The broader the major printed on your college degree, the more likely it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. This isn’t really news. We’re all familiar with the somewhat existential question, ‘what is Communications?’. But as attaining a degree has become the norm, the act of simply completing that task has lost it’s ability to signify anything special about the people who’ve done it. And some, including a few professors themselves, are starting to wonder if the whole thing hasn’t become a big waste of time. Here’s Seth Roberts-
Professors can only teach what they know. All they truly know how to do is how to be a professor. At a research university, that mainly involves doing research. Berkeley professors can teach how to do research, sure, but that has little to do with what most Berkeley students will do after they graduate.
Not that there isn’t a value in teaching people how to think critically, do their own laundry, and shower communally, but instead of being the gateway to the professional ranks, college has become a glorified finishing school. What you really need to know about your job you likely learned somewhere else, at much less expense, like after you started getting a paycheck. A college degree is like a high school degree 25 years ago, it shows you’re mildly competent and nothing more. When you’re young it’s enough to get you into a starting position or a apprentice program that will teach you what you really need to know about your chosen profession. If you’re older and you’ve decided to change that profession, it’s practically worthless. People approaching education later in life do so on a very need to know basis, I want be a nurse, I’m getting a nursing degree. I want to fix Air Conditioning units, I’m going to HVAC school, etc. These degrees are unlikely to have the words Harvard or Princeton on them, but they do a good job of telling potential employers about what the recipient actually knows and is prepared to do. The question is why we shouldn’t be able to say the same about the typical undergraduate version.
March 25, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Nice. I’ve been thinking recently, actually, about how silly degrees become since they are no longer a distiguishing achievement. When virtually everyone gets a Bachelor’s degree, it seems you have to have a Master’s to make an impact with a prospective employer on the education front. If I knew then what I know now, I would likely have just started working, and figured out what I needed to know from there. I’ve mostly done that anyway, but I wouldn’t have wasted 4 potential earning years.
And good luck trying to convince a potential employer that a Physics degree taught you to problem-solve like a wizard. They just don’t buy it. What can we do to bring back vocational-type training, so college can go back to a place where high achievers really learn the skills they need to find the cure for cancer and fix global warming and stave off economic disaster, instead of a diluted experience that churns out lots of pieces of worthless paper.