9 ms·

"Duane Taylor was studying the humanities in community college and living in his own place when he lost his job in a round of layoffs" Read - this guy was not

by guylhem 14y ago

"Duane Taylor was studying the humanities in community college and living in his own place when he lost his job in a round of layoffs" Read - this guy was not only studying something with a very questionable market value, but paying through the nose and going in debt for that, when the actual objective truth reminded everyone that indeed was the truth and that there was no way around it. I'm sad for the suffering he incurred, but it was logical and likely.

redschell 14y ago
My initial reaction was similar, but, upon further reading, it appears that his only family, his mother, was in similarly dire straits, and thus the option of commuting from home to save money was not available.
dnewms 14y ago
While humanities majors are on the lower end of salary scales, there are plenty of assumptions that you made there. For one, "paying through the nose" is unlikely -- one term at Seattle area community college is about $1,300.
- guylhem 14y ago
  A tenth of that pays for a full year in the FWI, and leaves enough for ~ 3 month of housing. And there are other countries in the world - you don't have to study in the same place. So I repeat myself - paying through the nose. Unless these things he did want to learn were so secret there was no public course online and no information on the internet, I fail to understand what kind of RoI this education would make during an education bubble. I'm sorry he wasn't in a position to do something stupid (and something many people also did while managing to escape the consequences of their acts) but it was totally predictable.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
purplelobster 14y ago
I think you're being a bit harsh. He's partially to blame, but everybody makes mistakes. I think there's a slight lag in what people educate themselves in. For the longest time, only a minority went to college. When few go to college, having a degree at all meant you could get a job, so there was this culture of "study what you're passionate about, it'll be alright". This is unfortunately not true anymore, but this is what the older generations are telling us young people, because they haven't realized that things have changed. Today, you have to be able to make a life determining decision right out of high-school, with limited and outdated information and years of the older generations giving you an incorrect view. Soon we'll probably get an over correction with nobody going into humanities and loads of people going into engineering and computer science. What's really needed is mandatory statistics for every degree and school on the form "1 year after graduation 70% of graduates was able to find jobs, 40% related to their degree, 30% with salaries of $50k+, do you still want to apply?". That's what's needed to even remotely be able to make a rational choice. If you're great at humanities and you love it, it might be worth the chance, but for us average people, we're better off with something that gives us a better chance of success.
- kamaal 14y ago
  No, I would say you have to super dumb if you 'chose' to study something that doesn't have much value or doesn't pay well. Its your life and you have to make smart decisions. Its not a game, where you can just shrug it off as a mistake, blame the government and then expect something miraculous to happen. Looking back, I can tell you about my own experiences here in India. When I opted to study engineering and before that science for my pre-university college, there were a lot of friends of mine who wanted to study history or commerce because it was 'easy'. Really, you have whole life to live on that and you take a wrong decision just because you want it easy for the next 4 years? Now after 4-5 years when we were all looking for jobs, the very same people who consciously studied history and commerce complained that either had no jobs or jobs that payed very poorly. Most of them either ended either being clerks(where their jobs are constantly threatened by automation) or working at call enters. And again you see the same government blaming. How can the government or people around you help if you make wrong decisions all over the years? And not surprisingly it turns out most of such people are generally the kind of guys who don't very hard and are always looking for short cuts. One fine day you suddenly wake up and realize its not that easy after all.
kamaal 14y ago
>>Read - this guy was not only studying something with a very questionable market value One thing that a person must almost remember before doing anything(apart from recreational and entertainment stuff) is to immediately question the 'worth' of what he/she is doing. So it goes like this. A couple of days back my manager spots a architect during lunch and starts talking about how great the architect is. The conversation over the lunch table descends down to my manager just showering praise on the architect about how much the architect knows. It went on for like 20 minutes and then at the end I just asked him- 'So, what is all that worth?', and then there was like dead silence after that. Most of the problems exists because people do not understand how much they know or how intelligent they are is irrelevant to people around them. If you are wondering why the cab driver who drives you back home, or the guy who sells candy in the subway is financially worth more than you. You still haven't figured the mere basic fundamentals of the demand-supply problem. You have to sell/do/provide some product/activity/service which people need. It can be painful for you to know while you can architect a complex system, a intern who just arrived can make more money by selling a simple game on the android market. Add to this class problems. People have a difficult time digesting that a cab drivers kid can go get a engineering degree while a clerk's kid can't. You also have to be ready to do something small time, or things that don't attract respect or jobs that don't command much self respect. And lastly. Please save money, that's important. Theory say you can earn endless money. But if you are from the middle class, face the hard fact now. There is only X amount of money you will ever earn. So learning how to get rid of debts, savings and investments are crucial for your financial well being. If you are in financial mess because you have badly managed money- You can blame nobody else.
thoughtcriminal 14y ago
Hindsight is 20/20. Besides, we don't know the whole story. His rationale might have been perfectly understandable.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Ask any STEM undergrad what they think about the job prospects of their humanities peers. This isn't a something that is really up in the air until you go through it and see how it worked out. Employment statistics are easy to find and are practically shoved down your throat when applying to colleges. Jokes about art students and coffee shops are now so strongly a part of popular culture that we see them in television advertisements. There is a very large portion of the population that seems to have pretty crystal clear forward-looking vision with these things, and that's not a matter of luck but rather awareness. In some situations the decision will only clearly bad in hindsight. Perhaps people looking to be lawyers or teachers a few years ago got legitimately blindsided. I think these cases are the exceptions that prove the rule though.
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    Yeah, problem is, not everyone can be a STEM major. Comp Sci degrees would be worthless everyone who failed to understand integrals in Calc 2 could get one.
- screamers 14y ago
  Hindsight is 20/20. Luckily, so is MadDog. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bum_wine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bum_wine Hey, I'm on topic for once!
dkarl 14y ago
When somebody is employed and supporting themselves, it's pretty harsh to fault them for what they study in their free time. Plus, it's a community college. Studying the humanities is a good way to get practice and competent feedback on your writing, which has a crucial impact on how you're perceived professionally.
warfangle 14y ago
No one should be penalized for pursuing education.
- prostoalex 14y ago
  In the US that's a broad term. People go to a university to "pursue education" by throwing a leather ball to a guy dressed in tight spandex pants. People who know the best technique of tossing a leather ball to another guy are currently the most valued education professionals in university system: http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/ http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Would you say the same of an education that did not come from a western university? What if instead of studying the arts in a school in Kansas, it is my burning life desire to hitchhike around southeast asia for five years. Should I not be "penalized" (read: not be in demand) for making that decision? This isn't a silly exaggerated hypothetical either. It is exactly what I would have done if I had not valued career prospects so highly nearing the end of highschool.
- Crake 14y ago
  True. Still, I found independent reading from library books to be much more informative than the liberal arts electives I was forced to take (and pay for) as GEC reqs on the exact same subjects. Penalized for pursuing education, no. Penalized for making extremely poor life choices? Probably. But it's not really so much a penalty as an easily predicted result that people are steadfastly intent on ignoring, because that way they get four years of fun instead of work. No one should be homeless and we should take steps to fix the hideously large gaping holes in our social safety net, stop charging $80,000 to attend even a state school, etc. Until it happens though, I think it's good to encourage an attitude of fiscal responsibility which is currently desperately lacking in many of those in my age group. So many have no idea how to budget their money because they live at home with their parents and have never had to pay for any living expenses. I was really glad to see this article, though--I'm one of those people who don't have any family they can move in with, and I've come desperately close to being unable to afford housing in the past. Stressful times.
cullenking 14y ago
I spent three years studying whatever at community college, fulltime, while figuring out what I wanted to do. That's one of the best things about community college - you don't pay through the nose, you can learn for 'cheap' while you figure out what you really want to do. Then you can choose a university and go from there.
azernik 14y ago
If he was doing this studying in a community college, he was likely not paying through the nose - Community Colleges are a type of two-year institution in the States that are supported by local government, usually charge per course rather than per semester, and rarely cost more than $1000 a year.
eli_gottlieb 14y ago
The newspapers cherry-pick stories whose situations sound "rightful". There are plenty of unemployed accountants, lawyers, engineers, IT support workers and, yes, programmers.

by guylhem 14y ago

redschell 14y ago

My initial reaction was similar, but, upon further reading, it appears that his only family, his mother, was in similarly dire straits, and thus the option of commuting from home to save money was not available.

dnewms 14y ago

While humanities majors are on the lower end of salary scales, there are plenty of assumptions that you made there. For one, "paying through the nose" is unlikely -- one term at Seattle area community college is about $1,300.

guylhem 14y ago
A tenth of that pays for a full year in the FWI, and leaves enough for ~ 3 month of housing. And there are other countries in the world - you don't have to study in the same place. So I repeat myself - paying through the nose. Unless these things he did want to learn were so secret there was no public course online and no information on the internet, I fail to understand what kind of RoI this education would make during an education bubble. I'm sorry he wasn't in a position to do something stupid (and something many people also did while managing to escape the consequences of their acts) but it was totally predictable.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

purplelobster 14y ago

I think you're being a bit harsh. He's partially to blame, but everybody makes mistakes. I think there's a slight lag in what people educate themselves in. For the longest time, only a minority went to college. When few go to college, having a degree at all meant you could get a job, so there was this culture of "study what you're passionate about, it'll be alright". This is unfortunately not true anymore, but this is what the older generations are telling us young people, because they haven't realized that things have changed. Today, you have to be able to make a life determining decision right out of high-school, with limited and outdated information and years of the older generations giving you an incorrect view. Soon we'll probably get an over correction with nobody going into humanities and loads of people going into engineering and computer science. What's really needed is mandatory statistics for every degree and school on the form "1 year after graduation 70% of graduates was able to find jobs, 40% related to their degree, 30% with salaries of $50k+, do you still want to apply?". That's what's needed to even remotely be able to make a rational choice. If you're great at humanities and you love it, it might be worth the chance, but for us average people, we're better off with something that gives us a better chance of success.

kamaal 14y ago
No, I would say you have to super dumb if you 'chose' to study something that doesn't have much value or doesn't pay well. Its your life and you have to make smart decisions. Its not a game, where you can just shrug it off as a mistake, blame the government and then expect something miraculous to happen. Looking back, I can tell you about my own experiences here in India. When I opted to study engineering and before that science for my pre-university college, there were a lot of friends of mine who wanted to study history or commerce because it was 'easy'. Really, you have whole life to live on that and you take a wrong decision just because you want it easy for the next 4 years? Now after 4-5 years when we were all looking for jobs, the very same people who consciously studied history and commerce complained that either had no jobs or jobs that payed very poorly. Most of them either ended either being clerks(where their jobs are constantly threatened by automation) or working at call enters. And again you see the same government blaming. How can the government or people around you help if you make wrong decisions all over the years? And not surprisingly it turns out most of such people are generally the kind of guys who don't very hard and are always looking for short cuts. One fine day you suddenly wake up and realize its not that easy after all.

kamaal 14y ago

>>Read - this guy was not only studying something with a very questionable market value One thing that a person must almost remember before doing anything(apart from recreational and entertainment stuff) is to immediately question the 'worth' of what he/she is doing. So it goes like this. A couple of days back my manager spots a architect during lunch and starts talking about how great the architect is. The conversation over the lunch table descends down to my manager just showering praise on the architect about how much the architect knows. It went on for like 20 minutes and then at the end I just asked him- 'So, what is all that worth?', and then there was like dead silence after that. Most of the problems exists because people do not understand how much they know or how intelligent they are is irrelevant to people around them. If you are wondering why the cab driver who drives you back home, or the guy who sells candy in the subway is financially worth more than you. You still haven't figured the mere basic fundamentals of the demand-supply problem. You have to sell/do/provide some product/activity/service which people need. It can be painful for you to know while you can architect a complex system, a intern who just arrived can make more money by selling a simple game on the android market. Add to this class problems. People have a difficult time digesting that a cab drivers kid can go get a engineering degree while a clerk's kid can't. You also have to be ready to do something small time, or things that don't attract respect or jobs that don't command much self respect. And lastly. Please save money, that's important. Theory say you can earn endless money. But if you are from the middle class, face the hard fact now. There is only X amount of money you will ever earn. So learning how to get rid of debts, savings and investments are crucial for your financial well being. If you are in financial mess because you have badly managed money- You can blame nobody else.

thoughtcriminal 14y ago

Hindsight is 20/20. Besides, we don't know the whole story. His rationale might have been perfectly understandable.

jlgreco 14y ago
Ask any STEM undergrad what they think about the job prospects of their humanities peers. This isn't a something that is really up in the air until you go through it and see how it worked out. Employment statistics are easy to find and are practically shoved down your throat when applying to colleges. Jokes about art students and coffee shops are now so strongly a part of popular culture that we see them in television advertisements. There is a very large portion of the population that seems to have pretty crystal clear forward-looking vision with these things, and that's not a matter of luck but rather awareness. In some situations the decision will only clearly bad in hindsight. Perhaps people looking to be lawyers or teachers a few years ago got legitimately blindsided. I think these cases are the exceptions that prove the rule though.
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  Yeah, problem is, not everyone can be a STEM major. Comp Sci degrees would be worthless everyone who failed to understand integrals in Calc 2 could get one.
screamers 14y ago
Hindsight is 20/20. Luckily, so is MadDog. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bum_wine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bum_wine Hey, I'm on topic for once!

dkarl 14y ago

When somebody is employed and supporting themselves, it's pretty harsh to fault them for what they study in their free time. Plus, it's a community college. Studying the humanities is a good way to get practice and competent feedback on your writing, which has a crucial impact on how you're perceived professionally.

warfangle 14y ago

No one should be penalized for pursuing education.

prostoalex 14y ago
In the US that's a broad term. People go to a university to "pursue education" by throwing a leather ball to a guy dressed in tight spandex pants. People who know the best technique of tossing a leather ball to another guy are currently the most valued education professionals in university system: http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/ http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/
jlgreco 14y ago
Would you say the same of an education that did not come from a western university? What if instead of studying the arts in a school in Kansas, it is my burning life desire to hitchhike around southeast asia for five years. Should I not be "penalized" (read: not be in demand) for making that decision? This isn't a silly exaggerated hypothetical either. It is exactly what I would have done if I had not valued career prospects so highly nearing the end of highschool.
Crake 14y ago
True. Still, I found independent reading from library books to be much more informative than the liberal arts electives I was forced to take (and pay for) as GEC reqs on the exact same subjects. Penalized for pursuing education, no. Penalized for making extremely poor life choices? Probably. But it's not really so much a penalty as an easily predicted result that people are steadfastly intent on ignoring, because that way they get four years of fun instead of work. No one should be homeless and we should take steps to fix the hideously large gaping holes in our social safety net, stop charging $80,000 to attend even a state school, etc. Until it happens though, I think it's good to encourage an attitude of fiscal responsibility which is currently desperately lacking in many of those in my age group. So many have no idea how to budget their money because they live at home with their parents and have never had to pay for any living expenses. I was really glad to see this article, though--I'm one of those people who don't have any family they can move in with, and I've come desperately close to being unable to afford housing in the past. Stressful times.

cullenking 14y ago

I spent three years studying whatever at community college, fulltime, while figuring out what I wanted to do. That's one of the best things about community college - you don't pay through the nose, you can learn for 'cheap' while you figure out what you really want to do. Then you can choose a university and go from there.

azernik 14y ago

If he was doing this studying in a community college, he was likely not paying through the nose - Community Colleges are a type of two-year institution in the States that are supported by local government, usually charge per course rather than per semester, and rarely cost more than $1000 a year.

eli_gottlieb 14y ago

The newspapers cherry-pick stories whose situations sound "rightful". There are plenty of unemployed accountants, lawyers, engineers, IT support workers and, yes, programmers.