<p>
+1</p>
<p>I’m sure that there are many great teachers with degrees in education, but I have yet to meet one of them. Teaching a subject well requires passion for that subject and experience with it, at any level.</p>
<p>Yes, in this year and to an extent last year and during every recession liberal arts grads (compared to biz, eng, nursing, education) have a tough time. I heard a girl who graduated Dartmouth in sociology last year crying on the radio because she could not find any job to speak of and had $40k in student debt.</p>
<p>Actually, a teaching degree does not take four years. </p>
<p>You do go to college for four years to get that degree, but the actual teaching part is only a year or so. The rest of the time you are taking core courses, electives, and other classes in your subject (if you are going to be a music teacher, you take music history, theory, etc.).</p>
<p>Neither of my degrees are education degrees. I went back to school for a year to get certification. Just sayin’ ;)</p>
<p>My main reason for saying technical and theoretical degrees should be separates is just because academic majors do not prepare students for the workforce.</p>
<p>By lumping all majors together, some students just major in anything, without knowing better. If you had more separation, people would be able to better discern what kinds of training they need.</p>
<p>Why should universities teach “liberal” subjects? Because, as far as I can tell, that’s the real purpose of universities… always has been, and always will be. The training is in response to market forces. If you think this is about the distinction between “university” and “not university”, it’s not… call them anything you want.</p>
<p>It’s nice to think that everybody should get a broad-based education in addition to training, but you’d be surprised (apparently) how many people just don’t care about that stuff. I feel like there aren’t options for them. Also, I feel like their presence in university is detrimental to those who know what they want from a university (education, not necessarily training, except in academic matters) but have to take “applications” courses.</p>
<p>Like I said initially, I know that this isn’t how it is, and can’t be how it is at the present. It’s how I think it should be, but if everybody thought so, obviously I wouldn’t be telling anybody about it.</p>
<p>Posters in this forum have talked about practical, career-oriented education and education for the sake of intellectual pursuit. I’ve found that I want what I learn to have application to “real life.” But that doesn’t mean focusing solely on career potential (although I think it is foolish to ignore that). It has also meant for me, and I hope for my kids, that my education has played an important role in my being a responsible and informed citizen. History to understand how we got where we are and maybe avoid repeating past mistakes. Economics and finance to understand all the complicated issues in our national and international economy. Statistics and math to understand when some politician is trying to snow me with numbers. Philosophy, psychology, and sociology to understand why people and communities behave the way they do. </p>
<p>I think colleges do students a disservice if they don’t provide them with the tools to do the kind of analysis needed to be a good citizen.</p>
<p>I think part of what college is about, at least for me, is transitioning from childhood to adulthood. You still transition if you don’t go to college, but college makes makes it easier. It’s also about learning to argue, analyze, express yourself, etc. well enough to be able to succeed in your future career, even if your college major is completely unrelated.</p>
<p>Also, if you ask many adults what they majored in at college, it is different than the career field they are currently in. A college major isn’t everything. The total education one gets in college, let alone the experience outside of academics is valuable in its own right…for life…and for jobs in general. And a college major, particularly if a BA and not a specialized degree program, isn’t the majority of the coursework and is usually more like 30% of it.</p>
<p>“Why some people cannot see that college is (much) more than work training?”???</p>
<p>odd post. thought the value of liberal arts education was to broaden one’s perspective.</p>
<p>some people simply can’t afford to spend four or five years in college and not get a good job soon after graduation.</p>
<p>Certainly many who have a liberal arts background do get good jobs after graduating.</p>
<p>Not to mention…some get graduate degrees in specialized fields. In many professions, in order to get a “good job”, an undergraduate degree is not enough.</p>
<p>sure, and some go on for quite some time in grad school, and then maybe teach yet another generation the secret of their success. but that’s not what the average kid is going to do, or at least not those who have to pay off the not-inconsiderable loans they assumed for their first degree. my opinion - liberal arts education is an anachronism that will increasingly prove not-cost-effective in a world economy that is changing faster than you could write a paper about it on your macbook.</p>
<p>I took a liberal arts major because it is applicable to any of about 10 different career options I am considering with minimal additional education. Suits me fine. Much more cost effective than majoring in something highly specialized and career oriented only to decide I want to change my career, as many people do, and have to start college all over again to get the proper education. For my purposes it made much more sense to choose a field in undergrad rather than a specific job.</p>
<p>TrinSF,
My director is not allowed to interview people who do not have at least Bachelor. This job is the best out of 9 jobs that I had in field. I live in one of the most economically depressed regions. My ability to find another job when a lot of people fail (in my city) correlates with having MBA and high GPA, which I have been told at several places that I interviewed. I cannot talk about NYC or LA, I imagine that job market is better there compare to my place where a lot of us are driving to Detroit of all places because job market in Detroit is better than ours. I myself have been driving to Michigan for about 1.5 years, not anymore, thank God.</p>
<p>bully for you twisted - let us know when one of those 10 options you’re considering turns into an actual job that allows you to pay for the education you will already have completed</p>
<p>Toodle, my company spends millions of dollars a year on training. We can teach finance skills, accounting skills, advanced statistical analysis, all sorts of programming and computer skills, etc. We can’t teach critical thinking, basic computational skills (algebra through calculus), how to write a 3 page analysis of a problem with appropriate footnotes/appendices, etc.</p>
<p>So we hire really smart people with liberal arts degrees. We’d rather teach a kid with a BA in sociology or linguistics how to do a discounted cash flow analysis, than teach a kid with a degree in accounting how to research an emerging market by studying the history, culture, political climate, agricultural output, family norms, etc, and then condensing the thousands of pages into an 8 page “executive summary”.</p>
<p>It’s just too expensive to teach the vocational type students the liberal arts skills. It’s quick and cheap to teach the liberal arts students the vocational stuff.</p>
<p>So it pays to keep an open mind about the relative value of different skills.</p>
<p>blossom – fabulous post!</p>
<p>“We can’t teach critical thinking, basic computational skills (algebra through calculus), how to write a 3 page analysis of a problem with appropriate footnotes/appendices, etc.”</p>
<p>That is correct, these skills are obtained in elementary school, college time is way too late for that.</p>
<p>Most decent business programs teach all those basic research skills through use of the case method and other real word projects where you present a significant research driven analysis in multiple classes–in many cases you present an actual case problem to the company involved and they use the analysis. And unlike many liberal arts majors they require both calculus and statistics to an intermediate level. If your company is spending millions to teach basic business skills they are foolish.</p>
<p>Barrons, thanks for your helpful comments. We recruit at the top universities around the world but I’ll be sure to put in a plug for “decent business programs” next time we finalize our recruiting strategy.</p>
<p>good deal, blossom, and while you’re at it how about posting your company’s name and your business email - probably get about 200,000 resumes from recent lac grads looking for just this kind of opportunity</p>
<p>Will do,toodleoo. I have plenty of opportunities. I am not going to be a millionaire and it will take me a while to pay off my education, but that’s fine with me. It fits into my plans and I will still be able to afford a house and a car in the neighborhood I wanted and the lifestyle I wanted, as well as savings-- what more can you ask for than everything you want? I studied what I wanted to and will gain the knowledge necessary to get started in almost any career I would ever consider, what I am paying for it really doesn’t bother me. A business or math or science degree would never take me anywhere I am interested in going. I’m not expecting to make as much money as people in those programs, but that’s okay with me. I’d rather spend my money on something I actually want that I will be able to pay off gradually over time, that’s just fine with me.</p>