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by danielrhodes 5349 days ago
"If those three conditions are not met, please ignore the rest of this post, you have already made some bad decisions and the question of staying in or dropping out is the least of your problems."

Jacques appears to have a very shallow knowledge into the value of liberal arts. It has nothing to do with a marketable skill (if you want that, go to a vocational school), and everything to do with refining the quality if your thought and mind.
3 comments
wanorris 5349 days ago
I have a Philosophy degree, and there was definitely an opportunity cost associated with getting it. If my goal were to optimize my life in terms of income generation, it would have been a mistake.

Happily, that hasn't been my goal in life, and I wouldn't trade my philosophy degree in for the world. There turned out to be plenty of time to go back to school and learn the technical skills I needed after I figured out that programming was what I wanted to do with my life.

Having said that, I would be somewhat reluctant to counsel anyone to take a career-path-agnostic approach to college in the current climate. Times are tough, decent jobs for people without demonstrable technical skills are scarce, and college is even more breathtakingly expensive than it was 20 years ago.

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philwelch 5349 days ago
As far as I can determine, a university education in the liberal arts does little to nothing to refine the quality of one's thought and mind. Someone intelligent, talented, and motivated enough to gain anything from a liberal arts education would undoubtedly achieve most of that on their own for the proverbial $1.50 in late fees at the local library. And someone who isn't will gain nothing but a now useless credential. Most 18 year olds would gain more perspective from two years in the Peace Corps or military than from a liberal arts education.
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jlcx 5349 days ago
This is a very common argument, and it may have some merit. In the current economic situation, however, with high and increasing college costs, it is probably advisable to find a less expensive way to obtain the benefits of a liberal arts education.
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