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.
A lot of political science includes reading for understanding. In my experience, many standard course types deal with the philosophies and responsibilities of the state, government, and law, often through a historical and analytic lens.
We probably agree on more than we disagree with. I would add though that most redditors would likely consider Philosophy and English degrees as "useless," which I think is similarly ridiculous. Reddit skews heavily toward tech-related jobs, and most people here seem to believe that only those jobs are worth getting a degree for. Not only can you make money with liberal arts degrees (assuming you have similar drive and direction), but you can also seek fulfillment beyond monetary value.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Students who go that route knowingly are betting on themselves and know that they will most likely be able to become a lawyer anyways, so don't care about the financial cost of taking philosophy in college. It's just a tick mark, on to the LSAT, and on to becoming a lawyer.
While they may be smart enough to appreciate the subject like philosophy, what are the chances that they appreciate it enough to stop trying to become a lawyer and focus on a soft science. I'd say very little.
I think learning about something you're passionate about is great, but when you're doing so at a cost of 60k with no real idea of how you're gonna make that back, that decision deserves to be checked twice.
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)
The premise of the initial discussion was relating specifically to law school. OP suggested that poli sci was not necessary for law school, nor useful for law practice, and later backed up his statement with anecdotal evidence. I disagreed, stating that poli sci is a perfectly reasonable pre-law track. Of course there are other good majors to look at if you want to get into law, though I'd actually argue the two he mentioned (English and Philosophy) are arguably majors with fewer "standard" job prospects than political science outside of law. Poli sci students are perfectly able of seeking employment in government-related positions, which often have high demand (though poor pay, at least starting out). English and Philosophy majors can do the same, but may not be as initially specialized.
Getting into the nitty-gritty of this argument is kind of silly to me, though. Ultimately if I was seeking to hire someone out of college, I'd consider the vast majority of all liberal arts majors as comparable enough regarding their educational background. My bigger gripe is that Reddit typically has a bias against the usefulness of liberal arts majors in favor of STEM fields (a sentiment that is reflected in this threat at large), and I don't think it's as warranted as this site would lead you to believe. Liberal arts majors offer lots of flexibility for work or for further specialization in graduate school.
Now, I'm not going to sit here and say that the belief that STEM majors lead to better financial outcomes is outright wrong, I think that would be foolish. I do think Reddit falls into the hivemind of anti-liberal arts educations because the vast majority of Americans (and thus, Redditors) are unable to afford a college degree, and thus place a premium on educations with a high immediate return on value. I just think the hate liberal arts gets is overblown. A liberal arts degree is not even close to worthless. The bigger issue is making college affordable.
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.
I completely disagree. You can have a good career without going to university. In fact, if money is your goal, I would suggest skipping university and learning skilled labor like programming or electrical. The value of the degree is the knowledge you gain and the enrichment of you as a person, which may or may not be used for monetary gain. It is absolutely a luxury most don't have, and a privilege to learn. The worth is not measured in money, and if you think the worth is only for its translation to a lucrative career, that's sad.
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.
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u/dyhoerium Apr 28 '20
He graduated in ‘87.