Poll: Is higher education worth it?

[sextus the crazy]

It's worth it if you bother to put in the time and effort. It's a big monetary investment most of the time, so you better work your ass off. Also, make connections with your professors and other students and try to get in as much research in your field. If you do this you'll have a much easier time at getting a very nice job.

 

[Souleks]

In America its almost essential if you want to find a good job unless you have friends in high places its really difficult. Study dem Maths and Sciences and your almost guaranteed a good paying job.
Now there is always the alternative which I like to consider my fail-safe which is move to Alaska.The work is plenty and the rent is cheap of course your living in the freezing cold but hey that is why its my fail-safe.
Also when choosing a college unless your going to some big name ivy league most people don't care which school you go to so I say community college is way underrated.

 

[Yopaz]

snip

It's not the History itself that provides the edge over a straight law student, it's the skills that are required to achieve a high mark in a humanities subject. Ability to construct strong and coherent arguments from carefully extracted pieces of evidence. Ability to memorize large amounts of information and specific times and dates. Ability to understand motives of individuals and how the actions of such individuals had a greater or lesser impact on a wider picture.

There's a reason why the humanities mesh so well with Law.

OK, I did admit that history could be a stepping stone 2 posts ago and I said it again in my last post. You have me there so there's no need to repeat the same argument that you have used in all your posts so far (and you claim your degree gives you the ability to construct strong coherent arguments), what I am asking is something that is specific to history. Why is history such an important degree? All the things you have mentioned are things that you will get skilled at while studying law and things that you'll learn in almost any other field. In fact philosophy is probably better at this than history since it teaches you a lot of different ways to construct your arguments and it teaches you the theories that have constructed the laws so you can work with them better. Even literature could work well by this.

Now you have already stated that you are defending your degree and thus you have already admit that you are biased in this. You need your degree to matter or that time and money will be wasted. What I want from you is one reason why history matters. Use your skills at constructing strong coherent arguments and make up one thing that I can't argue with here.

 

[Yopaz]

snip

It's not the History itself that provides the edge over a straight law student, it's the skills that are required to achieve a high mark in a humanities subject. Ability to construct strong and coherent arguments from carefully extracted pieces of evidence. Ability to memorize large amounts of information and specific times and dates. Ability to understand motives of individuals and how the actions of such individuals had a greater or lesser impact on a wider picture.

There's a reason why the humanities mesh so well with Law.

OK, I did admit that history could be a stepping stone 2 posts ago and I said it again in my last post. You have me there so there's no need to repeat the same argument that you have used in all your posts so far (and you claim your degree gives you the ability to construct strong coherent arguments), what I am asking is something that is specific to history. Why is history such an important degree? All the things you have mentioned are things that you will get skilled at while studying law and things that you'll learn in almost any other field. In fact philosophy is probably better at this than history since it teaches you a lot of different ways to construct your arguments and it teaches you the theories that have constructed the laws so you can work with them better. Even literature could work well by this.

Now you have already stated that you are defending your degree and thus you have already admit that you are biased in this. You need your degree to matter or that time and money will be wasted. What I want from you is one reason why history matters. Use your skills at constructing strong coherent arguments and make up one thing that I can't argue with here.

He kinda already did.

Ability to memorize large amounts of information and specific times and dates. Ability to understand motives of individuals and how the actions of such individuals had a greater or lesser impact on a wider picture.

History is probably the best degree for proving your appitude for such things. And it's easy to see how that could be applied to Law.

No, not really. You get this from history, but you also get it from pretty much anything else too, that includes law. Even literature gives you this. Knowing when books are made, how society accepted it, the feelings behind, what the meaning of it is, things like that. I have taken a course where we had to memorize the entire periodic table, needing to know the uses and how to find and purify every single element. I've had to learn every single step, the structure of every enzyme and the intermediates of all the steps of breaking down a molecule of sugar into biologic energy. The process and the details concerning it took up 4 chapters. You learn to memorize large amounts of information through other subjects than history.

I could also go into how philosophy or sociology does the same, but I see not use. I am just going to repeat the same thing I have been saying all along since I keep getting reruns of old arguments thrown at me.

 

[Yopaz]

snip

It's not the History itself that provides the edge over a straight law student, it's the skills that are required to achieve a high mark in a humanities subject. Ability to construct strong and coherent arguments from carefully extracted pieces of evidence. Ability to memorize large amounts of information and specific times and dates. Ability to understand motives of individuals and how the actions of such individuals had a greater or lesser impact on a wider picture.

There's a reason why the humanities mesh so well with Law.

OK, I did admit that history could be a stepping stone 2 posts ago and I said it again in my last post. You have me there so there's no need to repeat the same argument that you have used in all your posts so far (and you claim your degree gives you the ability to construct strong coherent arguments), what I am asking is something that is specific to history. Why is history such an important degree? All the things you have mentioned are things that you will get skilled at while studying law and things that you'll learn in almost any other field. In fact philosophy is probably better at this than history since it teaches you a lot of different ways to construct your arguments and it teaches you the theories that have constructed the laws so you can work with them better. Even literature could work well by this.

Now you have already stated that you are defending your degree and thus you have already admit that you are biased in this. You need your degree to matter or that time and money will be wasted. What I want from you is one reason why history matters. Use your skills at constructing strong coherent arguments and make up one thing that I can't argue with here.

He kinda already did.

Ability to memorize large amounts of information and specific times and dates. Ability to understand motives of individuals and how the actions of such individuals had a greater or lesser impact on a wider picture.

History is probably the best degree for proving your appitude for such things. And it's easy to see how that could be applied to Law.

No, not really. You get this from history, but you also get it from pretty much anything else too, that includes law. Even literature gives you this. Knowing when books are made, how society accepted it, the feelings behind, what the meaning of it is, things like that. I have taken a course where we had to memorize the entire periodic table, needing to know the uses and how to find and purify every single element. I've had to learn every single step, the structure of every enzyme and the intermediates of all the steps of breaking down a molecule of sugar into biologic energy. The process and the details concerning it took up 4 chapters. You learn to memorize large amounts of information through other subjects than history.

I could also go into how philosophy or sociology does the same, but I see not use. I am just going to repeat the same thing I have been saying all along since I keep getting reruns of old arguments thrown at me.

I wasn't really focusing on the large amounts of information part, rather how History teaches you to contextualise the information. Such as specific times and dates, the motives of the people involved and the way the events had an effect on society.

Yes there are probably other degrees that deal with similar things, but History deals with them in a way which is particularly useful to anyone studying law.

Law firms do love someone with a history degree because it showcases their ability to do what was mentioned above.

I have a friend who's been studying to become a barrister. She's just finished her degrees now. She did a BA in History, I think she specialised in revolutionary Russia because she speaks Russian too. Now she's doing post grad in Law. The reason she did her degree in History is because law firms like that particular degree.

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=115896

OK, I have repeated my own post 4 times already, I see no reason to go on to repeat it a 5th time. I have yet to get an actual answer here, but I don't care. I have a feeling I could go on and repeat my question for an eternity and get the same response for all eternity. From what I have learned here history teaches how to take personal insult in the fact that someone doesn't care much for it.

 

[Gennadios]

I can only speak for the Computer Science career path, but I went through Uni with no student loans and a full time job, so I didn't really have the opportunity, or even had no idea how important networking and selling yourself for free as an intern would be.

I am strongly considering burning my diploma on youtube for shits and giggles. The full time hospital job I had I quit after graduation, to do some traveling, and with no prior experience I just hadn't been able to land a job once I got back. Some programmers liked me during interviews, HR never did.

Well, the best paying place I could land after some searching was the old hospital job I quit, unfortunately I lost all seniority so I'm taking a $3 an hour hit.

All I can really think of right now is the fact that if it wasn't for tuition I could be traveling for two more goddamn years.

 

[viranimus]

At one time in the world, absolutely. The logic was it was the best thing to differentiate yourself in the job market.

However for this current generation, no not in the slightest. There is no advantage to be had in the job market when your level of degree is commonplace.

I mean sure if you have a specific career in mind that requires prerequisite education, that will in turn yield ample salaries to compensate the staggering debt such as doctors, lawyers, CPAs, etc. But getting that education just for the sake of getting an education really does nothing given there are so many others out there in the job market who did that exact same thing because their parents kept drilling it in their head how important it was to get a good education.

 

[A Satanic Panda]

I know a guy that majored in an economics course, and half way through the semester he used what he had learned to figure out it's no longer economically viable to stay there.

That's like someone claiming their made an informed medical decision after half of one semester of intro biology/premed.

Except now he's filthy rich.

 

[lacktheknack]

Getting a diploma that lets me work in any technical field costs $4000 around here. Degrees cost from $6000 to $20000.

Seems worth it to me.

 

[renegade7]

Well it depends on whether you actually need a degree. In many situations certification will be just as good, and quite a bit cheaper, as things that previously you may have needed a degree for (computer programming, many kinds of electrical engineering, language, even teaching).

 

[Yopaz]

snip

It's not the History itself that provides the edge over a straight law student, it's the skills that are required to achieve a high mark in a humanities subject. Ability to construct strong and coherent arguments from carefully extracted pieces of evidence. Ability to memorize large amounts of information and specific times and dates. Ability to understand motives of individuals and how the actions of such individuals had a greater or lesser impact on a wider picture.

There's a reason why the humanities mesh so well with Law.

OK, I did admit that history could be a stepping stone 2 posts ago and I said it again in my last post. You have me there so there's no need to repeat the same argument that you have used in all your posts so far (and you claim your degree gives you the ability to construct strong coherent arguments), what I am asking is something that is specific to history. Why is history such an important degree? All the things you have mentioned are things that you will get skilled at while studying law and things that you'll learn in almost any other field. In fact philosophy is probably better at this than history since it teaches you a lot of different ways to construct your arguments and it teaches you the theories that have constructed the laws so you can work with them better. Even literature could work well by this.

Now you have already stated that you are defending your degree and thus you have already admit that you are biased in this. You need your degree to matter or that time and money will be wasted. What I want from you is one reason why history matters. Use your skills at constructing strong coherent arguments and make up one thing that I can't argue with here.

He kinda already did.

Ability to memorize large amounts of information and specific times and dates. Ability to understand motives of individuals and how the actions of such individuals had a greater or lesser impact on a wider picture.

History is probably the best degree for proving your appitude for such things. And it's easy to see how that could be applied to Law.

No, not really. You get this from history, but you also get it from pretty much anything else too, that includes law. Even literature gives you this. Knowing when books are made, how society accepted it, the feelings behind, what the meaning of it is, things like that. I have taken a course where we had to memorize the entire periodic table, needing to know the uses and how to find and purify every single element. I've had to learn every single step, the structure of every enzyme and the intermediates of all the steps of breaking down a molecule of sugar into biologic energy. The process and the details concerning it took up 4 chapters. You learn to memorize large amounts of information through other subjects than history.

I could also go into how philosophy or sociology does the same, but I see not use. I am just going to repeat the same thing I have been saying all along since I keep getting reruns of old arguments thrown at me.

I wasn't really focusing on the large amounts of information part, rather how History teaches you to contextualise the information. Such as specific times and dates, the motives of the people involved and the way the events had an effect on society.

Yes there are probably other degrees that deal with similar things, but History deals with them in a way which is particularly useful to anyone studying law.

Law firms do love someone with a history degree because it showcases their ability to do what was mentioned above.

I have a friend who's been studying to become a barrister. She's just finished her degrees now. She did a BA in History, I think she specialised in revolutionary Russia because she speaks Russian too. Now she's doing post grad in Law. The reason she did her degree in History is because law firms like that particular degree.

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=115896

OK, I have repeated my own post 4 times already, I see no reason to go on to repeat it a 5th time. I have yet to get an actual answer here, but I don't care. I have a feeling I could go on and repeat my question for an eternity and get the same response for all eternity.

You've had plenty of answers. It's not my fault you either don't pay attention or can't read.

From what I have learned here history teaches how to take personal insult in the fact that someone doesn't care much for it.

That kinda backs up the latter considering I haven't done a history degree. I said my friend had done one because she's training to become a barrister, because Law firms like that degree....... because it's good at showcasing disciplines that they look for in their potential employees.

But of course, you could go on ignoring that. It's not like someone training to become a Barrister would know what they're doing or anything.

I didn't ignore any of your points. I simply ignored any points that weren't connected to the fact that you had a degree in history. Oh, that's all of the points. Your friend has a degree in history and is taking post grad in law. OK, that tells me nothing of what history does. It tells me it is possible to take a degree in history and move on to get a different degree. Law firms like history degrees is still not an argument for what a history degree is useful for. You haven't mentioned one thing that you gain from taking a degree in history than you don't gain from sociology, philosophy or literature.

Your friend has a degree in history is not something gained from the degree itself. Law firm likes a history degree is not something gained form the degree. What I was saying in my earlier posts is that the fact that you got the degree is worth more than what you learned while taking the degree. You have pretty much confirmed that to me now.