Empiricism Was Not Well-Liked in the Past

On 6/23/15 6:20 AM, Lord Vath wrote:
When, "Animal House," came out I thought it was a documentary.
I don't remember seeing you around when all that stuff happened at my
student house.

On Tue, 23 Jun 2015 07:43:53 -0700, lal_truckee
wrote this crap:

On 6/23/15 6:20 AM, Lord Vath wrote:
When, "Animal House," came out I thought it was a documentary.
I don't remember seeing you around when all that stuff happened at my
student house.

I was outside the sorority house watching the pillow fight.


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Lord Vath wrote:
On Tue, 23 Jun 2015 13:22:17 +0000 (UTC), Mike Collins
wrote this crap:

lal_truckee wrote:
On 6/22/15 6:45 PM, wrote:
inanities

I repeat:
Where did you get the idea that college is about finding a job?

Hint: Colleges are not Trade Schools, nor were they intended to be.

Second hint: Focusing are skills needed by a first job won't prepare a
student to learn the skills needed for second and subsequent jobs.

Third hint: College is about preparing a mind, not preparing a specific skill set.

Of course university is about finding a career.
My daughter did a degree in civil engineering. She's a civli engineerr.
My son did degrees in marine biology, He's a marine biologist.
I did a BSc in Chemistry and an MSc in Clinical Biochemistry. I worked for
41 years in clinical biochemistry.
It is also about preparing the mind but a much more important factor is
making networks of contacts and is the reason that people can do basically
useless arts degrees and still be employed in well paid jobs for which they
are not qualified,

Do you know any?



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power in the universe

Yes.

wrote:
On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 9:23:40 AM UTC-4, Mike Collins wrote:
lal_truckee wrote:
On 6/22/15 6:45 PM, wsnell01 wrote:
inanities

I repeat:
Where did you get the idea that college is about finding a job?

Hint: Colleges are not Trade Schools, nor were they intended to be.

Second hint: Focusing are skills needed by a first job won't prepare a
student to learn the skills needed for second and subsequent jobs.

Third hint: College is about preparing a mind, not preparing a specific skill set.

Of course university is about finding a career.
My daughter did a degree in civil engineering. She's a civli engineerr.
My son did degrees in marine biology, He's a marine biologist.
I did a BSc in Chemistry and an MSc in Clinical Biochemistry. I worked for
41 years in clinical biochemistry.
It is also about preparing the mind but a much more important factor is
making networks of contacts and is the reason that people can do basically
useless arts degrees and still be employed in well paid jobs for which they
are not qualified,

Here is another interactive chart of majors versus careers:

http://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/...areerpath.html

The "timeline" tab is interesting.

For the 1930-1959 grads, economics majors made up ~20% of
banking/financial workers, as did the sciences, and as did the humanities, both ~20%.

Fast forward to the 2005-2009 grads, and economics majors now make up 50%
of banking/financial while the proportion of science and humanities grads
working in banking/financial has withered.

One obvious explanation is that economics (a proxy for business) grads
have, over the years, preferentially hired other economics grads.

The obvious conclusion is that college IS about careers, albeit less so
for those who choose the "wrong" major.

If you look at the timeline you will also see that the overall percentage
of STEM graduates has almost halved so the increase in non-STEM graduates
could be predicted just from the reduction in STEM graduates.

Universities are about careers for those doing sciences and about
connections for those doing arts subjects. Apart from those who move into
university teaching and research.
Very few history graduates become historians.

On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 2:03:10 PM UTC-4, Mike Collins wrote:
wsnell01 wrote:
On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 9:23:40 AM UTC-4, Mike Collins wrote:
lal_truckee wrote:
On 6/22/15 6:45 PM, wsnell01 wrote:
inanities

I repeat:
Where did you get the idea that college is about finding a job?

Hint: Colleges are not Trade Schools, nor were they intended to be.

Second hint: Focusing are skills needed by a first job won't prepare a
student to learn the skills needed for second and subsequent jobs.

Third hint: College is about preparing a mind, not preparing a specific skill set.

Of course university is about finding a career.
My daughter did a degree in civil engineering. She's a civli engineerr.
My son did degrees in marine biology, He's a marine biologist.
I did a BSc in Chemistry and an MSc in Clinical Biochemistry. I worked for
41 years in clinical biochemistry.
It is also about preparing the mind but a much more important factor is
making networks of contacts and is the reason that people can do basically
useless arts degrees and still be employed in well paid jobs for which they
are not qualified,

Here is another interactive chart of majors versus careers:

http://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/...areerpath.html

The "timeline" tab is interesting.

For the 1930-1959 grads, economics majors made up ~20% of
banking/financial workers, as did the sciences, and as did the humanities, both ~20%.

Fast forward to the 2005-2009 grads, and economics majors now make up 50%
of banking/financial while the proportion of science and humanities grads
working in banking/financial has withered.

One obvious explanation is that economics (a proxy for business) grads
have, over the years, preferentially hired other economics grads.

The obvious conclusion is that college IS about careers, albeit less so
for those who choose the "wrong" major.

If you look at the timeline you will also see that the overall percentage
of STEM graduates has almost halved so the increase in non-STEM graduates
could be predicted just from the reduction in STEM graduates.

I only see fluctuations of about 10% in the sciences, and noticeably larger fluctuations in economics. It could be that students have wised up to the apparent preference for economics (business) grads by recruiters, and are defecting away from sciences.

Really, who can blame them?

On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 2:03:10 PM UTC-4, Mike Collins wrote:

Universities are about careers for those doing sciences and about
connections for those doing arts subjects. Apart from those who move into
university teaching and research.
Very few history graduates become historians.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeeh...rsity-rip-off/

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...-money/359653/

wrote:
On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 2:03:10 PM UTC-4, Mike Collins wrote:
wsnell01 wrote:
On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 9:23:40 AM UTC-4, Mike Collins wrote:
lal_truckee wrote:
On 6/22/15 6:45 PM, wsnell01 wrote:
inanities

I repeat:
Where did you get the idea that college is about finding a job?

Hint: Colleges are not Trade Schools, nor were they intended to be.

Second hint: Focusing are skills needed by a first job won't prepare a
student to learn the skills needed for second and subsequent jobs.

Third hint: College is about preparing a mind, not preparing a specific skill set.

Of course university is about finding a career.
My daughter did a degree in civil engineering. She's a civli engineerr.
My son did degrees in marine biology, He's a marine biologist.
I did a BSc in Chemistry and an MSc in Clinical Biochemistry. I worked for
41 years in clinical biochemistry.
It is also about preparing the mind but a much more important factor is
making networks of contacts and is the reason that people can do basically
useless arts degrees and still be employed in well paid jobs for which they
are not qualified,

Here is another interactive chart of majors versus careers:

http://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/...areerpath.html

The "timeline" tab is interesting.

For the 1930-1959 grads, economics majors made up ~20% of
banking/financial workers, as did the sciences, and as did the humanities, both ~20%.

Fast forward to the 2005-2009 grads, and economics majors now make up 50%
of banking/financial while the proportion of science and humanities grads
working in banking/financial has withered.

One obvious explanation is that economics (a proxy for business) grads
have, over the years, preferentially hired other economics grads.

The obvious conclusion is that college IS about careers, albeit less so
for those who choose the "wrong" major.

If you look at the timeline you will also see that the overall percentage
of STEM graduates has almost halved so the increase in non-STEM graduates
could be predicted just from the reduction in STEM graduates.

I only see fluctuations of about 10% in the sciences, and noticeably
larger fluctuations in economics. It could be that students have wised
up to the apparent preference for economics (business) grads by
recruiters, and are defecting away from sciences.

Really, who can blame them?

Click on the 1930 to 1959 and the 2005 to 2009 and you can see big changes
in the STEM subjects. A surprising and encouraging sign is the big increase
in maths on the latest chart but most of the sciences are a lot smaller.
The white gaps between the subjects also make smaller green lines seem
thicker.
Of course there have been so many other changes over the last period and
this university doesn't have a medical school so the diagram may not be too
representative but it's an interesting graphic.

wrote:
On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 2:03:10 PM UTC-4, Mike Collins wrote:

Universities are about careers for those doing sciences and about
connections for those doing arts subjects. Apart from those who move into
university teaching and research.
Very few history graduates become historians.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeeh...rsity-rip-off/

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...-money/359653/

These low study time courses are all non-science and technology subjects.
Very few science courses have much free time. That's one of the reasons for
the push for lower tuition fees for STEM subjects. When I did my BSC at
University in the 1960s and 70s I had no tuition fees and the local council
paid a grant for living expenses. Because I had worked for three years
before going to university I got the full grant which was (just) enough to
live on.
50% of my MSc tuition fees were paid by my employers (who were the people
running the course)
My children had a combination of grants and loans but no tuition fees.
Their younger cousins had both loans and tuition fees. That only applies
to England and Wales. Scottish students have no fees.
It would be perfectly possible to charge all graduates an extra income tax
instead of these fees but the government instead runs a ridiculous service
which gives cheap loans and then accepts that many of them will never be
repaid.
In much of Europe (including most of Germany) there are no tuition fees.
Many American students are finding that it's cheaper to pay living expenses
in Germany and study free at their universities.
England and Wales charge high fees for foreign students.

A good deal of money is wasted on Arts and Humanities which will never be
used seriously by the graduates. The subjects need to be studied but not by
so many.

By ther way the writers for the Spectator are generally the upper class
arts graduates I am complaining about who went to Oxford and Cambridge to
study soft subjects and never saw real life.

British Universities do not have "majors". You usually study only one
subject and supporting subjects related to the course.

On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 4:40:28 PM UTC-4, Mike Collins wrote:

Click on the 1930 to 1959 and the 2005 to 2009 and you can see big changes
in the STEM subjects. A surprising and encouraging sign is the big increase
in maths on the latest chart but most of the sciences are a lot smaller.
The white gaps between the subjects also make smaller green lines seem
thicker.
Of course there have been so many other changes over the last period and
this university doesn't have a medical school so the diagram may not be too
representative but it's an interesting graphic.

This is strictly a liberal arts college with a few grad degrees (but still goes by the term "college") so there is no med, nursing, law, engineering or even a B-school per se.

The "marketable" degrees would probably be the economics, comp sci and math.

On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 5:11:29 PM UTC-4, Mike Collins wrote:
wsnell01 wrote:
On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 2:03:10 PM UTC-4, Mike Collins wrote:

Universities are about careers for those doing sciences and about
connections for those doing arts subjects. Apart from those who move into
university teaching and research.
Very few history graduates become historians.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeeh...rsity-rip-off/

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...-money/359653/

These low study time courses are all non-science and technology subjects.
Very few science courses have much free time. That's one of the reasons for
the push for lower tuition fees for STEM subjects. When I did my BSC at
University in the 1960s and 70s I had no tuition fees and the local council
paid a grant for living expenses. Because I had worked for three years
before going to university I got the full grant which was (just) enough to
live on.
50% of my MSc tuition fees were paid by my employers (who were the people
running the course)
My children had a combination of grants and loans but no tuition fees.
Their younger cousins had both loans and tuition fees. That only applies
to England and Wales. Scottish students have no fees.
It would be perfectly possible to charge all graduates an extra income tax
instead of these fees but the government instead runs a ridiculous service
which gives cheap loans and then accepts that many of them will never be
repaid.
In much of Europe (including most of Germany) there are no tuition fees.
Many American students are finding that it's cheaper to pay living expenses
in Germany and study free at their universities.
England and Wales charge high fees for foreign students.

A good deal of money is wasted on Arts and Humanities which will never be
used seriously by the graduates. The subjects need to be studied but not by
so many.

By ther way the writers for the Spectator are generally the upper class
arts graduates I am complaining about who went to Oxford and Cambridge to
study soft subjects and never saw real life.

British Universities do not have "majors". You usually study only one
subject and supporting subjects related to the course.

The "useless" degrees seem to be roughly the same on both sides of the Atlantic, the arts being among the worst and social sciences running close behind. Education degree is a somewhat special case since one usually needs it to teach primary school, so while it isn't exactly useless, the pay is low and it leads to a hard-exit career.

Some other degrees are useless in the sense that some grads often end up in jobs that don't even require degrees and at the same pay, with lost wages during the college years and even student loan debt.

Colleges vary, but usually a major requires the equivalent of two to three+ solid years of course work, related subjects, and core requirements and less than a year of electives. Double majors are possible, but sometimes difficult to arrange.

I believe that choosing a "marketable" major began to be crucial in the mid-1970s for those not going on to grad or pro school. Before that, just having a degree was gold, since even BA/BS grads were relatively uncommon.