[xexers]

I partly agree. But to play devil's advocate:

We have a lot of people graduating with useless degrees like History & Literature. These useless degrees often land people in a state of debt with no job. If a corporation(s) decides what degree you should get, there is a higher likelihood that at the end of your degree, you'll actually get a job.

[patrickcteng]

I have a B.A. in History (Pre-industrial Europe and Far East, and post-WWII American Foreign Policy) degree from UC Davis, and I ended up full-stack programming for the last 12 years.

I use those History skills daily from writing documentation, synthesizing concepts into a coherent work, and figuring out the intent of the original coder.

My History degree is definitely not useless.

[mathinpens]

That sounds like a bundle of fun. I bet you really enjoyed undergrad!

[mathinpens]

I think it is remarkably superficial to call these degrees useless. Yes- initiating a career with them is more non-trivial than a stem degree but if you look ahead and make a concrete plan you can do great things with a History degree (especially if you go to a highly regarded school).

[gknoy]

> if you look ahead and make a concrete plan you can do great things with a History degree (especially if you go to a highly regarded school)

I realize that history-related careers are not something I am well-versed in. Can you elaborate on this point? What kind of career is best prepared for by taking a History degree? (We'll assume that any kind of professorship role in history is a no-go, given how bad the adjunct professor path is.) I might imagine someone using History as a stepping-stone to a Law degree, but cannot think of much else. Museum curator?

I am having a hard time thinking of things that would provide a labor pool large enough to have a reasonable chance of making a career of. It's very likely that I'm not thinking deeply enough about it, so I'd appreciate your insight.

[jfoutz]

There are a few skills that an undergrad history degree will do for you. Off the top of my head, critical thinking, organization of disparate concepts and events into a coherent whole, and writing well.

One of the best programmers i worked with had a philosophy degree. He could distill a bunch of random subjective information down to something reasonable to implement.

It's really an education vs training sort of issue.

[mathinpens]

I think it'd be very fun to work for the state department or at a think tank as a subject matter expert-say in internal Brazilian politics or something wonky. A lot of fun government jobs. Some of those probably require a doctoral degree. Alternatively I agree a bachelors is a good foundation for a law degree.

Or I think one could work for a place like Stratfor or the other private intelligence/business intelligence firms that are less well known.

I also think it'd be a darn hoot to be a working historian (maybe in academia maybe not) of the kind who writes history books. Really just being a historian in general though.

> I am having a hard time thinking of things that would provide a labor pool large enough to have a reasonable chance of making a career of.

Everything I mentioned was a very high variance choice no doubt. Of course you are correct. It is probably not a good choice for the vast masses of people. I would not make a choice like this unless I was at a high brow college.

welp: I am stem person though but I sometimes wistfully ponder a different path.

edit: of course history seems to prepare one well for politics

[Apocryphon]

Even in tech, plenty of corporate teams such as sales, marketing, HR recruiting, etc. are populated with people who had social sciences or liberal arts degrees. Not all of them majored in business. So long as their program taught them how to read, write, and speak publicly, it's better than no degree.

[tclancy]

Wow, that's quite the Devil's Advocacy. The idea that arts & humanities are dead ends seems to be in direct opposition with most advanced cultures.

>there is a higher likelihood that at the end of your degree, you'll actually get a job.

With that company. When your healthcare and your education are controlled by a single corporation, how are you any better off than some miner in the 19th century buying his equipment from the company store?

[xexers]

> With that company

only temporarily. Once your working CV is strong enough you're free to move to another company

[mtberatwork]

...assuming the other company isn't flooded with other candidates with the same subsidized business degree.

[xexers]

As apposed to now? Where you have 40 history PHDs all going for a single professor slot... and at the same time have tons of positions go vacant for months because there are no qualified candidates?

It may not be perfect, but it might be better than what we have now... Although, I'm not saying it will be... I'll reserve judgement until the data arrives.

[mindcrime]

Which is a reasonable assumption to make, since we already know that - in the real world - there are opportunities to move from company to company for a wide variety of reasons.

[AdmiralAsshat]

Steve Jobs studied Eastern Mysticism and Calligraphy in college. It was the calligraphy class in particular that informed his ideas about design.

[xexers]

I totally agree. Also, Tom Hanks & Tina Fey both studied Drama... and both have contributed enormously to the world.

However, for every employed actor, there are probably 9 other starving drama students who will never make it. It's hard to encourage kids to take Drama with those odds unless the kid is super passionate about it... especially when it costs $60k to do so.

[notyourbusiness]

Since when culture is considered useless?