generation limbo: 20-somethings today, debt, unemployment, the questionable value of a college education

not even true for lots of science majors tho

that's true, everybody should just major in biology or biotech or bioinformatics

the bigger problem is that we actually do need a certain amount of people to do generic white collar jobs, a 'liberal arts education' is prob as good a preparation as you're gonna get (powerpoint on hegel -> powerpoint on car insurance companies)

but it's unclear how many people and even more unclear how many people 10 years from now and really hard to imagine that this is some dynamic situation where you can expect most people to look at the macro picture and be like "oh clearly we need X more people in this field" - you can plan ahead w/ some things but right now you're asking 18 y/os to make 6 figure investments in a super complicated market. I'm not sure what the answer is beyond 'college needs to be cheaper'.

I majored in communication because I thought it was the same thing as communications, but it's not, so I switched to "Journalism and Media Studies" which wound up JUST being journalism, and not even modern tech-centric journalism but like entire classes on how to report news for radio and stuff like that. So now I have a journalism degree. I still am trying to work out how I wound up with a journalism degree.

'this person is demonstrating that they think more like me and picked a *practical* major* because we are *practical* people

I was a comp sci major dropout and lol @ the immense mutual disdain between the theoretical comp sci/maths+CS people and the Business & IT majors

the bigger problem is that we actually do need a certain amount of people to do generic white collar jobs, a 'liberal arts education' is prob as good a preparation as you're gonna get (powerpoint on hegel -> powerpoint on car insurance companies)

sure, except that most white collar jobs dont need a liberal arts education at all, and shouldnt require one, and a good liberal arts education probably shouldnt be abt powerpoint

xp lol, i thought it was just me (another cs dropout)

ya I agree w/ all of that but I think our culture is at a point where it'd be pretty hard to convince people (esp since the people 'in charge' almost all went to college) otherwise. instead things are going in the opposite direction even, w/ fast food places weeding people out if they don't have a college degree.

also our unreliable hs education system makes a college degree that much more insurance that you have rudimentary math and writing skills.

xp

and even then...

yeah, when I become a computer science professor six or seven years from now my goal will be to make computer science departments less practical

― whoop, up the butt it goes (silby), Sunday, November 6, 2011 7:21 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

<3

our computer science department is a total circus sideshow imo - all sorts of obnoxious industry trendhopping going on

your <3s mean the world to me hoos; if you can send them along also to the graduate admissions committees of the schools I'm applying to…

yeah I could go off on a huge tear about computer science's role/function/mission in the academy but I won't

http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/#term=

That table comes from this:

http://cew.georgetown.edu/whatsitworth/

Finding - if you want to be comfortable study engineering

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgzl1Sai4Y0

I think the CS program at my university now has a software engineering track that is more focused on the methodology and practice of programming. The long, math-and-logic proof classes are still there, but as a core.

engineering is prob the safest bet for a lot of people individually but 'everyone becomes engineers' is not really a solution for our bigger unemployment problems. it's not like there are a million open engineer positions going unfilled - I know some people who graduated from good engineering programs and are pretty underemployed.

what if they create an organic computer, ya'll silicon lightweight type engineers won't be sitting so high huh

Run it on carrots and parsnips!!!!!!

free range motherboards

fwiw, a friend works at John Deere and a lot of his engineer colleagues are Indian dudes who went to college in the US

My girlfriends brother graduated with an engineering degree in may and now has a job where he is being paid me and my girlfriends combined salary. Otoh his job sounds so boring.

Not really any reason for this post other than my own jealousy

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2011/11/why-kids-are-all-broke/44664/

generational warfare c/d

will it 'catch on'

I mean beyond the stuff already done by congress on a regular basis

with respect to those present i have been saying since i was 16 that the boomers left us fucked

some suggestions re student debt via mike konczal

http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/two-steps-towards-tackling-our-current-student-loan-problems/

that's a good article

I like the framing of 'public option' tho irl we're drifting away from that instead if coming closer to having a feasible 'public option'. it's more complicated because education is more of an investment than health care. but it's a personal investment *and* a social investment and right now we're failing at funding the 2nd part.

yeah i liked that framing too. the demise of the public university is a really bad thing for everyone, private schools and their students as much as anyone, in particular w/r/t controlling costs.

heres a longer thing about "public options" that konczal has linked to before

http://slackwire.blogspot.com/2010/09/public-options-general-case.html

yeah there's a never ending price spiral atm w/ public universities capable of justifying any price increase - as long as they remain cheaper than private schools they're 'the bargain' and private schools operating w/ their own weird games - super 'competitive' w/r/t everything but price (even that isn't *always* true, which is why this is a weird market)

yeah shoulda read that first looks like he's saying that and more

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/why-science-majors-change-their-mind-its-just-so-darn-hard.html

otm

One of the two who is still in engineering plans to work in finance after graduation.

lol

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/the-tyranny-of-meritocracy/248061/

what is she saying here? my brain is too tired to parse this

oh who gives a fuck

i literally read that URL and went "pffffffffffft" at my desk

key graf

This overlooks a more important question, which is why the system went wrong. Don't tell me it got hostage to the wrong ideology--tell me why all those professors we paid millions of dollars to study economics couldn't provide a convincing rebuttal to that ideology in advance of the crash. Don't tell me that regulators were stupid or bankers got greedy until you first explain to me why tens of thousands of very well educated people, most of them graduates of colleges and professional schools that had aggressively winnowed them based on intelligence, barely outperformed a bunch of upstart micks, third-generation coupon-clipping WASP dimwits, and central bankers who still worshipped the barbarous relic of the gold standard?

yikes

I'm not sure I'm really following her point.

i think she's saying "the problem is the meritocracy, cause clearly it fucked us just as badly as the robber barons"?

which is totally fascist and batshit?

Interesting how she slips in "a few mick upstarts" -- McArdle who grew up on the Upper West Side etc.

Don't tell me that regulators were stupid or bankers got greedy until you first explain to me why tens of thousands of very well educated people, most of them graduates of colleges and professional schools that had aggressively winnowed them based on intelligence, barely outperformed a bunch of upstart micks, third-generation coupon-clipping WASP dimwits, and central bankers who still worshipped the barbarous relic of the gold standard?

like it sounds like she's saying "clearly these technocrats are all know-nothings and we should scrap the deal, cause i mean look at all those pre-depression people that did just fine clipping coupons"???

it's a sloppy argument but I think it's notable that someone like her is in a position that they feel like they *have* to talk about this. she might be ~occupying~ the right-wing corner of a left-wing subject, but watching conservatives approach ows-related issues is interesting cause a lot of the time they're basically forced to agree. there are not very many subjects outside of 'killing obl was a good thing' where that really happens these days.

she's better than david brooks fwiw

When she says "coupon-clipping" I assume she's referring to bond coupons, not supermarket?

her argument is something like

1. bad old blue-blood days
2. the ivies start letting more jews and catholics in
3. crash of 2008 happens

??

no i don't get it either

seems like a reflexive need to not-explain the crash by reaching for some kind of business-page friendly greater narrative. oh, it wasn't an "oligarchic" elite that wrecked the world, but a meritocratic one. hmm, makes you think.

I remember reading somewhere that there's a narrative that plays bigger in Western Europe of non-blueblood upstarts coming to wreck up the financial system -- class (and sometimes ethnicity) overtones are more present in stories about "rogue traders" and the like who don't come from the right backgrounds/schools.

she seems to be using "change in admission standards at elite colleges of 80 years ago" and "upward mobility" somewhat interchangeably, which is pretty fucking stupid!!! ps i hate megan mccardle she totally sucks.

Yup, she sucks and is dumb.