<p>This isn't about Berkeley, shiboing. This is about disciplines and fields of study. Are your arguments so weak that you need a second red herring?</p>
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I get tired of arguing with Berkeley people. Just accept the fact that most of you just aren't as good as those that went to better schools (or you probably would've gone to those schools), and as such you are less able to major in crap subjects and expect to get a good job. The same is true for most lower ranked universities.
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<p>So, are you saying that corporations are eager to hire Art History majors from say, Harvard?</p>
<p>1) I don't really know what a red herring is. I just know you're just following my posts because I, like a LOT of people, don't hold a lot of respect for Berkeley. Just get over it. If I'm really wrong like you believe you'll have a great life going to Yale Law (because Berkeley is so prestigious) and do well in life (because a Berkeley education is that rigorous). I addressed that issue and provided a source of information that shows it.</p>
<p>You can also visit your local bookstore or google such information. In general, liberal arts majors make less than those that earn B.S.'s. Often, it can be much, much less. </p>
<p>2) People at the Ivy Leagues often offer more than just a minimum level of smartness, they are often wealthy scions with a lot of connections. </p>
<p>So yes, an employer would be more likely to employ an art history major from Harvard because it is more likely that Art History major might be a son of a senator and bring a valuable networking opportunity to the table.</p>
<p>Its the facts of life.</p>
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This is the most general fallacy of irrelevance. Any argument in which the premisses are logically unrelated to the conclusion commits this fallacy.
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<p><a href="http://www.fallacyfiles.org/redherrf.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.fallacyfiles.org/redherrf.html</a></p>
<p>It means you’re talking about unrelated things. You’re trying to distract people from the argument at hand.</p>
<p>You're really not so special to me that I follow you on cc. Sorry to disappoint. You know I post in only a few forums (including this one), and I tend to talk about topics related to 1) UC Berkeley, 2) philosophy, 3) academic disciplines. I don't care much about your views and feelings, just how those could potentially affect others.</p>
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If I'm really wrong like you believe you'll have a great life going to Yale Law (because Berkeley is so prestigious) and do well in life (because a Berkeley education is that rigorous).
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<p>Actually, this doesn’t follow at all. My doing well in life (even financially, as not everything related to finances) isn’t necessitated on my rigorous Berkeley education. My views aren’t Berkeley is so prestigious I can do whatever and get into whatever graduate or professional program I want. I can understand the career center data. But your view, or at least what you say, is that Berkeley have a very low impression of Berkeley, which is also false. I really don’t see how rigorousness of education is a cause of success in life, anyway- there is probably some correlation, but what about all the drop outs who succeed? What about those who study nothing related to their major? Many leave college with little more than they started, and they are successful primarily because of what they had when they came, not what they acquired while in college.</p>
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In general, liberal arts majors make less than those that earn B.S.'s. Often, it can be much, much less.
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<p>Okay, so this doesn’t make sense, as many liberal arts majors get B.S. degrees. You’re trying to say that humanities and social sciences majors make significantly less than science and technical majors, or maybe that people who earn BA degrees tend to earn less than those who earn BS degrees. I’ll assume you mean the former- you’re correct. I’m not sure about the latter. But do you understand this isn’t what you’ve been saying all along?</p>
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So yes, an employer would be more likely to employ an art history major from Harvard because it is more likely that Art History major might be a son of a senator and bring a valuable networking opportunity to the table.
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<p>So you believe that what the college experience should ultimately boil down to is the accessability said college provides for those who want to either enter or propagate their already existing status as members of the economic elite? </p>
<p>If that's the case, then it's no wonder you hate Berkeley so much. Berkeley truly ISN'T that prestigious for such purposes. You should have been able to "tell" that based on the relative lack of MAJOR political and business leaders who have gone to Berkeley as undergrads. So, you basically chose to "fail" with Berkeley.</p>
<p>shiboing boing, for a guy with a lot of educational "experience" under your belt, you display a singular capacity for naiveté, especially with respect to academic disciplines, their rigour, and the correspondance of their rigour with salaries. </p>
<p>You need to mature a little; conducive to this task is retracting such statements like this:</p>
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o yes, an employer would be more likely to employ an art history major from Harvard because it is more likely that Art History major might be a son of a senator and bring a valuable networking opportunity to the table.
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<p>...which bear all the signs of wanton speculation, and no signs of careful reasoning. Quantitatively-based majors tend to rely heavily on the principles of inductive and deductive logic for their reliability; I am surprised those principles never made their way into your mind.</p>
<p>PS: I hate it when people who think they know what they are talking about, start talking about pareto-optimality. They know that no one here knows the meaning of the phrase, so they deliberately use it to give an air of being educated. It is unfortunate when someone comes along – someone who actually understands the phrase – and realizes that the sciolist was merely making a bombastic argument.</p>
<p>Edit: And do not bother posting a response. I already made my point, and have things like Von Neumann-Morgenstern's theory of the rational ordering of preferences and Bayesian probabilities to learn, so I have no time to settle a trivial argument with person so clearly interested in eristing. Wait a minute, sorry, I am a philosophy major! How could I possibly know, much less work on – as a part of my major – such mathematically rooted theories?</p>
<p>Hey, nspeds and I are back. Coincidence?</p>
<p>I'm not writing a law paper here, I'm just pointing out simple facts.</p>
<p>A harvard art history major would naturally likely bring more to the table than a Berkeley art history major. In all likelihood, the Harvard Art History major would probably have better SAT scores and better grades in high school to begin which would be a net positive. At the very least, if that person were an "underperforming" legacy admit, that person might likely have a key networking connection that could be valuable to a company.</p>
<p>My point was that a student from a higher ranked school often brings more to the table than one from a lower-ranked school just from the way colleges weed out those who get in and those who do not. The networking opportunity was just an example.</p>
<p>This topic was about whether or not you need to major in political science to get into law school. </p>
<p>My point was that you don't and in most cases, you should not major in Political Science because, like with most liberal arts majors, the employment prospects are worse than other majors.</p>
<p>The simple reasoning in general is that employers know the difficult majors from the easy ones and pick students that challenge themselves.</p>
<p>I don't even want to argue about Berkeley in this thread anymore. It was my fault for bringing it up. I merely used some data from the career center at Berkeley because it was freely available.</p>
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A harvard art history major would naturally likely bring more to the table than a Berkeley art history major.
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<p>Too bad Cal's Art History program is... by far the best program in the nation.</p>
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The simple reasoning in general is that employers know the difficult majors from the easy ones and pick students that challenge themselves.
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<p>You are assuming that the practicality of a major is proportional to its rigour; I see no justification for that assumption. In many cases, philosophy can be just as difficult, if not more, than the math and sciences (<em>cough</em> philosophy of metamathematics).</p>
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The simple reasoning in general is that employers know the difficult majors from the easy ones and pick students that challenge themselves.
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<p>well then, according to your logic nearly all business majors are out of work. As business is widely recognized (outside of the top 25-ish b-schools) as a cream puff major.</p>
<p>Well to be clear, either a major that leads to a good job often teaches practical skills or is rigorous and shows you would be a capable worker.</p>
<p>Liberal arts majors that are successful often work hard to get a lot of work experience outside of class to make up for the lack of rigour or practicality of their major.</p>
<p>And if Berkeley's Art History program were really that prestigious, you would expect it to have better per capita graduate school placement than a school with a "worse" program like Harvard or Yale.</p>
<p>It quite clear they have problems finding even crappy jobs.</p>
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And if Berkeley's Art History program were really that prestigious, you would expect it to have better per capita graduate school placement than a school with a "worse" program like Harvard or Yale.
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<p>So what you're saying is, you know the per capita graduate school placement of Harvard and Yale's Art History program.</p>
<p>Could you post it?</p>
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Well to be clear, either a major that leads to a good job often teaches practical skills or is rigorous and shows you would be a capable worker.
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<p>Well geez... too bad philosophy happens to be one of the most rigorous majors... </p>
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And if Berkeley's Art History program were really that prestigious, you would expect it to have better per capita graduate school placement than a school with a "worse" program like Harvard or Yale.
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<p>...I thought the question was with regard to practicality and rigour, not prestige...</p>
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you know the per capita graduate school placement of Harvard and Yale's Art History program.
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<p>Indeed.....</p>
<p>If you need convincing that art history is a useless major from most schools you are beyond any reasonable form of persuasion.</p>
<p>And philosophy is not rigorous. It is just more so than political science and the more podunk liberal arts majors. You can expect a philosophy major to be laughed at by anyone that has had to take a rigorous technical discipline.</p>
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And philosophy is not rigorous
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<p>Philosophy definitely is rigorous. A lot of my Science major friends struggle in philosophy classes. I know for a fact I do a lot more reading/work than they do.</p>
<p>Shiboing, define your words. It's a great notion they teach us in philosophy classes. What in the name of knowledge is a "podunk" major? Cow tipping?</p>
<p>If you need convincing that philosophy is a very rigorous major (and not just so relative to less rigorous liberal arts majors) from most schools, particularly the top schools, you are beyond any reasonable form of persuasion. However, this has been apparent for months now.</p>
<p>when one is a lawyer one often has to deal with situations in which an adversary tries to obfuscate an issue by throwing out irrelevant arguments often at increasingly louder volumes. unfortunately this type of tactic sometimes impresses their clients and makes them feel like they're getting their money's worth. in truth, such arguments rarely end up benefitting the client's cause. and the best thing for a responsible attorney to do is to not allow themselves to be sucked into this and to merely continue to represent their client intelligently. if you allow yourself to be pulled into such tactics you really end up being no better than the lawyer using such questionable tactics and you make it harder for other people to figure out which party is being irrational.</p>
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You can expect a philosophy major to be laughed at by anyone that has had to take a rigorous technical discipline.
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<p>Really? Because if I recall correctly, philosophy made possible whatever advancements in science you witness today. Mathematical logic, philosophy of science (specifically philosophy of biology and philosophy of physics), are typically courses considered essential for any student in a science program. Several of my closest friends are hard-science majors, and they deem necessary the courses that are required in a philosophy of science curriculum.</p>
<p>I never tolerate sciolism; continue to utter "pareto optimality" until you are nauseated. I shall continue to guffaw at such intellectual amateurism.</p>