The liberal arts

[Richard Hakluyt]

"Marketable skills" will vary almost beyond recognition in the lifetime of people who live for 80 years in a fast-changing society. Far better to properly educate people so that they can deal with anything that comes up than turn them into ideal corporate servants for a particular moment of time.

You want to build up people's character and wisdom so that they are resilient and adaptable to changing circumstances? How do I create a standardized test for that?

I suggest you don't bother.

[dps]

You are narrow minded and foolish. I hope you grow out of it one day.

Voted: hahaha

It's not looking good.  He's gotten worse;  he used to be just inexperienced and immature--that people usually just naturally grow out of eventually.  Narrow-minded and foolish, not so much--that takes unusual development to grow out of.

In all honesty, posting on Languish probably doesn't help, at least not with the foolishness part.

[Brazen]

The toilet paper dispenser at my University had "Humanities degrees, please take one" written above it.   

[HVC]

Liberal arts shouldn't be mandated out, but it should be made clear that getting a degree in art probably won't help you out in life unless you want to besomething like a curator, and even then there's a very limited demand.

[sbr]

The toilet paper dispenser at my University had "Humanities degrees, please take one" written above it.   

There was only 1?

[Brazen]

"Marketable skills" will vary almost beyond recognition in the lifetime of people who live for 80 years in a fast-changing society. Far better to properly educate people so that they can deal with anything that comes up than turn them into ideal corporate servants for a particular moment of time.

Case in point, I did a highly vocational IT degree, and graduated the year Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, thus making every I'd learned obsolete.

[Neil]

No, you are an uneducated hick that cannot understand the benefits of liberal arts education because you got none. This is not a nationality thing. It is a class thing and it works the same across the globe.

Kids who are not introduced to classical music when they are young, will rarely appreciate it when they are old - same goes for a lot of things in life - you are the best example of that.

It can't be a class thing, because you don't have any.

And what a surprise that kids who raised to like old stuff will like old stuff as adults.  Wow, what an insight.

At any rate Ide, it's surprising to see you of all people advocating turning the education system into a machine to produce drones for HR departments.

[Syt]

"Marketable skills" will vary almost beyond recognition in the lifetime of people who live for 80 years in a fast-changing society. Far better to properly educate people so that they can deal with anything that comes up than turn them into ideal corporate servants for a particular moment of time.

Case in point, I did a highly vocational IT degree, and graduated the year Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, thus making every I'd learned obsolete.

In my job training, my main focus was social security laws in Germany which were majorly revamped the year I graduated (1999ff), and I didn't work in the area afterwards (going into accounting instead , so my knowledge was useless pretty soon after.

[fhdz]

One way in which we (Americans) have screwed ourselves a bit is that it used to be that you could get a humanities degree and come out, decide you wanted to pursue a trade (that was marketable at the time, like electrician, computer repair, plumber, what-have-you) and do that as part of an apprenticeship/journeyman program, thus gaining your trade knowledge practically rather than academically.

Since apprenticeships in the trades have considerably dried up, seeing as many corporations find themselves unwilling to train, employers are beginning to demand vocational education requirements instead. This, in my opinion, makes some of those degrees artifically more valuable than they actually are. Learning about electricity is good, right, and proper. Learning about it on the job is what makes you a good electrician.

[Ed Anger]

I didn't go to college. I bootstrapped my ass to Demi-god.

[crazy canuck]

Dude, you so have to get over your hang ups over your education.  It's reaching Raz heights.

I wouldnt be so hard on Raz

[crazy canuck]

Since apprenticeships in the trades have considerably dried up, seeing as many corporations find themselves unwilling to train, employers are beginning to demand vocational education requirements instead. This, in my opinion, makes some of those degrees artifically more valuable than they actually are. Learning about electricity is good, right, and proper. Learning about it on the job is what makes you a good electrician.

This is one of the election issues in our province - how to reinvigorate trades training in the workforce.  Everyone agrees it needs to be done.  I am not clear on the details of how anyone will actually do it though.

[fhdz]

Since apprenticeships in the trades have considerably dried up, seeing as many corporations find themselves unwilling to train, employers are beginning to demand vocational education requirements instead. This, in my opinion, makes some of those degrees artifically more valuable than they actually are. Learning about electricity is good, right, and proper. Learning about it on the job is what makes you a good electrician.

This is one of the election issues in our province - how to reinvigorate trades training in the workforce.  Everyone agrees it needs to be done.  I am not clear on the details of how anyone will actually do it though.

It seems to me that a time of massive unemployment would be a really good time to introduce some sort of apprenticeship credit program to employers...there are lots of people looking to make a change right now, and lots of people fed up with desk job life.

[grumbler]

I proposed something similar earlier: remove all government financial aid and loans and loan guarantees for majors that are not immediately marketable.  Let rich kids take humanities.

Agrred. Language is only useful for thought.  The children of the ppor don't need to think, and so don't need much of a vocabulary.

The best part about this is that we don't need to spend any tax money on education.  Those who are too poor to afford education don't need to think and so don't need any education beyond sixth grade or so.  In fact, as Ide shows, education past about sixth grade is counter-productive for the children of the poor.  Ide knows enough to know that he should learn to think, but not enough to be able to actually think.

[Neil]

Since apprenticeships in the trades have considerably dried up, seeing as many corporations find themselves unwilling to train, employers are beginning to demand vocational education requirements instead. This, in my opinion, makes some of those degrees artifically more valuable than they actually are. Learning about electricity is good, right, and proper. Learning about it on the job is what makes you a good electrician.

This is one of the election issues in our province - how to reinvigorate trades training in the workforce.  Everyone agrees it needs to be done.  I am not clear on the details of how anyone will actually do it though.

It seems to me that a time of massive unemployment would be a really good time to introduce some sort of apprenticeship credit program to employers...there are lots of people looking to make a change right now, and lots of people fed up with desk job life.

Wouldn't it make more sense to go the other way and charge large tax penalties to employers who hire people with college degrees?