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Monetarily, the statistics pan out and STEM graduates earn more than liberal arts majors. But is that everything? There's a lot to be said for curiosity as a mo
by bennyg 14y ago
Monetarily, the statistics pan out and STEM graduates earn more than liberal arts majors. But is that everything? There's a lot to be said for curiosity as a motivator for work - a lot of us here dive in to side-projects with zero care for monetary reward after. It's just to scratch an itch. Everybody has different itches to tend to.
Personally, I am an Art graduate (with a minor in Advertising). I graduated in May 2012 and have a 40hr/week job doing iOS development, getting paid more than I ever have (still not satisfied haha). Some of my peers on the Advertising side are really struggling for work, scrambling together portfolios to land an unpaid internship at one of the top agencies. I saw that landscape when I was still a student and diversified my skills - I started making apps, sans-CS (which is rather freeing once you get past some initial hurdles). I'd like to believe I'm a fairly competent iOS developer, coder and problem solver in general. Math was always my best subject throughout school, but the engineering school failed to scratch my itch. So did the business school, and the psychology curriculum, and really the advertising curriculum as well (but I had to get the degree sometime). I love art though. Learning about the importance of craftsmanship and really pouring my energy into creating something of aesthetic value is what I learned from my art degree. That was monetarily invaluable to me, despite paying tuition for those lessons.
I'm now on a STEM-ish career path with a liberal arts degree, albeit a little behind someone with a pure engineering background, but I'm a sponge when it comes to the new material - and it's all learnable.
Now that I'm at the end of my rant, I think the point of what I was trying to say is that Liberal Arts aren't a thing of the past, and can be very valuable. It's a little intellectually dishonest to believe that only CS based education is good.
- nhangen 14y agoI think you missed the point of the article. You are the exception, not the rule because you became an iOS developer. I inferred that the article was referencing art majors that don't teach themselves how to code.
- bennyg 14y agoI guess I thought that Andreessen made a correct abstraction, in that "superior creative talent or exceptional brain power will be essential" to succeed in the workplace (in 2042, and really every year before and after because nothing has changed). But his advice to only study STEM feels a tad biased - he's a STEM graduate. I'm saying that, from my perspective so far, STEM level education is entirely possible through the internet with self-motivation, and that had I done things entirely flipped (CS or equivalent Engineering degree) I wouldn't be happy from a creative perspective. A lot of my art major friends may not be sitting with a fat check every month, but they're adding beautiful things to humanity and culture. To me that's a little more inspiring than a slightly bigger number in my bank account. But maybe I'm still young and naive.