Features

KevinTheOmnivore · #1

I just thought this was an interesting read from today's NY Times. As someone who is feeling this, and who is likewise looking ahead at grad. school as one of his few options, I feel this article.

I also found it interesting that a lot of the top, private Liberal Arts schools are now offering vocational training to their soon-to-be graduates. Kind of like really, really expensive community college, no?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/ma...MPLOYABLE.html

December 12, 2004

Employable Liberal Arts Major, The
By RACHEL DONADIO

Few questions make liberal arts majors wince more than the time-honored ''But what are you going to do with that?'' (As the accounting student said to the English major.) Now, with tuition costs rising as fast as parental anxiety levels, colleges have begun asking the same question -- and helping their students answer it through professional training programs that look ahead to the day after graduation.

This year, Colgate University and New York University began offering special career-oriented workshops to undergraduates. Colgate's ''Career Development in the New Economy'' program brings in alumni business executives to offer advice and engage in networking; students meet for up to two hours a week, for six to eight weeks during the semester. In its Gateway Program, Colgate will soon offer noncredit courses in fields like law, journalism and marketing and finance. ''The job market is getting competitive, and there are a lot of . . . industry-specific skills that young people need as the professions and the economy continue to diversify,'' said Adam Weinberg, the dean of the college at Colgate University.

At New York University, juniors and seniors with high grade-point averages can enroll in the Professional Edge program and take specialized vocational courses for academic credit in N.Y.U.'s School of Continuing and Professional Studies. An art history major could learn to appraise art, or a language student could learn to become a translator. Other colleges are on the same page. Columbia University allows undergraduates to take professional-school courses for credit, as does the University of Southern California.

Colleges say they aren't abandoning the liberal arts education but rather bringing the ideal slightly more in line with the job-market reality. Colgate's program makes sure the professions don't ''seep in and otherwise corrupt the strong liberal arts curriculum,'' Weinberg explains.

Yet others aren't entirely convinced. ''To dilute the power of the liberal arts with premature professionalism will deprive our society of the thoughtful leadership it needs,'' Anthony Marx, the president of Amherst College, was quoted as saying in The Times earlier this year. If they have the luxury of time, he said, students should ''go deeper into the liberal arts, because that is the seed corn of an intellectual life and informed citizenship.'' After all, college is breathlessly short, and the American working life increasingly long. How many professionals think back fondly to those industry-specific lingo-training courses of their undergraduate days?

ItalianStereotype · #2

a workshop would be nice to have. at my school they tend to be more like "get the fuck out now...and I might decide to stab you in the asshole on your to the door."

AChimp · #3

I don't know how you'll ever get a job with an arts degree. :/

The engineering faculty at UofM put a big banner on the main arts building a few years ago. It said "McArts: Over 300 future servers"

Perndog · #4

Funny, I thought college was for learning and not for impressing employers.

Silly me and my traditionalism.

Baalzamon · #5

College sure does a lot of good when you spend 4 years throwing every penny you make at it, and then come out with nothing but a McArts degree.

Not only have you just spent all that money, but you have also spent that time that could have been spent creating some sort of a life for yourself.

Not everyone has rich parents who give them the luxury of spending several years partying their way to an arts degree.

Perndog · #6

Silly me again, I thought people could do things in college that are more productive than getting trashed every weekend.

Strapping Young Lad · #7

I'll be coming out of VCU with an Illustration degree in about six months, and lord knows I have no idea what the hell I'm gonna do once I'm finished. Lord also knows my mother earns less than 20K a year and the government is paying my ENTIRE way through.

Putting up with customers, whether serving them food, stocking the shelves they buy things from, upgrading their computers, setting up their servers, or gathering their prescription medicine is one sure thing that will end up putting a bullet in my brain, however. I'd rather chase my own dreams my entire life unsuccessfully than pretend to be happy with a more "useful" degree doing something I'd rather not be doing.

Miss Modular · #8

I wish they had vocational training for me to do before I graduated. Instead, I'm working at an electronics store for the Holiday Season just so that I can pay cable and electric.

I'm looking at Grad School as well. But given the current economic atmosphere, I imagine that getting into Grad School is pretty competitive right now. It's an endless cycle.

AChimp · #9

UH OH

IT SOUNDS LIKE PERNDOG IS GETTING AN ARTS DEGREE

glowbelly · #10

i'm getting an arts degree, too.

i just don't understand why people who aren't interested in the arts seem to think that it's an easier degree to obtain than say, an engineering degree.

personally, i think i'd do well with either. i'm just choosing to pursue what i like to do rather than what might make me more money. it's a decision that i think comes with age and real work experience. if you, chimpy, enjoy the work that you have chosen for yourself then good. if you don't, you'll find out soon enough that it doesn't matter how much extra money you have lying around from your career choice. you really won't ever enjoy it if you hate what you do for a living.

ziggytrix · #11

Conversely if what you love to do isn't a marketable skill, you're fucked. My B.S. wasn't huge help in the job hunt, since comp sci majors are a dime a dozen right now I guess. Decent wage temp work was easy as hell to get tho, especially in Wal-Mart country.

In the end I took the nepotism route, and it's workin out pretty good.

Strapping Young Lad · #12

Conversely if what you love to do isn't a marketable skill, you're fucked.

That's where talent and drive come in.

ziggytrix · #13

Talent and drive can only take you as far as a given road goes. All the talent and determination in the world won't make a difference if your work isn't "discovered" until after your death, which has often been the case for famous artists.

That leaves chance, or nepotism, which ultimately is also chance in my estimation. Life is a crapshoot, and the dice were cast before you were born. Hooray!

Perndog · #14

That's where realizing that the most financially safe people in the world are smart enough to find sources of income outside their jobs so they don't *need* marketable skills just to subsist.

Of course, no one ever believes this, so I probably shouldn't even bother saying it.

Dummies.

ziggytrix · #15

Prostitutes are NOT the most financially safe people, Perndog.

Perndog · #16

Prostitution is just another job.

AChimp · #17

The trick is to get recruited while you're in school so you don't have to hunt for a job.

Strapping Young Lad · #18

Quote:

Originally Posted by ziggytrix

Talent and drive can only take you as far as a given road goes. All the talent and determination in the world won't make a difference if your work isn't "discovered" until after your death, which has often been the case for famous artists.

That leaves chance, or nepotism, which ultimately is also chance in my estimation. Life is a crapshoot, and the dice were cast before you were born. Hooray!

"Chance" I'd rather refer to as "luck," and "luck" is something I believe can be manipulated and harnessed through positive thinking and persistance. I know I'm sounding like one of those self-help book nutsacs, but I've witnessed what a little thrust and determination can do in situations that seem hopeless.

ScruU2wice · #19

Quote:

Originally Posted by AChimp

don't know how you'll ever get a job with an arts degree.

Yeah achimp, it's not like some industrial designer made your monitor, keyboard, mouse, speaker, car, segway scooter and basically anything with a shell to cover up the ugly electronics on the inside

and of course no one designed your furniture

Plus, I doubt there are artists who design the logos for different comapanies.

you know cuz we try to surround ourselves with unnatractive things. You're right art is kinda uselss...

AChimp · #20

Homo.

ScruU2wice · #21

hey jerk, the jerkstore called, and there all outta you

AChimp · #22

The company I'm at right now told me yesterday that they can guarantee me a full-time position when I graduate. I don't know anyone with an Arts degree who can say the same thing.

soundtest · #23

Actually, my roommate who is pursuing a Political Science degree was given the same promise at a radio station he writes and edits for. Once he graduates, he'll be taken on with a fantastic salary and benefits package.

Not to sound insulting, but you come across as very naive. You make it sound like you truly believe IT is some safezone when it comes to employment and a future... but you do see it coming, right? You do notice that wages are dropping across the board and to remain competitive, all companies will have to follow suit eventually. What will you do when programming becomes factory work that is outsourced like virtually all production? Programmers, even good ones, are not safe.