<p>BIGeastBEAST:</p>
<p>Do you not think that knowing things can be valuable in its own right, without the things you know being (directly, immediately) applicable to a particular job?</p>
<p>A friend of mine is a photographer in Australia. Their student loan system makes a lot more sense to me. The state pays for education, then the student pays it back as a deduction directly from their paycheck. There is no need to mess with deferments or forbearances or worry about if they are going to have a job in 6 months. If they are working they are paying it back, if not they aren’t. Since she majored in the arts she is only required to pay back a percentage of the loan (I don’t recall the exact percent). AFAIK these are interest free loans, so it is handled by the state, not the banking system. ~ 90percentgravity</p>
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<p>At first look, that seems like a great idea, but it really doesn’t make good sense to me.</p>
<p>I mean, what about all the people who get education, then don’t work (EX: Stay at home mothers), that’s alot of unpaid student loans.</p>
<p>It’s not a bad idea though, if kinks were worked out.</p>
<p>Do you not think that knowing things can be valuable in its own right, without the things you knowing being (directly, immediately) applicable to a particular job? ~ AuburnMathTutor</p>
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<p>No, I agree with you, but in what context does that knowledge need to be obtained?</p>
<p>Do I think students should fork over $50,000 - $100,000 just to learn things that they can’t use in the real world? No, I don’t.</p>
<p>That sort of knowledge can be obtained through life experience and personal interests.</p>
<p>I learned more about foreign culture in two trips abroad than I did in 4 years being a Poli Sci major with IR concentration.</p>
<p>Get out and live, if you are only gaining knowledge through the classroom then you are missing out on the real lessons of life.</p>
<p>Take that $50,000 - $100,000 grand and invest it in an education that will repay itself and provide you with a good quality of life. Then use that good quality of life to explore the things you enjoy.</p>
<p>For example, I hate Shakespeare. I read it in HS and in college, hated it both times. Didn’t really learn much from it, basically just wanted to learn what I need to pass the exams. Didn’t spark much interest in me.</p>
<p>BUT</p>
<p>My senior year of college I took a trip to England with my parents. We went to Stratford Upon Avon, the hometown of Shakespeare. I learned 10X more about him, his work and the history behind his stories in 1 day in his hometown than I did in any classroom.</p>
<p>Same goes for art. Never had a big interest in it. I always just associated it with modern art that made no sense to me. I took a trip to France when I was 16, and WOW…did my eyes pop open. I spent 3 whole days in the Louvre, and saw it all. Went to every Cathedral I could go to, and fell in love with the architecture. Then in college I took an Art History course because I really liked what I saw on my trip and thought it would be interesting - NOPE! lol, we spent the whole class looking at overhead projections of famous art, which is surprisingly boring on a projection screen. It was boring and didn’t teach me much of anything.</p>
<p>Ditto another experience. I went to Italy and spent a week in Rome, and a considerable amount of time in Vatican City. It’s pretty inspiring to be in that environment, to see that work of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, and everything else around you.</p>
<p>Learning about it in a classroom? Snnoooozeeee…bore.</p>
<p>“That sort of knowledge can be obtained through life experience and personal interests.”
- That’s your opinion, but I think it’s important to learn that kind of thing in the classroom <em>in addition to</em> experiencing it in the real world. And if you’re just looking at art in an art history class, you are getting cheated pretty severely. In fact, academic analysis of the arts and the humanities should go well beyond appreciation and even admiration of the thing per se. Anybody can look at a painting and admire it - that’s the point - but it takes academic training and experience to discern finer things about it.</p>
<p>I live my life outside of the classroom, I don’t rely on a professor to teach me about the world.</p>
<p>Not everyone gets to make repeated trips to Europe, you realize?</p>
<p>Go to your local museum, read books about art, maybe even try art out for yourself.</p>
<p>Take a day trip to the nearest big city and go to their museums. Go to local art shows, there are tons of them.</p>
<p>Here is a thought: Instead of dropping $4,000 grand on an art appreciation course, take that money and go on a trip - Europe perhaps?</p>
<p>What? It’s not like if you don’t take an art appreciation course, you have to pay $4,000 less for college. You’re already there (and already paying for it); why not take courses that do more than simply teach you how to do a job?</p>
<p>$4,000 grand is really pricy for one art history class.</p>
<p>And 4K would be on the cheap side for an “elite” college. Assuming elite private school tuition is around 40K (Yale, Amherst, Harvard, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, etc.) and that each student takes four courses per semester, it comes out to 5K per class. Frightening!</p>
<p>If you want to take it a bit further, let’s assume that each class meet three hours per week and that each semester is sixteen weeks. We’re talking about over $100 for each hour you spend in class!</p>
<p>At a typical state university, it’s very possible. Let’s use Pitt, for example. It’s a bit higher than the average state school, but it’ll do. </p>
<p>The cost for 1 credit hour is $556 instate and $960 out of state. For a 3 credit art history course, that’s nearly $1700 instate and nearly $2900 out of state. This is for a state school. Not a ritzy private school.</p>
<p>It’s about $1000 for a plane ticket to Europe. Factor in $50-70 per day for hostels, food, travel, and tourist sites, you’d probably learn more and get a comparable deal by going to Europe for a month.</p>
<p>EDIT: I misspoke. It obviously depends on the season, but for a ticket in November from Boston to London, it’s only $600.</p>
<p>Well, the argument about places like Harvard and Yale is that you’re buying something more than just the courses and education…</p>
<p>you can disagree with that assertion though, since it’s a rather intangible, and hard-to-prove point.</p>
<p>Ivy League is kind of above this discussion. Still not worth paying 50k+ for a degree, but it’s more understandable.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, I think you could get similar benefits from Harvard by going there for a year, dropping out, and continuing to live in the immediate area. Take a few courses here and there, and I’d imagine it would be relatively easy to establish a network.</p>
<p>[Top</a> US Colleges ? Graduate Salary Statistics](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-us-colleges-graduate-salary-statistics.asp]Top”>http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-us-colleges-graduate-salary-statistics.asp)</p>
<p>Out of the top ten, only three are considered engineering schools–though, I do not know if I would make the sweeping generalization of calling MIT and Stanford “engineering schools”–what this data suggest is: in order for a liberal arts major to compete with an engineering major–from a salary perspective–he or she must have graduated from an elite private school with a strong alumni network (i.e. Notre Dame) or an Ivy League which, as we know, sends many of its grads to power-hives such as The New York Times, Goldman Sachs, Time Magazine, etc.</p>
<p>So, live it up and major in British Literature and Music at HYP. You’ll have the “alumni net” of some of society’s most powerful and well connected people to catch you. But, if you choose to do this at a lower tier school: Beware.</p>
<p>^ Like I said, there is a difference between looking at a piece of art and reading the caption and listening to the audio tape and discussing with peers and learned scholars things about the creation, meaning, and significance of a piece of art. You go to school for the latter, not the former. If all you want is the former, fine, go to museums and visit Europe, but don’t pretend that makes you a scholar.</p>
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<p>Engineering students make up a quarter of Stanford’s enrollment and almost a half of MIT’s enrollment. I’d say that MIT is an engineering school, but maybe not Stanford.</p>
<p>^And taking one art history course = being a scholar? </p>
<p>There’s a huge difference between: </p>
<p>majoring in art history because you plan to work in academia
and
majoring in art history because it’s interesting to you alone</p>
<p>The “professionals” in art history, economics, and other “liberal art” fields aren’t going anywhere. What’s disappearing are the me-too majors at me-too schools. </p>
<p>It’s pretty obvious that the vast majority of art history majors don’t end up working at jobs in academia.</p>
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<p>Harvard supposedly has a fairly theoretical program. There aren’t very
many Harvard CS grads that apply to our company and we probably
wouldn’t choose them as our first choice if they did. We hire more
from MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Brown and a few other places.</p>
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<p>This varies from school to school and professor to professor.</p>
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<p>Some employers want a mix of practical and theoretical.</p>
<p>Like I said, there is a difference between looking at a piece of art and reading the caption and listening to the audio tape and discussing with peers and learned scholars things about the creation, meaning, and significance of a piece of art. You go to school for the latter, not the former. If all you want is the former, fine, go to museums and visit Europe, but don’t pretend that makes you a scholar. ~ AuburnMathTutor</p>
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<p>Right, and you shouldn’t pretend that talking about art in a clasroom at Auburn makes you cultured.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d much rather experience Art in person, in it’s own environment, than sit in a classroom and discuss it with a bunch of undergrads. If that is being a “scholar”, then I’d rather not being one.</p>
<p>Public service announcement to everyone:</p>
<p>Please use quote tags.
[ quote ] TEXT [/ quote ]</p>
<p>(remove the spaces)</p>
<p>Thanks</p>