I have mixed feelings about this. Now that I'm older and have a family this is not something that I'd do. But I did have a powerful aha! moment in my life years ago as an impovershed student.
I'd held a number of waiter jobs, and basically conducted myself like you just had to eat whatever sh** was dished out to you. After about 2 years of this I was asked to do something that I felt was wrong and unfair, I had no money, and I knew if I didn't do it I'd be fired, I refused and was fired.
All I can say about that is that I was very, very happy that I'd made that decision. There is a point, I think, at which you must simply say no, a movable point which depends on your responsibilities and what's being asked of you. It's important to know for yourself that you have lines that you won't cross.
Re:The decline of generalism
on
Who Needs Harvard?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
As a programmer I'm tempted to agree with a bias for the hard sciences, as I suspect are most people in the field. However, I'm not too sure that it's a good bias that ought to be indulged.
While a liberal arts degree (as opposed to, say, an engineering degree) doesn't show evidence for analytical thinking, it compares favorably in my mind to junk degrees like (sorry, just my opinion) marketing or communications in that it at least shows evidence of intellectual curiosity and a living mind.
There's something terribly sad, to me, of someone 19 years old with no intellectual interests. I have a vivid memory of a girl at my college orientation looking through the entire university bulletin and whining about not being able to find any courses on any subjects of interest.
There's another issue regarding the degree type, and that's that there's a downside to a degree in a "hard" subject. I'm specifically thinking of CS majors I've worked with.
As far as I can tell, having a CS degree and being a good programmer are unrelated, or at most distantly related. I've worked with plenty of unimaginative drones with CS degrees, who perhaps could've benfitted from writing some poetry.
For the record, I've acutally got a music degree, though I did hard sciences for a few years. I've also had a number of recruiters tell me that lots of people thought musicians made good programmers (though perhaps they were just being nice).
The decline of generalism
on
Who Needs Harvard?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
A missing factor in all of this may be that 30 or 50 years ago, a college degree in and of itself was considered to be a valuable ticket, and an indicator in and of itself of a persons ability. People graduated with generalist liberal arts degrees and moved smoothly into the business world, and in a situation like that it's reasonable to use the "quality" of the degree ( or at least the percieved quality ) as an indication.
The difference now, I think, is that those positions that used to be filled by liberal arts majors are now filled by people with degrees in things like Communications, Marketing, or MBA's.
Leaving aside the worth of such things, I'd think that this would equalize the Ivy Leauge factor somewhat.
I'm one of those people that believes that learning is always good for it's own sake, never mind if it makes you more marketable (a difficult thing to guage in any case). An education pays for itself in many ways other than the monetary, and I see it as a measure of the commercialization of our society that the financial becomes the accepted measure of an educations worth. I've seen friends spend $100,000 on (law) school and not use the degree. I'm (a bit) successful now, but I'm not working in the field I got my degree in (music); it's a pretty common story, I think. That being said I don't regret going, and am in the process of going back.
My first try at college lasted 2 years; I went from 3.8 to failing everything, not valuing what I had. I finally went back after about 5-6 years out.
I went back as an undergrad, and found that after going back I got far more out of the experience. I consistantly found the returning students to be the ones really looking at the material for its own sake, while the undergrads were the ones whining "Is this going to be on the tesssst?". I actually had nightmares before going back of finding myself back in high school, but it was really fine and the best choice I could have made.
Grad school was a bit different, people are in general more serious, but it was very satisfying. Kind of like being in an intellectually stimulating job that you want to go to every day.
I've also noticed that beyond a certain age many people who don't have a degree tend to really regret it, and seem to mistrust their own intellectual abilities a bit (not that there's truth in that, just noticing how many people feel.
Re:Examples of Math books for lay people
on
Prime Obsession
·
· Score: 1
Slashdot Mirror
I'd held a number of waiter jobs, and basically conducted myself like you just had to eat whatever sh** was dished out to you. After about 2 years of this I was asked to do something that I felt was wrong and unfair, I had no money, and I knew if I didn't do it I'd be fired, I refused and was fired.
All I can say about that is that I was very, very happy that I'd made that decision. There is a point, I think, at which you must simply say no, a movable point which depends on your responsibilities and what's being asked of you. It's important to know for yourself that you have lines that you won't cross.
While a liberal arts degree (as opposed to, say, an engineering degree) doesn't show evidence for analytical thinking, it compares favorably in my mind to junk degrees like (sorry, just my opinion) marketing or communications in that it at least shows evidence of intellectual curiosity and a living mind. There's something terribly sad, to me, of someone 19 years old with no intellectual interests. I have a vivid memory of a girl at my college orientation looking through the entire university bulletin and whining about not being able to find any courses on any subjects of interest.
There's another issue regarding the degree type, and that's that there's a downside to a degree in a "hard" subject. I'm specifically thinking of CS majors I've worked with. As far as I can tell, having a CS degree and being a good programmer are unrelated, or at most distantly related. I've worked with plenty of unimaginative drones with CS degrees, who perhaps could've benfitted from writing some poetry.
For the record, I've acutally got a music degree, though I did hard sciences for a few years. I've also had a number of recruiters tell me that lots of people thought musicians made good programmers (though perhaps they were just being nice).
The difference now, I think, is that those positions that used to be filled by liberal arts majors are now filled by people with degrees in things like Communications, Marketing, or MBA's.
Leaving aside the worth of such things, I'd think that this would equalize the Ivy Leauge factor somewhat.
My first try at college lasted 2 years; I went from 3.8 to failing everything, not valuing what I had. I finally went back after about 5-6 years out.
I went back as an undergrad, and found that after going back I got far more out of the experience. I consistantly found the returning students to be the ones really looking at the material for its own sake, while the undergrads were the ones whining "Is this going to be on the tesssst?". I actually had nightmares before going back of finding myself back in high school, but it was really fine and the best choice I could have made.
Grad school was a bit different, people are in general more serious, but it was very satisfying. Kind of like being in an intellectually stimulating job that you want to go to every day.
I've also noticed that beyond a certain age many people who don't have a degree tend to really regret it, and seem to mistrust their own intellectual abilities a bit (not that there's truth in that, just noticing how many people feel.
Two recommendations: Infinity and the mind (Rudy Rucker). -Mostly about infinity, paradoxes, etc,etc. I've seen this material in lots of other popularization books but Rucker seems to really enjoy it rather than just explain it. Hooked me on his work.
The book of numbers (John Conway, Richard Guy). Just beautiful.