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Old 03-04-2006, 07:53 AM   #16 (permalink)
Rodney
Observant Ruminant
 
Location: Rich Wannabe Hippie Town
Anybody who's not kicking at the traces in their fourth year of college isn't going to amount to much. Yes, college is where you learn all sorts of good things. But it's also a stultifying and infantalizing hierarchy where many competent and intelligent young men and women are taught that the way to success is to agree (or not seriously disagree) with your professor's pet theories -- especially in the humanities.

I had a jouralism major, which arguably teaches you how to do something, and took a program that included lots of hands-on field work and internships (more rare 30 years ago than now); and I still couldn't wait to graduate. The more mature you become in college, the more you realize that it's all a game; a beneficial game, if you're lucky, but a game nonetheless.

As to the humanities: they make a great minor. They really are good for learning about what makes the world tick, but you should also pick up some skill along the way that'll let you make your way through life. I minored in political science (arguable not a humanity, but let's be real), and it has done me a great deal of good in understanding federal, state, and local politics over the years, and it's made my life better. On the other hands, I know a married couple who _both_ majored in Medieval French Literature (they met each other in the program) and well, they've been running a breakfast/lunch restaurant for the last 25 years. And I'm not sure what skills they picked up in college helped them along the way, unless they took Fry Cooking 101.

In a similar thread here about what use people made of their major, I recall one gentleman talking about how a degree in history helped him in his insurance career -- by giving him the research and writing skills he needed, plus statistics. If all you've learned how to do in English Lit is argue, I'd say that it's at least something.
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