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Comment by stolenmerch | Hacker News Reader

I received a BA and MFA in small, idiosyncratic arts programs even more niche and unmarketable than puppetry. After graduation and realizing I'd never be employed, I set off taking free online CS courses and programming tutorials. In hindsight, I really wish I would have done it exactly opposite. Study computer science in college and take a couple of arts classes as electives or pursue it as a part-time hobby. It all worked out, but it reminds me how many of these arts and humanities programs are legacies of a bygone economic era. They are also a product of credentialism, in which it becomes difficult or impossible to demonstrate your knowledge in Literature, for example, without having the degree.

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the argument for liberal arts education I always heard goes like this: "college is not to learn a specific skill, but more to better yourself for the real world" and I can't help but think how devoid that is from reality today. Maybe back in the 60's and 70's you could go to college to "broaden your horizons" but today only the wealthiest can afford to do that, everyone else needs a "reason" (that is what sort of job are you getting on the other end).

I think those classes are from a bygone era of when college was affordable and you could take a course "just to learn". Higher ed today is very different, I almost look at colleges are higher level trade schools if you're in CS, Engineering, etc.

I think at this point, the world is probably too complicated in many ways (even comparing to 50 years ago) that the best way to “learn about the world” is probably to pick your corner of specialty and start from there.

In other words, I don’t think that “broaden your horizons” is the issue. But rather that liberal arts education is not the way to do that.

I am not sure it's that much different. Back then - when vastly fewer people went to college - the degree itself was the credential for a professional job, but it didn't much matter what you'd studied. That may still apply for the "top-tier", most-prestigious institutions: I know a Harvard literature grad who walked straight into an executive-track role at a company you've heard of, because Harvard. That probably has more to do with networking effects than anything else, which arguably was true then, as well.

The current situation - colleges as trade schools, as you aptly put it - suits educational institutions quite well. Businesses like it, as well, because they can outsource early-career job training. It's only for, you know, actual people that the system doesn't work anymore.

Depends on your social class. In UK wealthy families don't learn skills, they are above that already. They learn history, literature, rhetoric.

They won't need to "do", they are here to "be".

> I could fill Volumes with Descriptions of Temples and Palaces, Paintings, Sculptures, Tapestry, Porcelaine, &c. &c. &c.—if I could have time. But I could not do this without neglecting my duty.—The Science of Government it is my Duty to study, more than all other Sciences: the Art of Legislation and Administration and Negotiation, ought to take Place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other Arts.—I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine

John Adams to Abigail Adams, May 1780

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-03-02-0258

> it reminds me how many of these arts and humanities programs are legacies of a bygone economic era

Ah yes, that bygone economic era of prosperity. In it's place today, a shrinking economy, one must posit from your comment? Surely current economics show a great decline in prosperity?

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1/

My friend was an accounting major with a $75K/yr internship who spent his every free moment in art studios. His parents were worried it was a distraction, but it was actually the mental wellness support he needed to pursue accounting.

Life is about balance, and while I can quibble over the last part of your statement, I do agree that more needs to be done to expand student access to non-program classes. Even students within a college or school don't always have access to every course being taught if it's outside of their chosen track, and that siloing isn't good for producing well-rounded, interdisciplinary-minded people.

Everyone knows that Cormac McCarthy wouldn't have gotten anywhere in the literature world without all his advanced degrees in literature.

English Lit and Creative Writing are usually not the same programs or degrees. The point being, if you don't have a marketable product (like a novel) and instead only have papers you wrote in school, the degree is your marketable product.

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