine”, “communications”, etc.). Even science and engineering students are mainly learning abstract tools rather than just being trained in some vocation.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
wisty 14y ago
Also, Steven Hawking has a B.A. in arts (thought the Oxford system may be a bit different - Arts can mean just about anything).
- elemeno 14y ago
  Oxford and Cambridge can be a little strange about the degrees they award, almost entirely due to tradition. Undergraduate degrees almost all confer a BA at Oxford and they don't award BSci or (I think) BEng so reading a STEM subject would still get you a BA. Stephen Hawking read Natural Sciences for what it's worth.