<p>“BTW: its not just for the flipping money, if it was just for the money, why would we be spending an arm, leg, and a brain to pay for our college tuition, while spending years beyond years in college to become a doctor/engineer/lawyer. No one is stupid enough to do that. Oh and if we are regretting it later in life, why is there not a shortage in doctors if you claim that all asians/indians act so abnormal and go into these professions? I suggest you think before you post stupid comments, they can be offensive. Get the real story before yacking”</p>
<p>haha, sorry but uh…there IS a shortage in doctors. And you really only need 4-5 years to be an engineer. Seriously…no one from this god forsaken school goes to grad school and they’re considered some of the best engineers around.</p>
<p>yes there is a shortage of doctors, engineers.</p>
<p>I’m gonna get alot of fists for saying this but the sciences are usually considered “smart majors”. You can distinguish levels of intelligence by ability to solve problems. Hence, that’s why doctors & engineers get paid more than say, humanities majors. Like someone said, people can read books to learn geography, history… there aren’t really that much you can research or help the society with those majors (except teaching). Those seem to be like hobbies. You can’t really make money unless you exceptionally stand out. </p>
<p>You can write a thousand page essay about something and others who view it differently can argue against it with another view. So who’s to say what’s right? especially in history. It’s just like going in a circle and twist your words to make your opinion “right”. Where as in math, 1+1 is 2, you can’t really argue. To me, it makes more sense to major in the sciences to benefit the society. Other stuff you can do as hobbies.</p>
<p>“majors like english, philosophy, government, music, art, etc are all like hobbies man…i can go to my local library and read the entire section on any one of the subjects and be just as, if not more, knowledgable than a college grad who majored in one of those. i mean its great to study medieval literature and physics in the 11th dimension, but they arent applicable in the real world.”</p>
<p>That can be said about any subject. Including engineering, business, law and medicine.</p>
<p>and in response to chaoses, I sure am glad that people like Socrates, Plato, Homer, Monet, Picasso, Renoir, Faulkner, Dickens, to name a very few philosopher, artists, and authors, did not take your advice by focusing on the hard sciences in order to “benefit the society.” Not to mention I highly doubt that science would even exist if it weren’t for philosophy.</p>
<p>well I did say that those majors can benefit society but only the ones who exceptionally stand out. Hence, not many people are into it as much as the sciences and engineering. Those people greatly contributed back in the day. We’re talking about job placement now. How many people can name any great philosophers, historians… now? Science continue to evolve and new discoveries are made even more than back in the day. </p>
<p>By the way I am an engineer with a philosophy minor because i like it as a hobby.</p>
<p>People who consider Philosophy a “cake” major need to try taking a couple of classes on Scientific Empiricism. I bet they can’t even get through Ayer’s work by the time they graduate - few people have the capacity to study Logical Positivism.</p>
<p>Law Schools have more respect for Philosophy degrees than they do for Poli Sci degrees. Someone I know who went Harvard Law says he knew a lot more kids with degrees in Math or Philosophy than in other “more serious” humanity majors (Poli Sci, Econ).</p>
<p>People here can be so stupid. Your undergrad degree means next to nothing, unless you’re looking to be recruited right out of college. Even then it only really counts for getting your first job; after that your next employer will care about how you performed at your last job, he won’t give a crap what you studied years back in college. It’s all a question of “what have you done lately?” If you think that your undergrad degree counts for anything beyond the right to have an “X University Alum” sticker on your car, you’re misinformed. It’s all about how you perform at work. Sure, if you’re an Econ major at UChicago you’ll probably get recruited by a more prestigious I-Bank than an Econ major at Syracuse; but 5 years down the line if the UChicago guy is slacking off and the Syracuse guy is getting the job done, who do you think is more attractive to a new employer? It’s not even close. </p>
<p>A prestigious undergraduate degree gets you one wrung higher on the ladder - after that, it’s a race. And watch out, those kids you frowned upon before from places like Syracuse, Lehigh, Brandeis, and UWisconsin will give you a run for your money, and it’s happening more and more every year. Yet still the Ivy craze among students and parents is greater than ever! It’s absurd.</p>
<p>Graduate degrees are much more important. Still though, the most important thing is how you work at your job. Don’t let these websites that LIVE off your obsession with college or the publications that seek to boost the stress level of prospective students by talking about how important it all is skew your vision of reality. Why do you think there are so many private consulting programs, SAT programs, etc.? It’s all a business. And the people who buy into the whole “undergraduate degree is so important” junk are the suckers who shell out thousands. And guess what? Business is booming.</p>
<p>^yeah, philosophy, when studied at the right school, definitely signals intelligence if one performs well. I’m thinking of minoring in philosophy…and yeah, I think philosophy is closer to pure math in terms of intellectual intensity than poly sci.</p>
<p>I’m not sure why we’re comparing undergrads with the same degrees at different schools now; the discussion’s been about having different degrees having different consequences after graduation. Of course the quality of your bachelor’s is only going to matter for that first job, but that’s not what being scrutinized here.</p>
<p>The thing to keep in mind though is that a higher quality undergrad program will open more doors for you in the future not because of what you know or your GPA, but rather who you know (through networking and such). I’ve learned this firsthand and have also seen it happen to other people as well. So yea, that “X University Alum” sticker on the back of your car DOES matter. This applies of course only if you’re on par with your competitors for your job. They’re not going to hire someone who’s unqualified just because you attended an Ivy league institution.</p>
<p>While what kafka89 said about undergrad not mattering once you enter grad/professional school is very true, many people will have their undergrad as their terminal degree. An engineering or business degree is just much more marketable in the working world then an art history degree for example. It just opens more doors straight out of undergrad.</p>
<p>Like ha ha, not. I understand supply and demand just fine. I also know that the median salary for jobs go down when a) a sizeable percentage of them are being outsourced overseas to cheaper countries and b) people oversaturate the market.</p>
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<p>True, but even they go to English grad students to be edited. Even if you know what you’re saying, writing is a skill mostly people don’t have. And no, I’m not talking about Creative Writing, either.</p>
<p>Also, let me say this: I went to a career seminar last year, and the chairman over the Communications department told was there. He told us that he knows an employer for IBM who said that he (and his colleagues) would rather hire an English major than a Science major for certain jobs. He says while Science majors know their field, they don’t know how to disseminate information well. They don’t know how to write and how to analyze data.</p>