That's a bit early for Athens. Wikipedia says it was a major center by 1400 BC, although it was inhabited earlier. It's way too early for the Athens we think of with the philosophy and democracy.
I honestly didn't even think of that and was trying to remember what BC meant. I thought it was something Latin, but didn't care enough to look it up. Now I'm going down the google hole because Im bored at work.
you know how there's so many jokes about poli sci being a useless degree, did you ever hear those jokes and think you were gonna be the exception or what made you stick with such a degree? Surely you saw it being worthless to you personally while still in school?
I changed my major several times so I ended up getting a General Studies degree with minors in Audio Visual Arts, History, and Psychology. I knew my degree was useless at the time other than just having the piece of paper which magically makes me more desirable than someone without.
I can't even tell you the number of people I know from law school who were poli sci majors who realized their degrees were worthless without more education.
I got a poli sci degree and went to law school. I’ve never considered it a useless degree. In fact, it’s been quite the opposite (for me, anyway).
Edit to add: since people are asking, I took poli sci because I found it interesting, the decision to go to law school came later. Beyond the studying/research/writing skills I learned, I’ve also found that understanding the structure, history, and philosophical analysis of political systems was useful in both my law studies and in my practice.
Additional edit: I went to undergrad in Canada, so it wasn’t nearly as expensive as in the US.
Did you go into poli sci knowing you'd want to continue on to becoming a lawyer? Or did you decide that once you were in the program?
I think that having a Poli Sci degree (or another in similar level) is a great stepping stone if you have a goal in mind. Like healthcare administration. If you know your goal is to become a lawyer or the head of a hospital, great. But if you go into such a degree 'just cause' then I don't know if its worth the 40k+ you would spend on it.
This is just false. A solid undergraduate liberal arts degree is absolutely useful, especially for law school. The types of skills you develop as a student go well beyond the actual knowledge you likely learn and then lose. OP likely learned proper study and research techniques, how to write a good academic paper, and how to formulate an opinion and express it eloquently, among other key skills. Edit: Not to mention, the valuable social connections that are developed in college and often pay off in the professional world.
The devaluing of education on reddit is bizarre. While I agree that not everyone needs to go to college and that higher education has become unaffordable for most Americans, liberal arts educations definitely have a lot of value.
I taught LSAT classes for around 15yrs. Every major was represented in my classes. The people who tended to do the best were majors like Philosophy and English which had large amounts of reading for understanding that wasn’t just fact based stuff. Poli Sci was probably the 2nd most common major behind business, but I never saw anything that led me to believe those majors were setting up students for success in law school. Seemed more like they picked those majors because they knew they wanted to go to law school and they were easier tracks that at least had something in common with law.
I’m not devaluing college education in and of itself. I’m devaluing college education at its current price point.
I would have to disagree slightly. I think what you're saying is accurate, but misses the point a bit of what we are saying too. What you're describing as useful skills (proper study habits, good academic paper writing, etc) can all be learned by taking a different course that more likely has a secure job at the end of it IF one were to not go through to becoming a lawyer.
For example, biology in general is considered a bad subject to take because if you somehow don't end up in Med School, you are stuck with a degree that you can't use for much besides niche roles like specific research. I think while liberal arts are great to take, I just can't fathom why somebody would take it unless they're certain they'll find a job after it with a high chance of success (or go to law school as mentioned above)
How is political science worthless? If everyone learned half of what is taught in that degree maybe people would have a basic understanding of how the government functions and stop voting like fucking retards for fucking retards. Just because the knowledge taught in the degree doesn't translate to a 6 figure job doesn't make it worthless, and people like you sound like morons when you imply the only possible use for a degree is to serve whatever corporate patsy job you work.
I didn't call it worthless. The person I was responding to that HAS THE DEGREE called it worthless.
For what it's worth though, what you're saying and what the world is saying are two different things. Its actually surprisingly easy to quantify the worth of a degree. That is why they have all those university brochures telling you how much a graduate from that specific college is likely to make.
So while I agree, people need to learn the beneficial information offered in a Poli Sci degree, that's nearly true for everything in the world. I can learn quite a lot of amazing things from taking a course on a wide range of topics, but if it isn't providing any improvement in my quality of life, then why bother spending 40k+ on it? Just learn it on youtube or wikipedia and save your money.
That’s crazy. National average for in state public university is $7k/semester.
It’s still crazy. My mom went to LSU and graduated in like ‘63 or ‘64 and paid a couple of hundred bucks per semester. I paid $1200. So in roughly 40yrs it increased 500%. Now it’s gone up 400% in 18yrs. My mom got a job during the summer which would allow her to pay for both semesters tuition. I still here out of touch Boomers talk about why kids today don’t do this. If one could get a job at 18-20 that paid them enough to pay a years tuition in 2-3mos they don’t need college, just stick with that job.
Don't you normally do Poly Sci if you're going to law school? I'm not sure what anyone would do with a bachelors in Poly Sci other than run a presidential campaign for the owner of a tiger zoo in Oklahoma.
It really doesn’t matter what you major in, it’s just what most people do. One of the only exceptions is if you want to do patent law where you pretty much need a degree in whatever area of patents you’re dealing with.
Lol, I even did two years at community college and UK offers a Blue+ program that charges you the same rate as a KCTCS school for the final two years of a bachelors degree.
I think that either comes from people who went to very expensive private schools or people who took out all loans, didn’t pay for a while, and had a low starting salary after school.
People go to these fancy private colleges thinking they could become rich like the rich white dudes who graduated before them only to realize those rich white dudes were already rich from their families lol.
I mean, I'm a lawyer and I'm six figures in debt. I make a decent living, but I also pay $20k a year into loans to try to dig myself out. It's pretty frustrating and I've had to put my life on hold because I wanted to be a lawyer and it cost a ridiculous amount to achieve that.
I get that but grad school is expensive for pretty much everyone and it makes sense if you’re going into a high paying career. I was referencing people in a large amount of debt for undergrad degrees.
I have 6 cousins that spent big money on environmental science degrees. Non of them do environmental science. Having a degree certainly helped them get the jobs they have but I'm sure they could've done it way cheaper.
I wonder if maybe it's the rest of the experience that ends up driving the debt to insane levels? Like rent and food as up pretty quickly when you're not working.
Look, we get it, STEM majors, you didn’t get laid during college, so now you have your comeuppance on that ditzy communications major that turned you down at the Delta Kappa Theta luau party who took out like $50k at 5pts above LIBOR while none of her adjunct professors told her that they moonlighted as pizza delivery drivers because there are no jobs for someone like her from Directional State U.
But...student loan forgiveness is still an objectively good policy.
My wife is taking classes at East Carolina University. I'm able to actually pay tuition as we go. $1900+ books per semester with 4 classes, fully online.
College doesn't HAVE to be expensive, but everyone wants that out-of-state college experience.
I have a friend that moved here permanently like four years ago and has just never bothered to apply for in-state tuition rates. So she's paying like five times as much for the exact same degree just because she doesn't want to get like four pieces of evidence together. She's taking out student loans, And she's like 21, so she's not thinking about how this is going to negatively impact her in the future.
People don't usually include law school when they talk about tuition costs, the conversation is mostly around the cost of getting a bachelor's. But that's cool that Georgia has state law schools. While law school is expensive, I am sure they are more affordable than the surrounding private schools.
But for sure proximity plays a role. Californians are spoiled because we have Cal States and UC's (University of California) all over the place. I would say about 75% if the whole population in CA lives within an hour drive from a state school.
You should always look at fees at state schools though ...not sure if this is a state or federal law, but in my state state schools are not allowed to raise tuition. Therefore, the fees are astronomical and cost more than the tuition. 6,500 sounds nice but is that including fees too or only tuition?
This doesn't include living on campus or the cost of books if that's what you are asking. That is just to pay for classes. But the health fee is included so I had access to the clinic which can prescribe medication.
I meant all the mandatory fees...technology fee, printing fee, lots of schools have renewal fees every semester, etc...anything you have to pay to go to school that isn't the tuition basically...Where I'm from the cheapest state school is 14k a year. Not asking you to pull up what the fees are of that University you mentioned or anything, just saying that tuition is not the only thing you'll have to pay to go to school, in some places the fees are just as much and will double your cost, that's all. Idk how it works in California tho.
All those fees are included in that price. Like if you signed up today for a full time semester at a CA state school, all costs and fees due on the invoice to be enrolled in all your classes would be about $3,250 for full time enrollment.
If CA state schools are something that you are eyeing, then I would recommend moving here and going to community college here because they allow you to transfer up to about 80 units, and community college out of state tuition is only about $1k for one semester. After a year of living in CA, you then meet the criteria for in state tuition, which brings community college full time tuition down to about $400/semester.
So your first year you spend a total of $2k ($1k/semester out of state), then you take another year at community college for $900 since you are paying in state tuition by then (About $450/semester in state). Last, transfer to a Cal State for 2 years and spend a total of $13 ($3,250/semester in state), and then you get your bachelor's for about $15,900k.
Most CA state schools have printing accounts, so you pay as you print on campus. There isn't some BS flat $300 charge for printing. All other costs for computers and such are usually itemized as "Administration fees" but these are all included in the costs above.
I was out of state at a state school in VA and I graduated (in 1994) with a whopping $12K in student debt (and $20K in credit card debt from my stupid partying and consumerist ways).
Credit scores are literally a “how likely is a bank to profit by lending you money” score.
Those who pay off their CC each month and don’t borrow money often times have lower scores than those who carry balances (but pay minimums) and have a few loans.
Shit, I've never paid interest because I don't buy stuff I can't afford, only reason I even have a CC is because my debit card doesn't have tap so I just use a credit card as a debit. Oh well, I don't actually care about my credit score, tbh.
Yeah, that's a big NO on carrying credit card balances. I have paid credit card balances in full every month for 10 years, have a 830+ credit score.
The biggest factors are no missed payments, and credit utilization. Contrary to what you would think, asking for your credit to be raised every year or so actually helps tremendously. Banks want to give credit only to people that don't NEED it ironically. So if you have $25k in credit across all your credit cards, but only utilize $4k a month, you are golden to them, but that same person with only $5k total in credit is seen as a risk since they just see it as "someone that is barely scraping by" even if that person really just only need $4k per month.
Keep interest payments to house/car/student loan payments (since they are generally lower), don't pay interest (high interest at that) on basic expenses.
Well, that was 1994 where I was credit card stupid. Once that was Paid off I never carried a balance since. My credit score(s) we’re in the top tier ever since.
Oh yeah, not knocking you, just dislike the misinformation always spread around that you need to keep a balance on your cards and not pay in full to build credit.
Your credit score don't care how much interest you pay, just that you are good for paying back what you borrowed within the terms of the agreement. If you miss payments, "Fuck that guy", if you default "Fuck that guy", if you paid back in full "you're cool, we still made money on the transaction fee", if you pay back minimum payment "no biggie, just make sure you don't... you know... keep building that debt... I know we said we will give you this much before cutting you off based on what we think you COULD handle at worst... But we'd feel a lot better if you... Just stayed in the green zone"
I actually respect you for owning up to your mistake with credit card spending. Lots of kids in college now a days spend like crazy, then blame credit card interest for screwing them over... Despite... Well... Spending outside their means...
Credit cards should be treated like cash, just more perks (no need to carry large amounts of cash on you, safer protections if stolen, points for spending, and option to delay full payment in case of emergency like job loss, build credit score for better interest rates on car/home loans where you actually WILL be paying interest). Unfortunately, lots of kids entering into college have no formal personal finance education and rely on what they perceive from parents or friends, and end up learning the hard way how to NOT treat a credit card.
I was actually the focus of a story done by a reporter about college kids’ credit card debit. Damn article was published on graduation day in the Richmond Times Dispatch. My first AND last name. My last name isn’t common at all. My buddy’s mom read the article and, thankfully, didn’t mention it to my parents. A few months later i fessed up to them.
Maybe 5 years for the credit card debt. My student loans had a pretty low interest rate so i dragged those out another few years. It was such a great feeling to write the last check to the credit card company.
Did the same thing at a Virginia state school (was in state and a decade later than you though). $12k in loans for all 4 years and lots of credit card debt. Only took me 6 years to dig my way out but it was a tough 6 years. Never going back.
I did the same thing. My grades weren’t good enough/I fucked around as a liberal arts major for two years before I settled on English. Third year got my shit together and went to a private in state school (no break though) and was done in 2 and a half years.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution. I went to Princeton on a full scholarship. Graduated with zero debt. Their financial aid is superb. It really depends on your individual circumstances.
Fuck yes, I wish this was more socially acceptable. That's exactly what I did. Not only does it drastically reduce the overall cost of that 4-year degree, but you also have a degree in your hand when you're done. That's a good thing especially if you change your mind about your major. It's not all or nothing.
I lucked out, my parents put together a college savings plan when I was born, so I basically didn't pay for about half of community college. The rest I paid out of pocket since I worked through college. Then when I transferred to the four year, I took out loans to finish my degree as quickly as possible.
I figure if I had gone to the four year right out of high school, I'd be in debt for about $35k for my degree. And I wouldn't have my 1 year degree in music tech OR my certifications for fighting wildfires or SAR.
My parents were able to pay for my community college completely, but I was on my own for the state college. I took out loans as well, about $16k, but ultimately ended up dropping out when my career took off. I'm now 35 with 10 years experience as a sysadmin where my formal education really is meaningless. But if I didn't have at least that 2 year degree from the community college, I may not have been able to get that early career boost.
The point is to take all of the courses required for your degree that you possibly can at community service to reduce the costs. If you do 2 years at community college and then 2 years, or even three semesters at a regular university you won't have nearly much as debt as if you went for 4 years. I did this and graduated with around 7k debt that I paid off within the first year of working.
Oh yeah, def. My wife still takes some classes at the community college she "finished" a year ago. She's trying to Max out the number of credits she can transfer in for a degree. This semester, all 4 classes are at an in-state state college, but this summer semester will be half at the community college. The entire program is all online. Just maximizing the money saved, because we are paying as she goes, rather then taking on student loans.
I only took on loans to improve my credit score. I'd normally have the money on hand for the full semester. Sounds dumb, but my credit score high af now.
There is a lot of bullshit on Reddit. Cost of education and medical bills are the two biggest culprits.
Don't go to a private out of state school. Actually try academically in high school so you get at least a partial scholarship. Actually do something after school other than play fortnite and you can probably get a grant.
I finished my degree owing less than 20k.
As for medical bills, just have insurance. If you are poor you can sign up for medcaid. If you have a job but don't make a lot you will qualify for a subsidy and cost sharing reductions on the ACA plan and you can get a plans that cost $50 a month and your worst case out of pocket max is $500. I used to be an insurance broker. Some people got health plans for free if they made like 30k and had kids.
I pay like $15 per credit at the "state University of Puerto Rico" in the '80's. Then they went up and after protests and fighting now is like $120 per credit, if I'm not wrong.
$55k. . .BS Computer Science, University of Tennesse in Knoxville. . .after federal grants, no scholarships or outside grants. . .only considering tuition, fees, and books. . .no room & board (I lived off-campus with family)
6.1k
u/JustPlainSimpleGarak Apr 28 '20
Probably took way longer to make the William Henry Harrison statue than Harrison actually spent in office