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> One point of view arguing for a non-stem degree is that it teaches you to read, write and think. And there is some logic to that thought. Even if you spend 4 years just learning about, say, Sociology, you have to read up on a debate, summarize the background, have an opinion, be challenged and so forth. And you are on your way to 10k hours.

true in principle, and I don't totally disagree. but I have two counter-counter arguments.

first, at least in my experience, is that humanities focus a lot on the procedural elements of writing Scholarly Papers. you do learn about constructing good arguments and writing style to an extent. but a lot of time is spent on those highly specialized bits that don't really matter outside of academia.

second, writing is often required in stem majors too! the volume of writing was definitely less than in humanities courses, but I wrote lots of reports and documentation for my CS major. some of that was very contrived, but I don't feel it was less helpful than writing a million english or history papers.

I have a STEM degree from a liberal arts university. Half of my courses were not part of my major requirements and many if not most were humanities type courses. I've always felt that combination has given me a big advantage over others who went got the same degree from traditional universities. STEM curriculum does not have to exclude "reading, writing, and thinking".

same. Not saying you cannot do both.

I’m absolutely fine with including the general humanities courses in theory, but in practice that’s tens of thousands of dollars more I have to pull out of my ass somewhere.

> "... What matters are connections, professional experience, and the ability to raise large sums of money."

That's kinda true about everything though and it's called business. I still remember a speaker from my stem undergrad first year who came in and asked whether we were more interested in :

A. Learning stem theories. B. Making money.

Maybe 3 out of 100 raised their hands to go with option B. Most of us where like, this guy doesn't know we're not in a business school right...

It took me a long time to realize it's all about business :/

> "A degree in film is absolutely worthless for obtaining work in the film industry. What matters are connections, professional experience, and the ability to raise large sums of money. Those aren’t things film school can teach you."

> Perhaps the film school should add some courses on networking, fund raising and an internship at film shoots?

If you go to film school not knowing the quoted hot take above, you've watched or read zero about the industry, history, etc. of film making.

how much do you expect a high-school student to research if that information is not provided by career counseling?

i did a film project in high school, and i am involved in one now. if i were to go to college now i might think, hey this is fun. i would not even consider the idea that film-school would not help me get a job in the film industry. that's totally counter intuitive.

the only way to address that is to put picking a career onto the high school curriculum, and make the necessary research a class assignment. and once the students have made some potential choices bring in veterans from those industries to talk to the students about their choices.

> One point of view arguing for a non-stem degree is that it teaches you to read, write and think

This is where these critiques often go wrong in my opinion. There's no mention of what was learned, what value was gained over that time, because I highly doubt it was nothing. As you mention, there is an aspect of project management in making a film. You have to write a film, you have to select roles for your film, you have to delegate tasks. There are all kinds of soft skills that are learned in the completion of any degree program, and people usually take them for granted because they never studied for that specific thing, their project management skills were never tested directly.

The scam is in convincing (very young) people that they need to pay six figures to acquire those experiences.

Yes, I think that's the real problem. There is definitely value in college education, but the cost is way too high.

The scam is giving six figure loans to very young people with no underwriting at the future taxpayers’ expense. Without that, schools would not be able to charge excessively in the first place.

From my experience, the best way to get good marks in a non-STEM degree is to repeat back to your professors/tutors what they say. Trying to expound your own ideas is often a fool's errand.

> One point of view arguing for a non-stem degree is that it teaches you to read, write and think. And there is some logic to that thought. Even if you spend 4 years just learning about, say, Sociology, you have to read up on a debate, summarize the background, have an opinion, be challenged and so forth. And you are on your way to 10k hours.

True, but you can also teach yourself to do those things too. For me, the ROI of time/effort/money seems off for almost all degrees other than STEM if you have to borrow money to achieve them.

There are some people who can do this: spend hours and hours, all nighters, push themselves with deadlines that have come up with and make themselves put in the work. (I believe it is a lot more "natural" to push oneself with programming where the code can fail to compile and you can just keep at it.) Though even those people would be hard pressed to obtain thoughtful feedback on multiple (sometimes very bad) papers, repeatedly, over years.

However, most people would not naturally put in the same effort and for those people, there is a lot of value in the structure.

How much has a lot to do with the particular school, career path, scholarship money and so forth.

"it teaches you to read, write and think."

Most people learn that by grade 10. College should be for highly specialized skill learning.

People learn to do those things by grade 2.

> Most people learn that by grade 10.

We wish! Most of the students I've known outside of stem will make sure they prove you wrong ;)

Basic reading, writing, and thinking are definitely high school skills. College should be teaching _critical thinking_. (I learned how to critically think shortly after starting my Honors Physics I class after mostly skating through high school.)

Sadly, it seems that 80% of college grads somehow never learn critical thinking. In my experience, non-STEM classes are not very good at teaching critical thinking, but perhaps that was just an artifact of the university I attended.

They really, really don't.

IMO even most college graduates can't read or write worth a damn. Possibly they can think, but it's hard to tell.

I went to a decent state school and I distinctly remember being told over half of admitted new students tested into remedial level classes in English and/or math.

>Perhaps the film school should add some courses on networking, fund raising and an internship at film shoots?

My wife went to film school and it had all of these things. The experience was expensive, but she left school with a good network and job opportunities

No matter how convincing you are, you can't succeed at fundraising if all your friends are broke.