I haven't read this book but, based just on the title, I think my college-bound students should read it:
Worthless: The Young Person's Indispensable Guide to Choosing the Right Major
How many more marine biologists or international relations majors does the world need right now? I've got to believe we have plenty. To paraphrase that 90s song:
What the world needs now
Is another medieval Uzbeki literature major
Like I need a whole in my head.
yup...I'm currently arguing with some Berniebots about education right now. They repeat the slogan "Education shouldn't be a debt sentence! Free stuff now!" I ask them why exactly we need so many sociology or communications majors, especially if you have to go into 40,000 of debt for the degree.
ReplyDeleteTheir reply is that you should be able to study whatever you want at whatever the cost for free, since FEELS and DREAMS are important.
And what bugs me is that most of the people I am arguing with have a college degree (or two) already... the Sanders Koolaid is strong with these ones.
What gets you a job is being willing to go after it. My daughter's degree is in Dance, but she worked her entire college career in jobs that required responsibility such as managing a fastfood restaurant and being an RA in dorm. Those jobs gave her the management skills to run a dance business for five years. After that, she moved on. She was the manager for a retail housewares store for a year, then took the opportunity to move to working in a well known national bank where her ability to learn and interact with people in a meaningful and productive way have given her two promotions in the last six months. The key wasn't her degree, it was that she had worked since she was 16. All three of my kids worked. All three of them live independently. We have friend with kids the same age-mid 20's to early 30's whose kids don't have full time work, live at home and their parents did not insist they work in high school or college. As a result, they ran up college debt and can't afford to live on their own. These are the folks voting for Bernie b/c they believe he will forgive their debts-which is really going to tick off my son who paid off all his student loans working two jobs for over five years.
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