25 years old and deep in debt

[Ideologue]

 

[Brazen]

A Journalism degree prepares one for the basic of journalism, a computer science degree prepares one for the basics in the computer sciences;  however, you don't see journalism degree holders applying to IT positions, nor do you see IT professionals applying for journalism positions (unless it's web heavy).

Nope. Never happens  

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

It depends on the vocation, now doesn't it?  A Journalism degree prepares one for the basic of journalism, a computer science degree prepares one for the basics in the computer sciences;  however, you don't see journalism degree holders applying to IT positions, nor do you see IT professionals applying for journalism positions (unless it's web heavy).  So wouldn't the real problem be the lack of journalism opportunities in this day and age, as opposed to computer science jobs, which pretty much runs the world?

First, computer science != IT.  Second, there are plenty of software developers who have non-technical degrees, or even no degree.  Not a good field to use as an example.

[frunk]

It depends on the vocation, now doesn't it?  A Journalism degree prepares one for the basic of journalism, a computer science degree prepares one for the basics in the computer sciences;  however, you don't see journalism degree holders applying to IT positions, nor do you see IT professionals applying for journalism positions (unless it's web heavy).  So wouldn't the real problem be the lack of journalism opportunities in this day and age, as opposed to computer science jobs, which pretty much runs the world?

First, computer science != IT.  Second, there are plenty of software developers who have non-technical degrees, or even no degree.  Not a good field to use as an example.

History degree here, software developer by trade.

[Ideologue]

On a scale of one to ten, with ten being "indispensable," please rate how useful your history degree has been in your professional development.

[Eddie Teach]

Probably opened the door. History degree >>>>>>>>> No degree.

[frunk]

On a scale of one to ten, with ten being "indispensable," please rate how useful your history degree has been in your professional development.

9.  I probably wouldn't of gotten hired at my first post-college job without a degree.

[Ideologue]

Rephrasing to satisfy your computer mind.  Please rate how useful the specific content of your history degree has been in your professional development.

[CountDeMoney]

First, computer science != IT.

Explain.   

Second, there are plenty of software developers who have non-technical degrees, or even no degree.  Not a good field to use as an example.

So in other words, and as Brazen as opined, a liberal arts undergraduate degree has not been a barrier to employment, now has it?

[Martinus]

What academic career path prepares one for, say, inland marine insurance sales?

None, which is why post high school education should be completely irrelevant in that field.

Then why require a college diploma as an employer? 

All you football-fucking monkeys are blaming higher education for the irrelevancy of their degrees, when you should be turning your lonely eyes at the employers that demand them as a mandatory minimum requirement.

Yup.

[Ideologue]

It's a real chicken-and-egg scenario.  Which came first?  It's a trick question: with chickens and eggs, it's God; with degree devaluation, it was LBJ, who is, after all, like God.

[Berkut]

Shy shouldn't employer require degrees though, even when the job clearly doesn't specifically require the education of a degree?

If you have vastly more applicants than openings, and no specific way to narrow them down (or those specifics have already been used), then is is not at all unreasonable to discard those without degrees, other factors being equal.

[Ideologue]

Above: Collective action problems stymie Berkut.

[DGuller]

Shy shouldn't employer require degrees though, even when the job clearly doesn't specifically require the education of a degree?

If you have vastly more applicants than openings, and no specific way to narrow them down (or those specifics have already been used), then is is not at all unreasonable to discard those without degrees, other factors being equal.

Employment market is probably a poster boy for situations where individually rational decisions wind up being irrational in the aggregate.  For example, it may be rational to only consider candidates that are currently employed.  After all, people who stay employed tend to be better workers than people who got fired or laid off.  But there is an obvious problem when everyone is doing it.

There are also secondary effects.  The market reacts to the individual employer requirements, and often in ways that are again irrational in the aggregate.

[Ideologue]

"Why shouldn't male peacocks have the most outrageous and overgrown tail feather displays?  After all, it helps attract female peacocks, who can know, with some degree of certainty, that their progeny will also have awkward, expensive, and otherwise-useless tail feather displays.  And if the display is stamped 'Stanford,' all the better."