Are liberal arts degrees inherently less valuable than math, science, and technology majors?

[vivster]

i wonder why they don't rationalize already?
if the country needs more scientists than painters it should give more money to science departments than art departments
so if anyone wants to learn something special that doesn't help the country much he should pay special money for compensation
and people are encouraged to study something more useful by making it a bit cheaper

though i have to say a math degree is not much more worth than an arts degree
science and IT is where it's at

 

[Chemical Alia]

They're not less valuable. Certain liberal arts studies, like art in particular don't do the best job of preparing students for specific careers since that's not usually the nature of the curriculum, but that's not to say that there aren't plenty of jobs out there. No one is guaranteed a job just because they have a degree, so if you choose to pursue a field that isn't known for its great career opportunities, you just have to do a lot more research and extra work to find a job compared to someone whose field is more clear cut. We don't all expect to get paid for sitting around a coffee shop writing poetry and painting on a canvas all day, even if these things have a valid and important place in society.

I certainly wouldn't want to be forced into a degree that I had no interest in, when I have talent and skill in other areas that are deemed less "marketable". Besides, my math teachers were absolutely abysmal, impatient people that made it a painful subject and all but discouraged me from taking it seriously. Maybe I could have been great at math, but I was pushed more towards art and music, and cultivating those skills instead. It never even felt like a real option to me, but I've had no trouble putting my "unmarketable" skills to use in the professional realm.

 

[LordFisheh]

Is a civil engineer more valuable to society than a philosophy major?

So you have someone who actually contributes/works, and someone who sits around and talks about the meaning of work.

Yeah, no, screw the philosophy major. I'd take a civil engineer over twenty philosophy majors. A hundred, even.

Except if you take a philosophy major, you don't go and get a job as a philosopher and sit around talking about the meaning of work. This isn't ancient Greece. Instead, you get one of the jobs looking for 'educated' people; people with a good degree. The degree doesn't need to be in the field of work because it's there to signify that the person is intelligent, educated and in possession of the general skills that are taught by any academic course. As for the specifics, well, that's what job training is for. My dad graduated as a chemist then trained in accountancy; all the accountants wanted was to see that he had a good degree in something respectable.

The thing is, universities aren't about getting you a job or being of maximum economic effectiveness. They're the centres of the most advanced knowledge of the human race. So sure, certain subjects may have less value in the university-as-a-production-line-to-get-me-a-job context, but other than that, who knows?

I'd say that's largely been surpassed by the internet these days, there's lots of open courseware from the best universities all round the world. Don't MIT or Stanford make all their course resources open to the general public, so you're basically just paying for the piece of paper?

As far as I'm concerned, all knowledge has value, because there's no reliable way to determine whether this bit should be focused on or that bit is useless without descending into subjective it's like this just because it is rules.

And as for getting you a job at the end and providing future opportunities, frankly, I don't care, because that's not what academia is about. The employment prospects are an important part of many lives, mine included - but in the end, in any truly academic institution, they're a side effect.

I agree with this very much, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Universities should really pick one or the other; focussing on either training for the world of work, or pure study of a field. Presently there are a lot of strange degrees out there (like degrees in childcare) that would be better suited by apprenticeships or some other method of study.

I agree on both counts. The internet could be a massive step forward for education, and perhaps one day universities as we know it will be redundant, or focused on job training.

I know that, in the UK at least, all the non-academic degrees came from Labour's questionable decision to get *everyone* to go to university, despite the fact that academia is not for everyone (not that it's better, it's just different). So we see vital skills and crafts crammed into universities for no better reason than to make the statistics look good. Like with so much of this discussion, the problem seems again to be coming from people mixing universities and job training.

 

[Arsen]

I am by no means a scientific or mathematical type. I'm more of an English, History, Arts, and Theology kind of guy. Each degree and specialty of study deserves an equal amount of gratitude and respect in some manner. People have to keep in mind that while some degrees might not further "human society" in terms of reaching and striving farther and farther with technological advances, that it doesn't necessarily cause society to go backwards. Many technological advances are in fact, stifling us as people.

Then again, you're talking to a guy who believes literature and writing is of the utmost importance. So take my comments for how you personally feel they are...

Yet, at the same time, people in my eyes...put too much care and precedence into science and technology these days. It helps, but overall just gives to those who have access to technology. It doesn't benefit the majority of society overall. Who can honestly say that social media networks, cellphones, and e-books have done anything good for the world?

 

[Terminal Blue]

What are your views on the subject? Is a civil engineer more valuable to society than a philosophy major?

There's a simplistic answer and a more complex answer.

The simple answer is 'yes'.

The complex answer adds the qualification '..but only if they're actually a civil engineer and not a civil engineering major'.

Being a civil engineering major doesn't make you a civil engineer. It doesn't necessarily make you employable as a civil engineer until you've done a fuckton of unpaid internships and work experience, which is exactly what liberal arts majors are doing now when they leave university or college anyway.

The employment sectors for maths and science are relatively tiny.

* Accountancy used to be a sure fire route into work for maths graduates, now it's no longer required because technology renders it obsolete, so there are tons of people doing accountancy courses who will be far better qualified for real work than a theoretical maths graduate.

* Any real work in science requires extensive postgraduate study which frankly, is extremely expensive and not everyone is capable of it. You may as well argue that everyone should do anthropology PhDs and become university lecturers and that would give them all jobs.

* Technology is a good way to go, but it's a limited pot which often leads to extremely unsatisfying work at the end (unless you like spending hours sitting in a dark room writing software for the financial services industry).

If you really just want a job without having to shuffle from internship to internship, don't bother with anything theoretical. Go and do a vocational course in management or pharmacy or even plumbing or go and learn a second language if you actually want to do something hard, and then go work in the retail sector or the service industry. There are very few jobs which any graduate with a theoretical background can just walk into at the moment be it Chemistry or English Literature. Doing anything beyond the vocational with the expectation that it will guarantee you a job is a complete joke.

Also, anthropology is a science.

..and this is standard anti-intellectualism which you should really be above.

 

[ChildofGallifrey]

The way I see it (and, please, feel free to weigh in on this), if someone pursues a degree in liberal arts, or philosophy, or anything of that sort they probably have a very specific career in mind. You don't get a degree in Medieval Literature thinking "Well, let's just see where this leads.", whereas one could very easily have that mindset with a degree in maths or business where there are more widespread opportunities.

I don't think they're any less valuable (generally, not personally) because odds are good that you know what you're going to do with it

 

[poppabaggins]

Math and science move the economy and the world, not Kant, Sartre, or Descartes.

Sure, it's nice to think about philosophy, history, comparative literature, etc., but does it accomplish anything tangible? Not really. If public education is going to exist, then it might as well focus on things that will move society further.

Suggesting that those things don't contribute anything? To the contrary, we should spend more money funding philosophy and related fields (ethics, critical thinking, etc.). It absolutely has tangible value, in that it really does get you to think. Most people do not think, they follow whatever the prevailing opinion (or the counter to that opinion) is without question, and they don't even realize it. If we spent more time teaching people to form their own opinions based on known facts and logical reasoning, we'd be in a lot better shape.

Of course this means that two-party politics would cease to exist, and hence they'll never get more funding.

Can you give me a concrete example? I'm going to give you one to back up my argument: electricity. Look, it's great teaching people how to learn for themselves and everything, but you don't have to dedicate four years of your life studying it. If someone doesn't know how to think for him/herself after high school, then I doubt college is going to do that person much good. But yeah, I'm always ready for something better than our awful two-party system.

 

[similar.squirrel]

No, but the likelihood of getting a well-paid job and benefiting society in any meaningful way is substantially higher in the case of science subjects, especially the applied ones.
That's mainly because of people, and not due to any inherent limitation in the field of study.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Well considering accounting is not a math degree and has almost no math in it. Its obvious that somebody who takes courses in somebody will be more qualified that somebody who takes courses in an unrelated field. There is also major differences between what somebody who went to school for accounting and got a designation can do and what somebody who took a couple night school courses is legally allowed to do.

I know..

My point is that 40 years ago, for example, it used to be a pretty surefire thing for theoretical maths graduates to get work because there were jobs which actually required a high level of mathematical competence.

Now, there's pretty much nothing you can use it for. It is, like undergraduate level anthropology, purely a demonstration of your critical faculties and thinking skills. I consider that important, personally.. but if Rick Scott doesn't think it is then why the fuck is he advocating people to do maths and science?

As such, it would be imperative to maintain a high student count at the university, and since all of those students would be in the toughest (no, this is not an exaggeration, math/science/engineering are the hardest majors by far), the rigor of study would have to be dialed back some.

I disagree.. It depends entirely how you measure difficulty, but if you go by rote learning and work load, languages are harder. If you go by conceptual difficulty then certain social sciences and philosophy-type disciplines are harder. I agree these subjects incorporate a degree of both and have pretty high workloads, but that doesn't make them 'the toughest', to a certain kind of person they are probably easier.

That said, any degree can be hard if you make it hard.

 

[applesandoranges]

edit

 

[TheBelgianGuy]

Any person who is against any form of knowledge should be immediately removed from this world, period.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

First, never trust Rick Scott.

On to more important things. Liberal arts degrees are much more difficult to find jobs with. If your primary motivation is to find a well paying job, you are much better off with an engineering degree. However, if it's your passion, go for it. I'd never dissuade someone from pursuing what they love, just that you should know what difficulties may come.

Myself for instance. I fucking love history, particularly military history. The thing is, I'm not going to find a job aside from history teacher with that degree and I hate kids. So, I'm learning how to fly and going to keep history as more of a hobby.

 

[zHellas]

Not inherently but if you do want a job right out of college/university, either know someone whom can get you a job or take a math or science or technology major.

(Sorry if it offends anyone and my logic might be a bit flawed/missing a few things, but what's above is my general point)

 

[Terminal Blue]

snip

You've taken the slightly bizarre assumption that everyone does what their degree title says they should do. Philosophy graduates work pretty much everywhere, they are not compelled to go and sit on a hill thinking. A close friend of mine is a philosophy graduate with a postgraduate degree in international relations and who is now happily working for the IT department of an insurance firm. Engineering graduates work pretty much everywhere as well. The idea that a degree title functions as a sorting hat is certainly not true in my country, and I pity any country where it is.

For example, I happen to be related to a couple of engineering graduates, neither of whom work as engineers of any sort because they couldn't find suitable work, and both of whom have done plenty of unpaid internships.

Really, the idea that anyone should take a degree because it will give you a free job at the end is not a responsible one to promote.

Edit: I'll be honest, I don't know how to reconcile this with your experience, I just know that not all engineering graduates step out the door to find a bright shining future waiting for them because they did engineering, and I don't see any evidence that it's any easier to get a job with an engineering degree than with a history degree, for example.

 

[cjspyres]

Math and science move the economy and the world, not Kant, Sartre, or Descartes.

Sure, it's nice to think about philosophy, history, comparative literature, etc., but does it accomplish anything tangible? Not really. If public education is going to exist, then it might as well focus on things that will move society further.

Suggesting that those things don't contribute anything? To the contrary, we should spend more money funding philosophy and related fields (ethics, critical thinking, etc.). It absolutely has tangible value, in that it really does get you to think. Most people do not think, they follow whatever the prevailing opinion (or the counter to that opinion) is without question, and they don't even realize it. If we spent more time teaching people to form their own opinions based on known facts and logical reasoning, we'd be in a lot better shape.

Of course this means that two-party politics would cease to exist, and hence they'll never get more funding.

Can you give me a concrete example? I'm going to give you one to back up my argument: electricity. Look, it's great teaching people how to learn for themselves and everything, but you don't have to dedicate four years of your life studying it. If someone doesn't know how to think for him/herself after high school, then I doubt college is going to do that person much good. But yeah, I'm always ready for something better than our awful two-party system.

Democracy, Communism, Capitalism, Morals, Logical thinking in general. just a few to name

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

I knew a guy who had a degree in computer science or engineering or whatever.

The best job he can find is as an associate manager at some shitty retail store.

NO degree guarantees you a good job.

 

[cjspyres]

Math and science move the economy and the world, not Kant, Sartre, or Descartes.

Sure, it's nice to think about philosophy, history, comparative literature, etc., but does it accomplish anything tangible? Not really. If public education is going to exist, then it might as well focus on things that will move society further.

Suggesting that those things don't contribute anything? To the contrary, we should spend more money funding philosophy and related fields (ethics, critical thinking, etc.). It absolutely has tangible value, in that it really does get you to think. Most people do not think, they follow whatever the prevailing opinion (or the counter to that opinion) is without question, and they don't even realize it. If we spent more time teaching people to form their own opinions based on known facts and logical reasoning, we'd be in a lot better shape.

Of course this means that two-party politics would cease to exist, and hence they'll never get more funding.

Can you give me a concrete example? I'm going to give you one to back up my argument: electricity. Look, it's great teaching people how to learn for themselves and everything, but you don't have to dedicate four years of your life studying it. If someone doesn't know how to think for him/herself after high school, then I doubt college is going to do that person much good. But yeah, I'm always ready for something better than our awful two-party system.

Democracy, Communism, Capitalism, Morals, Logical thinking in general. just a few to name

Edit: Personally, I'm religious, but from an atheistic point of view, Religion has one hell of a monopoly on the world

 

[tehweave]

I entered into college knowing I wanted to pursue making movies. I went to a liberal arts college (University of Kansas) that also had engineering degrees, computer science degrees, a medical school, a law school, and plenty of other programs that might have netted me a decent-paying job after I graduated.

I do not regret my decision in the slightest.

I became a Film and Media Studies major, I've learned quite a bit about video editing, cameras, lighting, acting, directing, writing, and producing. I feel as though I can use this knowledge and the networking I've done with other students and people in the industry to get myself a job. Nothing is guaranteed, but I will hold my liberal arts degree up high and with pride when I am done.

So FUCK Rick Scott! I like my degree and I'm gonna make my own career with it! We need artists!