Steve Martin’s classic comedy album “A Wild And Crazy Guy” includes one of the best descriptions of college ever put to polyvinyl chloride. Martin studied Philosophy at Cal State Long Beach (go Dirtbags!) and succinctly compares the study of a “hard science” to the study of humanities:
“If you’re studying Geology, which is all facts, as soon as you get out of school you forget it all, but with Philosophy you remember just enough to screw you up for the rest of your life,” Martin jokes.
This feels accurate. I double-majored in Government (the UT version of Political Science) and Cultural Geography. What I learned is valuable on occasion, especially as cars and politics become increasingly interconnected, though I have to go back to reference materials all the time. How I learned is what I treasure most. Being able to evaluate an idea, break it down, synthesize it, and communicate is the nature of almost any thinking job.
It does screw you up a bit, though, if you get a good education. I’m always analyzing everything. Or overanalyzing it, depending on who you ask.
Jason majored in Art History and argued today that it helped him develop as a human being, even if it didn’t exactly turn out to be directly useful. Many people backed up his decision, and the Liberal Arts in general, including Droid, who wrote:
a university education is NOT supposed to be vocational training.
in the philosophical dimension, it is training on how to learn.
in the economic dimension, it is readily understood evidence that an individual can learn a business.
Twobox Designgineer agreed:
I agree that that is the way it should be, and that it is how it probably was largely in the past.
Grumble grumble late-stage capitolism grumble grumble.
Oh, and here’s the full Steve Martin bit:
Top photo: depositphotos.com
I have a MFA in post studio art*.
Fortunately I learned to program computers in assembly language to make graphics, videos and music, and then the web happened and having an art degree and knowing programming meant that people with no knowledge of wit would throw money at you.
Later on, people would misread MFA as MBA and I’d keep my mouth shut. Like the California Institute of the Arts was giving out MBAs.
Saying I had a Masters degree from the CIA was always fun too.
Learning how to figure stuff out, and knowing what stuff needs to be figured out is all that’s important.
For example “why does yellow text on a blue background look so weird” just takes a bunch of optics and neuroscience and some reading of Edwin Land and you have got it. Then you need some chemistry and physics to understand how blue paint works. (Yellow paint is trivial) That was my approach to studying art.
Really growing up on a farm was just as important. You either figure out how to improvise solutions to problems, or you literally loose the farm.
*As far as I can figure it out it’s a degree in having lunch with John Baldessari
“a university education is NOT supposed to be vocational training.
in the philosophical dimension, it is training on how to learn.”
And yet when you graduate in the sciences you are expected to know how to DO things, like RIGHT NOW!
No on the job training for you, you hit the ground running!
I agree a university education is not vocational training but how to learn in an economic dimension
Or in other words if you study the arts and humanities in the university setting after graduation you realize you have learned nothing useful and will never make a living wage.
My understanding of advanced schooling is that it’s supposed to teach you scheduling, critical thinking, and discipline. You have to teach yourself how to research because the professor or their aide won’t do it for you unlike highschool. You have to teach yourself how to keep to a schedule because your parents aren’t there to yell at you and flip your mattress over before you’re late. You have to teach yourself the tells for when the professor is bullshitting or fluffing the homework because otherwise you risk spending time and effort on stuff that doesn’t matter for the grade.
Learning whatever your major is actually the reward and not the goal. The goal is getting a controlled environment to learn how to be an adult without majorly fucking up your life. The independent living version of having the bumpers up at the bowling alley.
I learned a very valuable lesson in college. How to fail. I learned it well and kept going back for years to re-learn it over and over. I never even got to the point of declaring a major and I’m not sure I even ever passed English 101. I still use the skills I learned to this day both vocationally and philosophically. While my path through college was not particularly successful and I have no letters after my name, I still cherish the experience and recommend it to anyone who doesn’t have to take a loan out to do so. If you follow my path, you may even learn to fail better than I have, which would take some serious effort on your part, but it can be done. I’m living proof than you too can fail hard.
I should note that I am full on envious of anyone and everyone who could keep their shit together well enough to succeed where I absolutely have not. Pat yourselves on the back for a job well done.
I… yes, sure. Facts. That definitely sounds like a reasonable description of my field.
Geology rocks, but geography is where it’s at. (Shamelessly quoting a picture of a sign seen on the internet.)
Geology “rocks”. Rocks, indeed.
What College taught me (D-1 school w/ a few toppest of the notch programs) was that the actual material mattered very little.
What matters is that the person in power (the Prof or whomever) thinks is important. If you can mirror that interest, you win. If you sidetrack, you fail. The value of the material emphasized is arbitrary.
Sure, there has to be a basis in the general roots of a concept, but that’s all. It falls on the whims of the “leader”.
So, ya know, how to be good at your job regardless of talent.
Well, that makes me more appreciative of my college engineering program. I had plenty of hands-on training in college labs that, while perhaps not necessarily vocational training, were directly applicable to my professional life. What I didn’t have was classes on how to interact with non-engineer humans, which would definitely have helped me over the last few decades.
i too was educated as an engineer. i agree that a foreign language class or two would have helped…
As a scientist I found engineer speak mostly incomprehensible gibberish, even on the very same subject (thermodynamics).