[lamacase]

I have read the book. He says that engineering degrees are basically the one exception. They're like trade schools. Also, e.g. a social science degree is useful if you're going to be a social science professor/academic, but otherwise none of the skills or knowledge are transferable.

He also says that having any degree is "worth it" to an individual, monetarily. It's just not worth it to society to require everyone to have education they don't use.

[Jemaclus]

> otherwise none of the skills or knowledge are transferable.

While I understand the source of this statement and why people often say this, I'm not entirely sure I agree with this, at least anecdotally.

For example, I have a degree in Theater. Which, on the surface, doesn't transfer well to, say, software engineering or law or accounting or teaching or social work.

But is that really true? To pick a popular theatre-related discipline, consider what an actor does:

- They show up on time (to scenes, to rehearsal, to performances)

- They can memorize vast amounts of material in a relatively short period of time verbatim

- They work well with others

- They work well individually

- They can take direction

- They can take constructive criticism

- They meet deadlines under pressure (the show must go on!)

- They can put themselves in other people's shoes (Method acting, ftw)

- They know how to do research (how does a 1940s soldier talk, dress, walk, act?)

- They are comfortable speaking in front of groups

- They can speak clearly and enunciate appropriately (especially good in a remote world with fuzzy tech!)

And so on and so forth...

I don't really care what industry you're in, those are desirable qualities for ANY hiring manager! I would be THRILLED if candidates metaphorically walked through the door with evidence of those skill sets under their belt! This is the holy grail of "soft skills" that everyone looks for, whether you're a doctor or a restaurant manager or a postal worker.

I've had a lot of jobs in my career, but I've never in my life walked onto a job and known everything I need to know. There's a LOT of on the job training -- so much that I might as well be taking a boot camp at every new job!

And so from that perspective, someone who walks in with a theater or really any kind of arts or social science degree and a modicum of Python under their belt is a very, very attractive hire to me. I can teach you our framework of choice and how to run tests and how to use Jira, but I don't have time to teach you how to learn or how to communicate or how to take direction.

Anyway, my two cents.

[Aransentin]

This is all in line with the author's point. Having an education does demonstrate that you have soft skills like punctuality, conscientiousness, etc. Being able to filter on those criteria is valuable to the employer and that employee alike.

The question is just how much of education is testing for skills that were there all along, and how much is actually taught. Caplan says that all evidence points to that it's almost all A, and very little B. If true, spending several years and very large amounts of money just for one person to get ahead in a zero-sum game is not very beneficial to society as a whole.

[torbTurret]

A fifteen year old cashier at Target can make the same value claim, minus the four year time investment and student debt.

Which I think is the author’s point.

[lucb1e]

It's a bit more terse than I'd have put it, but I was about to reply along the same lines when I reloaded and saw your comment. While the supermarket employee (for those who don't know Target, it's a USA-specific thing afaik) might not be able to prove some of those things like doing research for a 1940s soldier costume, it's indeed not that hard and doesn't need a university study. Many of GP's points will be much harder to prove than to learn in the first place. And so I would also conclude that years of study might just not be required to start doing the job. Trying to be respectful of an actor's skill, since I truly don't think I could do that job well (or at least not without months or years of trying, and even then idk), it also doesn't strike me as requiring deep study. That's just not required for showing up to work on time (I'm cherry-picking one of the points here, to be fair).

Even for IT there's an argument to be made that it's super easy to learn 80% at home and do maybe some hands-on work in a lab with 500 virtual computers (that you wouldn't easily setup by yourself in a realistic manner), then go into the job. After a magazine got me started on HTML with a 3-page explanation at 12yo, things just started rolling from there and I was basically always ahead of what I was expected to know by year x of the study because I had already done stuff out of personal interest. Don't need an N-year study there, either. Engineering (in the sense of building a bridge that stands 100 years) is probably different though.

[watwut]

Not really, because of the memory, ability to talk publicly and research things. But OP burried those under many absurdly crappy points.

[csdvrx]

I had a bias against art degrees, but the one person I work with and who's had the most impact has... a theater degree, plus another art degree I forgot. Or maybe philosophy? I thought he was just an exception.

With your surprising and well written example, I realize he's not an exception. There's great value there. And I now fully agree with you.

> And so from that perspective, someone who walks in with a theater or really any kind of arts or social science degree and a modicum of Python under their belt is a very, very attractive hire to me. I can teach you our framework of choice and how to run tests and how to use Jira, but I don't have time to teach you how to learn or how to communicate or how to take direction.

You fully changed my mind.

Being able to multiply matrices by hand is nice, but there's software for that. Soft skills or a rigorous thought process is very hard to find.

[lelanthran]

> But is that really true? To pick a popular theatre-related discipline, consider what an actor does:

> - They show up on time (to scenes, to rehearsal, to performances)

> - They can memorize vast amounts of material in a relatively short period of time verbatim

> - They work well with others

> - They work well individually

> - They can take direction

> - They can take constructive criticism

> - They meet deadlines under pressure (the show must go on!)

> - They can put themselves in other people's shoes (Method acting, ftw)

> - They know how to do research (how does a 1940s soldier talk, dress, walk, act?)

> - They are comfortable speaking in front of groups

> - They can speak clearly and enunciate appropriately (especially good in a remote world with fuzzy tech!)

> I don't really care what industry you're in, those are desirable qualities for ANY hiring manager!

Of those 11 skills, 9 are skills you'd need for any engineering postgrad degree, and 7 are skills you'd get in any engineering undergrad degree. From the hiring managers PoV, with the engineering graduate you also get a lot of other nice skills, like problem-solving complex problems, understanding complicated systems, etc.

> I would be THRILLED if candidates metaphorically walked through the door with evidence of those skill sets under their belt!

They do - that's what the postgrad engineering degrees are - evidence of possessing those skills you mentioned, and using them.

[skybrian]

I'm wondering how much acting experience you can get without an expensive college degree though? Would amateur productions take a volunteer?

[Kalium]

Community theater productions are reasonably common in the US. Many of them are amateur, in the sense of being put on by people who are not paid full-time theatrical professionals.

[watwut]

While I think that a lot of you learned can be transferrable, many of your points weaken your argument. Things like "they show up on time", "they work well with others", "they can take direction". I mean, common, almost anything you do has these.

[Jemaclus]

Sure! You're 100% correct! But two quick points here:

1) I wasn't advocating necessarily for a degree, but specifically in rebuttal to the idea that non-STEM majors aren't useful in STEM areas, and

2) One of the benefits of a college degree is that you now have a physical piece of paper that says "I started and finished a 4+ year-long project that proves I can do all of those things," whereas folks without a degree don't have that "proof". I'm NOT saying that you NEED it, but it's useful social proof that says "Hey, I can do all of the things in that list, and here's something that more or less proves it."

But yes, you're right. I could arbitrarily pick History as a major and give you a different but equally impactful list of soft skills that you learn while getting a degree in History! I was specifically pushing back on the parent's assertion that the social sciences (and arts) don't transfer to other domains, which I think is a patently absurd statement.

[watwut]

I dont have issue that much with your larger point. But, you could have picked part time job in supermarket and you would get "be on time", "work well individually", "take direction" or "communicate with people". You could have take any sport (whether collective or individual) and got those too.

[AussieWog93]

>To pick a popular theatre-related discipline, consider what an actor does:

Not saying you're wrong about what a good theater student does, but a disproportionately large number of arts students I've met seemed to treat their degree as a three year long bludge that allows them to delay taking on adult responsibilities.

Far fewer people go into mechanical engineering or physics because they want to sit around smoking weed all day.

At least in my line of (admittedly quite "dirty") work, I'd choose someone with experience at McDonalds or Kmart over an arts grad any day of the week.

[VictorPath]

> He also says that having any degree is "worth it" to an individual, monetarily. It's just not worth it to society to require everyone to have education they don't use.

Half of Finnish people between 35 and 44 have a degree, whereas only 7% of people in that age range from South Africa do, so South Africa must be much better off than Finland.

[EverywhereTrip]

No, he's saying that everyone having a degree isn't the difference between Finland and South Africa.

If South Africa suddenly had as many degree holders as Finland, it wouldn't suddenly become Finland.

[renewiltord]

Fascinating to think that all you have to do is get 43 out of 100 people in South Africa degrees and it will be Finland.

[Brian_K_White]

Perhaps it would be. I don't find it at all silly to guess that if a critical percentage of everyone were made to confront more ideas and and generally be made more aware and thoughtful, that the eventual result is more civilized behavior between members.

I certainly don't think it helps the situation to use the historical and current state of thimgs as some excuse not to bother trying. You can't create better civilization be decree or force. It can only happen when enough percentage of the population does it for themselves, and they don't when they are ignorant or bubbled.

[renewiltord]

Fascinating that Colorado right now is Finland.

[Brian_K_White]

No one said that, or anything remotely like that or that implies that.

I guess you have a PhD and embody the "exhibit A" counter example eh? Educated yet no better than the uneducated at communication and comprehension.

Or let me guess, you only took technical classes. As close to 100% stem as the system would let you.

I don't really want to make personal attacks like that but this kind of comment is exactly an example of the topic. What field on what spreadsheet gets what number increased or decreased by one to quantify the cost of this sort of lack of understanding?

[renewiltord]

Take a chill pill, my dude. Go out, smell the roses. It’s a beautiful day. Not one to go argue on the Internet.

[lucb1e]

Not sure if you are serious or trolling, but if I'm not mistaken the fallacy here is correlation vs. causation: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Correlation_does_... (see specifically section 3)

[jccalhoun]

I've never heard of the book until this thread. How does he define "worth" to society? That seems like a big issue that I wouldn't think it related to proving the math wrong?