Quote:
Originally Posted by Elphenor
Is a Liberal Arts degree really as junk as everyone says because I'm getting one anyway just wondering how fucked I am
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let's put it this way - it's extremely hard to find [good paying] work, even with a practically useful degree. With a M.S. in chemistry, I have worked for a moving company for the better part of a year, completed one month out of a six month contract as an analytical chemist before being cut a day before my health benefits would have kicked in, and am currently a driver helper for UPS. Granted I am unwilling to relocate, which has exacerbated my problems significantly, but with a degree in something like English or sociology I can unequivocally state that I'd be doing this shit for the next decade rather than the next year or so before I get enough experience to earn a full time job in my field with benefits, rather than a temp burner job.
One thing that is the same regardless of your degree is that you'd better get used to the idea of not working in your field once you graduate. My buddy has a degree in English. Lived at his parents' for several years after. Now he does IT for a middle school.
Lastly, if you're getting a "junk" degree, you are going to be paying for it. I did community college and then a state college (~1k and $5k per semester, respectively), and was actually PAID $25k per year to do grad school. That certainly is not the case with a "junk" degree (unless you are the best of the best of the best in that field) and especially will not be the case in the US for the next 4 years. So I'm extremely lucky to have ZERO student debt and am STILL struggling post-college.
Not all of that was necessarily directed at you, just kind of dumping my experience here in word format to demonstrate, anecdotally, that college is not necessarily going to affect your upward mobility and may not even necessarily have a net positive affect on your standard of living