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People always want to give literature students a hard time. But do you know where they end up by the numbers? One answer, law school... they love to read old in

by batoure 13y ago

People always want to give literature students a hard time. But do you know where they end up by the numbers? One answer, law school... they love to read old incomprehensible stuff and are obsessed with research. I'm in software development I make a good living, my significant other makes way more than me... what did she study in undergrad... >18th century Russian literature

learc83 13y ago
They go to law school because there aren't a lot of other options, not because literature prepared them for law school. Some degrees just aren't worth very much unless you plan on going further than a bachelors. Russian literature is one of those. Also law school isn't the ticket to a well paid job that it used to be, and it's very expensive.
- batoure 13y ago
  I think that is a pretty jaded statement. What if instead of being able to get a CS degree, degrees in engineering were required to be spun around a topic. So that you left college with a degree in "Mid Nineties Adventure Games". On the surface you might examine this course of study to be completely useless. Very few adventure games exist any more. But to spend 4 years trying to truly understand the topic you would have to learn to code to see how that code interacts with visual and artistic objects to understand the history of the business model and examine ideas of story and context and finally to understand why the industry moved passed it. No one would expect that you would go out and build your own game, but in that course of study maybe you discovered that there was a piece you were good at , the code and that in understanding it through the vehicle of something you were interested in you found a passion for a profession. Would you say that people with that degree that went on to work at X big startup were doing it because they had no other options? No you would say "wow she's a brilliant coder.... and a little weird if you get her talking about adventure games" Maybe the realities are that we need to make CS, that is basically vocational training, have a little more liberal arts to it.
  - learc83 13y ago
    > basically vocational training I'm not sure were you went to school, but at most schools the complaint is that CS doesn't have enough vocational training, i.e., there's too much math/theory not enough programming/engineering. > a little more liberal arts A 4 year CS degree in the US requires about 2 years of general education, we get plenty of liberal arts in that time. >Would you say that people with that degree that went on to work at X big startup were doing it because they had no other options? Yes, I would. I don't think an adventure game degree would make you very marketable. Just like a Russian lit degree doesn't make you very marketable. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with a Russian lit degree, just that for the average person, a bachelor's degree in Russian Literature isn't going to land you a job. That doesn't mean you won't find a job, but it won't be because of the degree. I'll point out that I had 90 hours of a history degree before I switched to CS (I originally planned to go to law school).
    - batoure 13y ago
      You keep back treading in your own argument. You can't argue that CS isn't vocational training and then say: >I don't think an adventure game degree would make you very marketable If the goal of further education is to gain a degree that shows specific marketable skills then it is by its nature vocational training(even if you feel like you got more theory than practice). Just because you go to a school with "University" in the title doesn't change that.
      - learc83 13y ago
        > You can't argue that CS isn't vocational training and then say: Yes I can. Being vocational and making you marketable are orthogonal. A math degree makes you very marketable--you can't argue that a math degree is vocational. A computer science program isn't designed solely to teach you to be a professional programmer. Computer science to is designed teach computer science. Some people use that skill to be professional programmers, while some people go into research. > Just because you go to a school with "University" in the title doesn't change that. "Universities" do have actual job training programs, where they help you become certified members of a profession, and even require short term apprenticeships. Nursing and teaching are 2 of them. Even those degrees however require 60 hours of general education, which separates them from what are commonly called "vocational" programs. So yes I can say that the general education requirement means that a degree program at a University is automatically not a vocational program. I'm not really sure what you're arguing about. Your first point was that your SO's Russian lit degree was at least partially responsible for her making a lot of money. My point was that a Russian lit degree by itself is not worth very much, financially. If money doesn't really interest you, or you have enough already, or you are planning on some kind of post-graduate education, then a Russian literature degree is great. However, if like the vast majority of students, you are in college for financial reasons and only for 4 years, Russian literature is a poor choice. Is there a debate about this?
danielweber 13y ago
Law school has been the fall-back for moderately smart liberal arts students, but law school has gotten the crap kicked out of it over the past decade. It's no longer a "well, I guess I can do that if I can't get a job in literature" plan.
- glesica 13y ago
  > Law school has been the fall-back for moderately smart liberal arts students... So what happens to the "smart" liberal arts students if the "moderately smart" go to law school and the "not smart" presumably get jobs flipping burgers? Or were you just casually insulting people who decided, for various reasons, to study fields other than engineering?
  - res0nat0r 13y ago
    Not insulting, just stating an engineering degree is more likely to be in demand and pay living wages vs. a liberal arts degree in an esoteric subject with little demand.

by batoure 13y ago

learc83 13y ago

They go to law school because there aren't a lot of other options, not because literature prepared them for law school. Some degrees just aren't worth very much unless you plan on going further than a bachelors. Russian literature is one of those. Also law school isn't the ticket to a well paid job that it used to be, and it's very expensive.

batoure 13y ago
I think that is a pretty jaded statement. What if instead of being able to get a CS degree, degrees in engineering were required to be spun around a topic. So that you left college with a degree in "Mid Nineties Adventure Games". On the surface you might examine this course of study to be completely useless. Very few adventure games exist any more. But to spend 4 years trying to truly understand the topic you would have to learn to code to see how that code interacts with visual and artistic objects to understand the history of the business model and examine ideas of story and context and finally to understand why the industry moved passed it. No one would expect that you would go out and build your own game, but in that course of study maybe you discovered that there was a piece you were good at , the code and that in understanding it through the vehicle of something you were interested in you found a passion for a profession. Would you say that people with that degree that went on to work at X big startup were doing it because they had no other options? No you would say "wow she's a brilliant coder.... and a little weird if you get her talking about adventure games" Maybe the realities are that we need to make CS, that is basically vocational training, have a little more liberal arts to it.
- learc83 13y ago
  > basically vocational training I'm not sure were you went to school, but at most schools the complaint is that CS doesn't have enough vocational training, i.e., there's too much math/theory not enough programming/engineering. > a little more liberal arts A 4 year CS degree in the US requires about 2 years of general education, we get plenty of liberal arts in that time. >Would you say that people with that degree that went on to work at X big startup were doing it because they had no other options? Yes, I would. I don't think an adventure game degree would make you very marketable. Just like a Russian lit degree doesn't make you very marketable. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with a Russian lit degree, just that for the average person, a bachelor's degree in Russian Literature isn't going to land you a job. That doesn't mean you won't find a job, but it won't be because of the degree. I'll point out that I had 90 hours of a history degree before I switched to CS (I originally planned to go to law school).
  - batoure 13y ago
    You keep back treading in your own argument. You can't argue that CS isn't vocational training and then say: >I don't think an adventure game degree would make you very marketable If the goal of further education is to gain a degree that shows specific marketable skills then it is by its nature vocational training(even if you feel like you got more theory than practice). Just because you go to a school with "University" in the title doesn't change that.
    - learc83 13y ago
      > You can't argue that CS isn't vocational training and then say: Yes I can. Being vocational and making you marketable are orthogonal. A math degree makes you very marketable--you can't argue that a math degree is vocational. A computer science program isn't designed solely to teach you to be a professional programmer. Computer science to is designed teach computer science. Some people use that skill to be professional programmers, while some people go into research. > Just because you go to a school with "University" in the title doesn't change that. "Universities" do have actual job training programs, where they help you become certified members of a profession, and even require short term apprenticeships. Nursing and teaching are 2 of them. Even those degrees however require 60 hours of general education, which separates them from what are commonly called "vocational" programs. So yes I can say that the general education requirement means that a degree program at a University is automatically not a vocational program. I'm not really sure what you're arguing about. Your first point was that your SO's Russian lit degree was at least partially responsible for her making a lot of money. My point was that a Russian lit degree by itself is not worth very much, financially. If money doesn't really interest you, or you have enough already, or you are planning on some kind of post-graduate education, then a Russian literature degree is great. However, if like the vast majority of students, you are in college for financial reasons and only for 4 years, Russian literature is a poor choice. Is there a debate about this?

danielweber 13y ago

Law school has been the fall-back for moderately smart liberal arts students, but law school has gotten the crap kicked out of it over the past decade. It's no longer a "well, I guess I can do that if I can't get a job in literature" plan.

glesica 13y ago
> Law school has been the fall-back for moderately smart liberal arts students... So what happens to the "smart" liberal arts students if the "moderately smart" go to law school and the "not smart" presumably get jobs flipping burgers? Or were you just casually insulting people who decided, for various reasons, to study fields other than engineering?
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  Not insulting, just stating an engineering degree is more likely to be in demand and pay living wages vs. a liberal arts degree in an esoteric subject with little demand.