<p>Unless you’re graduating from a top LAC like an Ivy or something like Williams or Amherst, you will not get a job over someone with a degree in finance, engineering, or whatever it may be. Africana studies, gender relations, philosophy, etc. are all a waste of time! They will get you nowhere.</p>
<p>Oh, and if you get a degree in say… math from a LAC, you’re good. Mostly because math can be applied to life.</p>
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<p>Proclaimed with all the accumulated wisdom of a 17-year-old. My hope for you would be that at college, you would acquire some real knowledge and life experience; but since you’re apparently determined to throw away your college experience on a tunnel vision path, I fear that won’t happen.</p>
<p>Oh, and BTW, one of the most successful entrepreneurs I know has a degree in philosophy.</p>
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This is a grand and wishful notion, for sure. But its implied suggestion that LAC somehow nurtures and develops critical thinking in excess to applied, general education courses and programs strikes me as an antiquated idea. Frankly, having watched this up close for many seasons in equal doses at selective LACs and universities, I’d have to say that there seems to increasingly be a clear winner in the critical thinking derby. And it’s not the LAC students. Too often, barring those from pedigreed institutions where name recognition lends a distinct advantage in job hunting, LAC students are muddling through, struggling to “find” themselves, relying upon internships to give them practical experience (so much for “liberal arts”?). All will tell you those internships … not the calc or the philosophy or the communications or the religion courses … that help them land jobs. </p>
<p>And that may be the real issue, as there simply is no evidence validating the claim that LAC students somehow have an advantage on learning to think. Conversely, those with hands-on experience, be it at LAC internships or in business or engineering or education or nursing or … curricula, have a HUGE advantage in landing employment. And THAT is where young people will learn to think, perceive the world of work, have at least a few marketable, usable skills in there vocational toolboxes. </p>
<p>Too often the argument for LAC education, especially with virtually zero coherance in the academic plan beyond taking a smorgasboard of classes, dabbling here and there, rings hollow. What it is too often about is sustaining institutions and their make-work cottage industries. </p>
<p>What institutions … megaversities or LACs … in fact must and are doing at the risk of their own peril, is to provide job skills and exposure. Period. Give students an opportunity for entry into the world of work. </p>
<p>But please … don’t try to sell the elitist, arrogant notion to any thinking person … that a LAC student in today’s world … somehow has a leg or brain up on the nursing student or elementary teacher or mechanical engineer or budding CPA. That only flies anymore with those who cannot afford to consider how silly it is.</p>
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Yea, and we all know the richest man on the planet dropped out of college. So what. Anecdotes abound and prove zilch. </p>
<p>We place way too much credit and blame on one’s achievements and/or lack there of on the basis of college/university education. Is there value added via this 4, make it 5 or 6 year growing-up hiatus. Well, certainly, and it could well be argued much or most has little or nothing to do with freshman chem or African dance class. But it is indisputable … a college degree is the modern day union card, and an expensive one in terms of dollars, foregone opportunities, time, and other experiences, mentally, morally, monetarily. But placing so much value on where, what, how, etc. is for most, not very useful or persuasive research. Unless one is Bill Gates, most of us are not, gotta do it to stand much of a chance in the world of work if not the world of living.</p>
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<p>Actually, if you believe the payscale.com data, philosophy majors earn more by mid-career than people who majored in biology, microbiology, business, public administration, biotechnology, nursing, or hotel management (among others).</p>
<p>[How to Get to the Top — Study Philosophy](<a href=“How to Get to the Top — Study Philosophy – There It Is . org”>A carnival of unreason: The Anatomy of Fascism – There It Is . org)
[Famous</a> Philosophy Majors](<a href=“http://mansfield.edu/philosophy/famous-philosophy-majors/]Famous”>http://mansfield.edu/philosophy/famous-philosophy-majors/)</p>
<p>True, correlation does not equal causation. What may be going on (as another CC poster may have suggested) is that Philosophy majors are disproportionately concentrated in the most selective schools. So their success may be due at least as much to their native intelligence or other personal characteristics as their college education. </p>
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<p>The world of work itself is better suited to proving all that, in my opinion. Let college be college. But whether you want to follow Whistle Pig’s advice or mine, chances are there is a place for you. American schools offer a staggering variety of choices.</p>
<p>I do agree, though, that internships can be a very valuable part of a college education.</p>
<p>It may not prove anything, but it DISproves the OP’s nonsense about degrees in philosophy being worthless.</p>
<p>Well, I’m not sure you have made a case, annasdaddy, but we’ve got the time, you’ve got the space, so give it a go to make your case. </p>
<p>It might be contended that despite a philosophy degree … your pal’s overcome! ;)</p>
<p>btw, I love philosophy … very thinking-provoking. But not a drab came as a function of my undergrad course in this one. I was way more intrigued with the calculus (specifically, area under the curves) of one shapely blond 3 seats ahead, 2 rows to the left! 
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<p>Philosophically speaking, I did figure out, education is wasted on youth; wisdom (especially of curvacious young blond coeds) is wasted when it arrives. Too little too late too often.</p>
<p>Regarding philosophy majors and the GMAT – a similar thing is also found in the LSAT, with the other top performing major group also being math and physics (which were combined for the purpose of comparing different majors’ performance on the LSAT).</p>
<p>Philosophy shares with math the requirement to be able to think logically. Perhaps that has something to do with those majors’ better GMAT and LSAT performance compared to non-philosophy humanities majors. Perhaps that is also why philosophy often has a reputation of being “harder” than other humanities majors.</p>
<p>No it is not the only point. When you go away from the college with your precious degree and out into that particular field, do you think that just the technical skills are all your gona need? what about the language of the job, when you are a nurse or doctor do you think the skills you learn are going to help you act as a compassionate human being. Liberal arts colleges prepare you not only for the job but the human nature of things, the experience and the language of the skill you seek. We are not drones being trained to do a mindless job for the rest of our lives, our minds are ment to grow with more and more knowledge to better ourselves mentally , not just finacially. What it the point of having a career with no mental stability to handle the pressures of life. Smaller communitys and liberal arts classes in college prepare you for life not just a job. I feel sorry for anyone who thinks that learning stops after Highschool.</p>
<p>Liberal arts curricula are not of value so much for the technical skills they provide but for the transferrable skills that can be used in a variety of fields. </p>
<p>I acknowledge that we need some liberal arts guys to run the kind of economy that will be able to sustain our future. However, the question is how many?</p>
<p>General knowledge of liberal arts (including science) is a good thing for society to have, although some of the benefits are external to the person choosing what to study in school.</p>
<p>However, this is not really the same argument about whether to attend a LAC versus an RU, since one can study liberal arts at an RU.</p>