|
Dogfish posted:I don't know in what field you currently work but I can tell you in medicine it's scary how many people actually can't critically think through a problem. That's not handwavy "thinky stuff." It's not that shocking to me. Most doctors get biology degrees in undergrad and the scientific theory in biology isn't very systematic and isn't that great, so they probably don't get that much practice in reasoning in school. I'm not the first person in this thread to talk about this, but it isn't like a philosophy or other liberal arts degree is the only way to become proficient in reasoning. Getting a liberal arts degree also isn't a guarantee that you'll learn how to systematically think through things after your four years are up, so it is difficult to recommend these degrees on the basis of "picking up useful skills for future careers."
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2015 16:37
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 22, 2024 08:11 |
|
|
Dogfish posted:Literally the only point I have made in this thread is that it's possible to learn some really useful stuff from philosophy education, which will serve you well in the future, in much the same way that it's possible to learn really useful stuff which will serve you well in the future from other fields of study. Uh, that's not really a strong endorsement of a philosophy education as a useful education. Dogfish posted:But the point I'm specifically making is that the claim that liberal arts in general, and philosophy in particular, are less useful and teach fewer important skills than STEM education, doesn't stand up to scrutiny. You just ceded the point that liberal arts educations aren't the only way to learn "critical thinking" (a foofy term for the ability to reason). If they don't have that, what kind of argument can you make for the utility of a liberal arts education? You aren't even putting your money where your mouth is. You yourself aren't even trying to spin a philosophy degree itself into a career--instead, you are getting a useful education and are attending medical school and are training to be a doctor.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2015 21:19
|
|
|
We really should disincentivize people from getting liberal arts degrees. The US government should probably stop offering student loans for these degrees. If you really desperately want to study philosophy or literature, be a good enough student to get a scholarship or have your wealthy parents pay for it. We already have too many people studying these subjects. Some students study these subjects for ~9-11 years to get a Ph.D. only to find at the end of all that that there are no jobs for them. Almost all of the economic success stories in this thread are from people who went out and got a useful education in medicine or law after their philosophy degree.
silence_kit fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Apr 11, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2016 20:09
|
|
|
raskalnikov_86 posted:This may come as a surprise to you, but some people value learning and self-enrichment over economic success. This isn't about min-maxing your degree and optimizing your life so you can be filthy rich and swim in piles of money, this is about not taking on 10s-100s of thousands of dollars in debt and spending four years of your life on something of dubious economic value. A lot of people who say that they don't really care about money actually highly value things like being able to afford to live in an area where you don't have to worry about crime and being able to actually not worry about money and not constantly be in debt and living from paycheck to paycheck.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2016 20:41
|
|