Comments on: Is Your Education Useless?

By: Kathryn C. Lang

Kathryn C. Lang — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 12:43:03 +0000

Wow Shay – that is VERY well said, and something similar to what I tell my own children (and anyone that will listen). Education provides so much more than a degree. It teaches research skills, opens the mind and prepares the imagination for more things than the words on the degree could ever understand.

Good luck with your studies and with the future that lies ahead.

By: Shay

Shay — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 10:50:50 +0000

I’m currently studying BA Criminolgy with Psychosocial Studies and whenever I tell people what I’m studying they always ask what I’m going to do with my degree and I say nothing. I don’t say that because I’m going to do nothing with it but because I’m at university to learn at the moment and where it takes me at the end of it I have no idea but I’m grateful for the education I’m getting at the moment. I do want to go back to college and get a BTEC in media studies because I did a few short films and I like working with a camera and learning how to put films together. So I suppose that my degree can help when it comes to creating films based on crime or socials and how discourses work within film and so and so forth.

I was having a conversation with someone from my university who saw going there as a means to an end, just getting a job, and I was trying to explain to him that sometimes getting a degree isn’t just as limited to getting a job. His line of argument was that all a person who studies Sociology can do is become a Sociology teacher. And I tried to explain that Sociology, as with many other Social Sciences, is a broad subject that can be applied anywhere in any field.

I think that sometimes the joy of learning is removed and this need to get a job is applied harder than an actual education. Having a degree doesn’t mean you’re educated its just means you can learn something and have commitment. Have a degree isn’t a means to an end its the continuation of all that you’ve learnt previously. I can be a black and white, this or that way, kind of person but even I know that education is vast and leads to greater things. I’m too creative to be in the rut of get a degree and get a job in a certain field and be done with it. That’s too boring.

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By: guest

guest — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:16:24 +0000

This is a little late but I wanted to comment. My mother used to be an English professor, when we came to the U.S. she went to hairstyling school, worked at a barber shop for a few years, her clients followed her to the new place. She was good and quick and made good money that way. Anyway my mom is a U.S. citizen now, and I am too, and she retired in her late 50s. Which was just a couple of years ago.

A degree doesn’t have to be the end all be all that many people think it is. When I was 18 I went to college, I didn’t know what to major in, I thought about majoring in art history, but I had a total freak out about it. Especially when a professor discouraged me.

Anyway I decided to work for a few years, now I’m in my late 20s, and I wish that I hadn’t listened to her, I wish I had listened to my mom. My mom is always like “Just get any college degree, that’s what many companies look for first.” When I went back to college last year I was faced with the same issues that I was faced with when I was 18.

Not all of us are meant to become accountants, lawyers, doctors, nurses, physician assistants, or bankers. I knew that if I majored in accounting, finance, or health care that I wouldn’t last too long in those fields and quite frankly I think they’re quite boring and how could I finish a degree that I have no interest in? I took accounting 101 last year and withdrew twice from it because it was too boring. I couldn’t even do the hw because it bored me to tears.

Finally I’m an art history major with an entrepreneurship minor. The best advice I’ve heard is to find out what your passion is and find a way to make a living with it. The point of all this is to listen to yourself and do what you feel is right, don’t waste time like I did. There are writers, designers, musicians, and artists who make good money and there are those who are poor.

IMO if something is truly your passion then you will find a way to make a living with it. You’ll try different things, and you won’t give up.

By: Kathryn Lang

Kathryn Lang — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 04:44:54 +0000

Leisure services – all of those jobs that people do to serve people on leisure I focused on tourism and commercial recreation, but had others in my class that focused on working with the elderly or working in the corporate sector.

By: James

James — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:39:52 +0000

Like so many others who’ve already commented, I too have an English degree And when I started taking classes I never imagined I would wind up working as a copywriter for a web design company.

I think classes teach you far more than you realize at the time you’re in the class. Especially critical thinking and logic. You may not realize just how much you use these skills until years later.

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By: Dean Smith

Dean Smith — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 02:43:04 +0000

Education whether a degree, or not, is the key to successful applications in the world of life. Formal education provides a set of tools as an enabler to conduct yourself whilst learning the tools of a particular trade. Informal education provides the same tools, if you choose to learn and hold onto the belief that you can achieve your goals. I have had three vastly different careers, now onto my fourth. I am fortunate. I use a set formula when establishing my new role, I then consider the product and work on whats ethical and go about achieving a working environment that utilizes my skills whilst learning the tasks of the current role.

By: Katharine Brooks

Katharine Brooks — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:36:07 +0000

This is a terrific post and I particularly enjoy all the interesting responses. Thanks to Tanner for reading/mentioning my book, “You Majored in What?” I hope it’s been helpful. My favorite question to ask alumni is “What was your favorite useless course” — by that I mean the class you thought was going to be worthless but you took it because you had to for whatever reason. The responses are amazing– people’s lives change sometimes as a function of one class. Many report changing majors, changing professions, learning something that becomes a lifelong hobby or fascination. It always pays to explore and learn– as the saying goes, “not all those who wander are lost.”
Thanks for this great post– I’m sure you helped people think differently about the value of their education.
.-= Katharine Brooks´s last blog ..Crush Your Dreams and Watch Them Take Off =-.

By: I left a keyword for a name

I left a keyword for a name — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 06:10:11 +0000

I plan on going overseas and making music for video game companies as well as teaching music (specifically guitar). There are a number of degrees I can get, but I don’t know which one I should go for.
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