Liberal arts majors are a dying breed

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by decimon, Jul 5, 2017.

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  1. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    Market Watch
    Jillian Berman
    July 4, 2017

    Excerpt:

    The findings come amid growing concern about the future of the liberal arts in favor of degrees with a more clearly defined career path. Traditional fields, like English and history, saw the biggest declines among humanities majors, while fields like communications and gender studies fared better. Meanwhile, engineering, health and medical sciences and the natural sciences, were the only major fields to experience an increase in the share of bachelor’s degrees conferred over the past 10 years, according to the analysis.

    More... Liberal arts majors are a dying breed - MarketWatch
     
  2. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    That's unfortunate. In particular, the would could use more people with a strong understanding of history.
     
  3. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member


    If you're not otherwise wealthy, the cost of a degree without job prospects could be a tragic investment.
     
  4. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

  5. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member


    That goes back to my question, it was a question, about the value of an IS/IT degree. Why not a liberal arts degree combined with appropriate techie certs?

    Back when I was a pup, companies would hire liberal arts graduates and give them OJT. At least with the liberal arts grads they had people who could right wells.
     
  6. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  7. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    I can easily understand (and would recommend) majoring in something job-preparatory right out of high-school. Career preparation.

    But I strongly embrace the idea of continuing education. So I would favor older individuals who already have jobs and a career path moving to broaden themselves out a little so as to become something more like intellectuals and not just glorified technicians with expertise in one small set of problems but little knowledge of anything else. (There's no reason why education needs to cease in one's early 20's.)

    At one time (the 1990's, I guess) I had real hopes that DL would provide an older age-cohort of students with those kind of opportunities. That's what attracted me to DL in the first place. But things haven't really evolved in that way.
     
  8. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

  9. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member


    Unless someone will support you for the coming years, there's little choice. Working your way through college now seems less feasible than ever.
     

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