
This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach - naner
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/08/this_is_why_the_american_dream.html
======
yalurker
Sigh, another blogger trotting out the tired, false cliche that college is
useless. From the article: "Were you smarter at 21 post college than your Dad
was at 21? And whatever the difference, was it worth the $50k-$200k he paid to
get you it?"

Yes. Yes I was smarter. And I didn't pay 200k because I went to a state
school. I graduated a wholly different person with a completely different
world-view and a ton of applicable skills that landed me a high-paying
software engineering job instead of doing the manual labor or trivial office
tasks that I was qualified for before college.

If you go to a private school to get a history degree then sure, it was 4
years of expensive partying that doesn't leave you any more employable. Go get
a science/engineering/JD/MD heck even an MBA and you damn well better be
smarter at the end.

~~~
cynicalkane
I'm rather bothered by all the people knocking liberal arts degrees, in this
and other threads. I did go to a school with a reputation for having a hard
liberal arts core education, and it turned out to be a great decision. (In
retrospect, I now wish I had gone to a different school, but the one I chose
wasn't bad at all.)

It's hard to explain why it's good to be able to think about these things, but
it's hard to explain why it's valuable to be able to think about math and
programming (especially to a math class full of skeptical kids). Essentially,
a good liberal arts education transforms your world-view of those subjects the
same way a good engineering education does. Just like you shouldn't condemn
yourself to reinventing Quicksort when you can be capable of more advanced
algorithms, nor should you find yourself reinventing Locke when thinking about
politics. It is much better to build on the history of thought instead of
being doomed to repeat it (and you'll only repeat it satisfactorily if you're
a genius anyway).

OK, there are worthless liberal arts educations. But there are also worthless
computer science educations, as anyone who's worked with other programmers has
discovered.

~~~
fuzzmeister
As am I. A liberal arts education makes you better able to understand and
explain the world around you. The notion that every moment of college must be
teaching you a skill that you will directly apply in your future career is
positively stifling.

~~~
jerf
Strawman. Very few people are saying that, not enough to worry about. The
claim is not that 100% of college should be about teaching useful skills, the
claim is that if you're going to be put into tens of thousands of dollars of
debt that can not be removed by bankruptcy it should probably be the case that
more than _zero_ percent of your college time should be spent on a directly-
salable skill.

Many people are really misunderstanding the argument here. It is not that
liberal arts are bad. It is that it is basically large-scale _fraud_ to sell a
college degree as best way to a well-paying job and worth the massive
undischargable-debt without explaining that the promise really only applies to
practical degrees.

You are free to complain about how the market only values degrees that produce
marketable skills (and I've deliberately phrased it a bit tautologically to
make it obvious that it's not really a very compelling complaint), but I still
say that if you want people to pursue impractical degrees you need to be doing
it by telling them the truth about what they are doing. I will not deny
anybody their right to go into tens of thousands of dollars of debt chasing
their dream, I just want them to do it with eyes wide open.

------
marze
Great story. Parents encourage son to beat head against the closed doors of
corporate america instead of encouraging him to becoming an entrepreneur.

The author's conclusion:

"I'm not here offering a solution for the 45 year old guy with three kids. I
am offering encouragement to a crop of college kids infantilized by terrible
advice from parents and TV who have the freedom and opportunity to try
something; while simultaneously describing the only long term solution to
America's economic problems: more businesses. Jobs programs and stimulus
packages are debatably good or bad, but assuredly temporary. Remember "the
children are or future?" How about encouraging them a little? Maybe someday
they'll pay for your social security."

~~~
maukdaddy
um not quite so black & white. Scott isn't trying to become an entrepreneur
right now...he's not doing shit. He either needs to get a job (40k whatever,
it pays the bills) or start a damn company.

edit: Or as one commenter said, get a corp job to save some $$$ while you work
on something else on the side.

~~~
lanaer
Right. The author is saying he _should_ become an entrepreneur, and that his
family should be advising him to do so.

------
Alex3917
"I get that [having a good network gives] you an advantage, of course, but
does not having them mean a career in holes?"

Yes, obviously. If you aren't even well-networked enough to get a job then how
the hell are you supposed to be an entrepreneur? Being well-networked is
probably the single best predictor of entrepreneurial success, so criticizing
the grandfather's advice while telling him to start a company makes no sense.

The one thing the kid is probably right about though is not taking the job.
When I was a kid we used to talk about McJobs, i.e. jobs with no chances of
any upward mobility. These days pretty much every job at a big company is a
McJob, so you have to be really careful about working for someone else.

~~~
hnal943
Are you arguing that it's easier to become "well-networked" by sitting at
home? How do you think you would impress more people? By working or by being
too arrogant to work?

------
AlisdairO
Overall I found this article disappointingly full of worthless
generalisations.

 _There is absolutely no way that anyone who reads The Economist can have
concluded that Europe has surpassed America in anything not involving riots,
in the way that no one who reads Maxim can conclude that acne is in vogue._

I find this attitude deeply aggravating. Europe has simply chosen a different
path to the US, and to pretend that the US is superior in every way is
ridiculous.

Europe, on the whole, balances lower individual buying power and higher
unemployment against taking substantially better care of its citizens, and
much better class mobility. It's certainly arguable that the average citizen
experiences a higher overall quality of life in (western) Europe than in the
US. I can absolutely see how that style of life is not for everyone, so it's
great that countries like the US exist, but personally, I prefer to live in a
european model.

As for the value of a degree, when I went into my programme I was a decent
enough (for my age) coder, with a serious weight problem and very limited
social skills, and when I left I was a better coder with some good fundamental
background knowledge, fit, and socially confident. My degree program did me
the world of good - it's fine that it's not the route for everyone, but
pretending that all degrees are worthless makes you look silly.

edit: It appears that my infrequent reading of The Economist has resulted in
an unnecessary rant on my part. My apologies to the author!

~~~
rick888
"Europe, on the whole, balances lower individual buying power and higher
unemployment against taking substantially better care of its citizens,"

"lower individual buying power" means much higher taxes and less freedom with
your money.

Right now, the unemployment rate in most European countries is almost the same
as it is in the US:

[http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&...](http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&language=en&pcode=teilm020&tableSelection=1&plugin=1)

~~~
cma
>>"lower individual buying power" means much higher taxes and less freedom
with your money.

Higher taxes don't necessarily mean less freedom with your money; a collective
good that a group largely (or even unanimously) in favor of purchasing might
go unpurchased due to the free rider problem.

See Mancur Olson's "The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the
Theory of Groups"

~~~
rick888
"Higher taxes don't necessarily mean less freedom with your money; a
collective good that a group largely (or even unanimously) in favor of
purchasing might go unpurchased due to the free rider problem."

When you are taxed, that money may or may not go toward something you want to
purchase (and many times, the people in the middle and upper classes are
paying for programs that they will never use). That money is gone and you have
that much less to spend, save, or invest.

You also don't really have a say in where it's spent.

------
sliverstorm
Just out of curiosity, the article derides the fact that his job search begins
and ends in the morning- when I read that, I thought "well, you could
certainly use the rest of the day for self-improvement- fitness, projects
relevant to the job you want, volunteer work..."

Is that a bad strategy, or when job hunting should you be pounding the
pavement 24/7?

~~~
jtbigwoo
That was my thought, too. No matter how I feel about rejecting the insurance
job, I can't deny that he's showing sufficient dedication to job hunting. The
trouble is he doesn't seem to be showing any dedication to anything else. Why
is he not tutoring or coaching little league? Why is he not learning something
or building something?

~~~
SHOwnsYou
I have to disagree that he is showing sufficient dedication to job hunting.

I recently moved away from a secure job that paid well to live closer to
family. All my old friends asked me what I was going to do. I assured them I
would have a job after my first day of looking.

I did. I worked serving fast food for three weeks before I found a job more in
line with my previous employment. During those three weeks I worked serving
food, I was emailing my resume out, making calls, and dropping to on local
places. I worked my network and heard about an opportunity.

Having a college degree and working for 4 hours a day to find a job while mom
and dad pay for your rent, food, and entertainment is a sign of utter failure.

I have been independent since I was 19, after my freshman year of school. I've
said it before and will always say it. If I have to move back home after what
I've accomplished thus far, I have failed.

~~~
randallsquared
_I worked serving fast food for three weeks before I found a job more in line
with my previous employment._

Ah, and for those three weeks, what did you do about the crushing, crippling
depression and feelings of doom as you wondered if you'd ever again find
anything better than fast food?

What's that? You didn't feel that way? Some of us do. This was such a powerful
effect for me, personally, that when the company I was working for folded in
December 2008, I borrowed money for two months to pay rent rather than getting
a "just for now" job that couldn't pay my bills anyway, but which certainly
would suck up all my energy and send me immediately into depression
(presumably not clinical depression; I'm using the word to mean just being
depressed), in which state virtually anything I do would be hampered,
including effectiveness at looking for a job.

~~~
SHOwnsYou
It must be nice to have a life so luxurious you can't stomach working a dead
end job for 2 months.

It is interesting to me the different notions of pride people have. I would
lose all my pride if I had to take out loans to survive. It seems you would
lose your pride if you ever had to take something less than you thought you
were worth.

It has been impressed upon me my entire life that self sufficiency is the
greatest thing you can achieve.

I am genuinely curious to know (you and the others that are cripplingly
depressed when life doesnt go their way) -- Why would you be in a crippling
state of depression?

This is eye opening and like a field course in psychology to me.

EDIT I'm not going to baby anyone. It's pathetic to skate by on loans rather
than your own hard work. Grow some balls, stomach your problems, and power
through it.

My goal in life is to be the rock of stability that people can cling to when
times are difficult. If that means ignoring my fears like they aren't there,
then that is what I will do. If that means serving french fries to people that
are more rude than you can imagine - saying horrible things about you just
because you work at mcdonalds - then that is what I will do.

But please do answer my above question. I learn more with every comment that
is made. EDIT

~~~
randallsquared
_It must be nice to have a life so luxurious you can't stomach working a dead
end job for 2 months._

Wow. This is exactly the opposite of what I meant to convey.

 _It seems you would lose your pride if you ever had to take something less
than you thought you were worth._

What's pride got to do with this? It's not about pride, or self-respect, or
honor, or any of that. It's about a pervasive feeling of helplessness, of
feeling unable to crawl out of the hole that you've slipped back into, after
struggling out once before with lots of hard work and luck, and noticing that
all the people you knew back in the day are _still there_ , even though
they're working about as hard as you did.

It's about fear. Once the fear has set in, that fear that you'll never succeed
again, that it was all a fluke, that last year was the high point of your life
rather than the latest step up on a generally progressing journey, everything
becomes harder. It's harder to look for a job. It's harder to care about
keeping up the non-job things you were doing. Coding for an open source
project, playing a game or socializing with your friends, exercising, making
reasonable-effort meals instead of nuking a frozen pizza, taking online
courses -- these things start to seem pointless. Sending out resumes and
calling recruiters becomes something you're doing because it's just what
people do, rather than because you think that you'll actually get a new job
that's better than the last one. Eventually you may stop doing that, because
what's the point? You're exhausted, and you have to get up early to go to work
and perform mindless activity with people you despise, because your fear and
depression has poisoned your interactions with every new person you meet.

I've been down this road once before, in 2003, and I really didn't need to do
that again. Instead, I looked for a job that could actually pay my lease
(which was too high for a single minimum wage job, and I had 7 months to go)
and other bills, and kept my spirits up by continuing to live life as though I
were about to get a new job and therefore didn't need to shift into a lower
gear (as it were), and that worked out much better. I did have to borrow for a
coupla months rent (one after I already had a job, since I hadn't gotten a
paycheck, yet), and I was out of work for 3-4 months, counting the months I
didn't get paid for, but it all worked out.

In my life, every time I've shifted my aim lower because I was afraid I
wouldn't be able to do better, I've been right. Every time. What I've learned
from this is that I should avoid spending my time and energy when it literally
isn't worth it. It's better to keep my head up and my attitude cheerful,
because without those things, I'll need a lot of luck to get back out of the
rut again.

 _I am genuinely curious to know (you and the others that are cripplingly
depressed when life doesnt go their way) -- Why would you be in a crippling
state of depression?_

It's not just life not going my way. _That_ did happen in 2008, more than once
(divorce, my business failed, then the company I started at when my wife and I
split up _also_ failed), but while I was very, very upset over some of those
things, they didn't drive me into the depression and ennui that I used to feel
all the time in the early and mid 90s, when it seemed that there was no way
out of my current situation. In situations like that, the solution has always
been to _quit_ my job, rather than get a new one. In late 1997, I quit my
refrigerator manufacturing job and bought a Novell Certification guide with
the money I would otherwise have spent on gas to get to work that week, and by
early 1998 I had a Novell network job (no previous tech jobs).

In 2008, I left Alabama and came to the DC metro, and had a good job within a
coupla weeks. Only a few months before that, it had felt like I was trapped in
Alabama with no future but working at $10/hr. This experience reminded me
exactly what feeling to avoid, so that when that company failed in December
(after not paying since mid-October), I knew exactly what I needed to do: I
did all the job search stuff I could easily do for another programming job,
and I avoided doing anything that I would do if I were planning to be out of a
job for months. I played games. I watched a lot of TV. I did some Erlang and
played with Java on my new G1. I invited a friend to come up to stay with me
and look for a job here because the economy and job situation was so great
around DC (!).

This sustained burst of optimism did the trick; I got a nice contract gig that
turned into a permanent position, where I still am. If I had gone to get a
gone to get a job at McDonald's, even assuming I'd immediately gotten a
$10/hr, full time position, I would have been making less than my rent per
month, after taxes. So, still borrowing money, but without the energy and
optimism.

After reflecting on this and writing about it, I realize that part of the
problem is that I'm very introverted and somewhat antisocial. Virtually every
low-paying job is a service job, which means dealing with people all day. Much
of the drained, depressed feeling I had for much of the 90s could probably be
traced back to feeling forced to interact with people I would rather have
avoided or ignored. Extroverts might well have the opposite reaction; I dunno.

~~~
SHOwnsYou
I want to start by saying that what you wrote in the first paragraphs is very
raw. I like it a lot. I was serious when I said I was interested to know.

I used to be extremely introverted. I thought I was smarter than everyone else
(not saying you're like this), and pretty much was happy doing my own little
thing. Then I got my first job. I had to go out and talk to a lot of people.
Even though it was usually small talk, it had to happen. 2-400 people every
day (I was a bank teller). That gave me some interpersonal skills and a
shitload of confidence.

I like that you got the Novell book, studied, went after and got a job. That
kind of thing takes heart.

But ultimately, that is what I don't understand. You have so much heart, but
it seem like you don't want to recognize or apply it all the time. If one job
at McDonald's wont pay the rent. Why aren't you getting a second job at Barnes
and Noble? It sucks. It totally does, but there is a silver lining; You're in
total control.

It is puzzling to me that you feel better about yourself living off of loans
playing video games than working at a dead end job.

I've created a theory, rather unpopular among some of my friends. I think that
people that believe in luck are more inclined to feel like you feel... You
even specifically mentioned luck at the top of your comment. I don't believe
in luck. As funny as it may sound "A real man makes his own luck" (Cal from
Titanic, also quoted by Dwight Schrute) is what I subscribe to. Anything I get
is because I worked my ass off to get there. I work hard, I produce results,
life gets easier in the tough times... Believing this has made a significant
change in my outlook on life.

~~~
randallsquared
_It is puzzling to me that you feel better about yourself living off of loans
playing video games than working at a dead end job._

Oh, if I'd thought I was living off of loans, I'd have been doomed, sure.
Instead, I was just temporarily borrowing some money until things improved.
That turned out to be true, and those people got paid back. The whole point
was to live as though I were about to get a job paying what I'd been making,
which helped enormously in _believing_ that I was going to, which helped me
stay optimistic over the months until I actually did, which meant I kept
trying at an optimum sustained level, and that I could smile and joke when
talking with recruiters and interviewers, rather than saying the minimum
required to get off the phone in the expectation that it wouldn't matter
anyway, etc.

But enough of my life history, eh? :)

~~~
SHOwnsYou
I am very interested in your life history.

What I get from this post is that you have to delude yourself into thinking
something that isn't true to not lose hope.

That is a very dangerous way to think. If you don't accept reality, you are
losing out. Not just on what is actually happening, but it is how to build
confidence in yourself. "I am in a terrible situation, but by my ability to
think of my feet and provide for myself when I needed it, I am very capable."
There are a lot of important self actualizations that occur when all hope is
lost.

------
SMrF
I find myself agreeing whole heartedly with the sentiment of the article. So
much so in fact, that I am a bit nervous to share the link with my social
network -- mainly because I know my dad will read it!

------
watmough
Can anyone point me to the related post from a few weeks back, that concerned
the change in the workforce from 'safe' corporate jobs to a more 'free-agent'
based workforce?

Concerning the article, my wife pointed out that when she graduated with a
Liberal Arts degree and started working as a tech-writer back in 2000, her
starting salary was $42,000. A considerable more useful sum than $40k would be
today.

The guy in the article seems pretty stupid not to have taken the $40k, seeing
as he seems to have no other plan whatsoever. One revealing thing is his
comment about his cell bill. You can be sure his parents are also paying for
the house, for food, supplying a vehicle, paying insurance, buying him
clothes, medical insurance.

My verdict: he's a sheltered little corporate would-be drone, with zero actual
knowledge of the world.

------
thecircusb0y
This can be summed up to the following "Be proactive, happen to life or life
won't happen to you" .

------
jganetsk
Gotta love how he's described as having "absolutely no chance of STDs".

------
makeramen
I propose an alternate question: Even if he got the "package" job he was
looking for. Should he take it?

I'm currently in an argument with my parents about attempting a startup after
I graduate vs getting a job and trying to start something on the side.
Obviously the parents think it's too much risk, I think I've tried to "follow
the rules" for too long and have nothing to lose.

Anyone else been in a similar situation?

~~~
dwiel
I was in a similar situation a year ago. Had the same "follow the rules"
arguments with my parents. For the first few months after school I found
contract jobs, which payed well enough, and left me plenty of time for my own
thing and reflection. I highly recommend this path if you can stand living on
the cheap and not knowing when your next job will surface.

After a few contracts I wound up joining a cool startup as lead developer
since I wanted to pay off student debt fast and get some experience before
starting my own. In a year or two, I'll likely be finishing up with this
startup I'm at now and will have saved enough money to pursue my own thing
full time for a while. Who knows what will happen then ...

This all from someone who had some student loans to pay off and not much money
saved.

Both contract jobs and longer term employment with a startup have been hugely
valuable experiences that I am grateful to have had before starting my own.
There is a huge continuum between working for a fortune 500 company and as an
entrepreneur.

------
dman
Contextual advertising fail - The ad showing up for me on that site is for
Columbia college MBA.

------
invisible
While there are people like Scott, I think that there are also many people
that don't obey their parents advice to find a high-paying job. There are many
people that go out and take loans that they might default on to peruse a
dream. (I started my first business at 19 and had no guidance either way.)

I think, however, that there is a problem in school (even high school) that
pushes students towards wanting to start off making decent money with no input
as if they are entitled right off the bat. Scott says he expects his political
science degree to entitle him to $75,000/year (more or less). I bet all of his
teachers nursed him along with, "These are skills to get a high-paying job..."
They did that crap through most of my normal HS and college.

So the question to ask yourself is what encouraged you to start a business?
What made you take a risk on yourself? For me, it was oddly enough teachers at
a college vocational school during HS that didn't express "finding a dream
job" but rather learning for the betterment of oneself. We were encouraged to
do good work and show off that work rather than grind our way through busywork
and exams into a high paying job.

------
bryanh
As with everything else in life, college is a perfect example of "you get out
of it what you put into it" or garbage in/garbage out.

------
lefstathiou
I am still a bit skeptical of the "american dream is fake" skeptics.

We cant hold higher education responsible for people making poor decisions. It
isnt the college's fault that his lack of humility kept him unemployed. That
is his own issue. I could be wrong, but I believe this is the only time in
history that a typical 21 year old (presumably from any background) can come
out of college and immediately enter the top 1% of wage earners (in finance
and some engineering). Even looking beyond finance, look at what kids fresh
out of law school and med school (even not top tier med schools) are making.
Even teachers, who we typically view as underpaid, make considerably more now
than they did in our parents generation if you take into account the 200 day
work year and benefits.

------
jamesseda
My understanding of the American Dream is that everyone has the opportunity to
build themselves up from humble beginnings. This kid in the article thinks he
is entitled to make more than 40k, instead of accepting reality and working
hard to change his earning potential

------
prgmatic
I think the fact that we're seeing a lot of articles, stories, and
publications revolving around the thoughts of college becoming useless and the
importance of starting businesses says something about the way our culture is
changing, and perhaps waking up.

~~~
rick888
"I think the fact that we're seeing a lot of articles, stories, and
publications revolving around the thoughts of college becoming useless and the
importance of starting businesses says something about the way our culture is
changing, and perhaps waking up."

When I was 19, 20, and 21, I didn't see the importance of college. Now that
I'm 29 (with a bachelor's degree), I do. I suspect that many of these articles
are written by students or people that don't have a lot of life experience.

~~~
jwhitlark
I certainly think that education is important. I think the problem lately is
people have been valuing formal education _over_ life experience. College is
not the only life experience, nor in my opinion, is it the most important one.

Life is not a checklist!

~~~
rick888
"I certainly think that education is important. I think the problem lately is
people have been valuing formal education over life experience. College is not
the only life experience, nor in my opinion, is it the most important one."

College can't replace life experience. But, many of the articles I have seen
go in the opposite direction and say that college is useless.

To some it may be useless, but you will only get something out of it if you
put in the effort.

~~~
jwhitlark
Effort is always important, and not the issue here. I think one of the things
we need to get out of this discussion is a distinction between college as a
single concept, vs various courses of study that have greater or lesser
benefits for the student. I'm not going to argue that some courses of study
are worthless, but I do believe that many do not provide benefits beyond their
costs, (in all senses, not just financially.)

------
tsmith
""Scott has got to find somebody who knows someone," the grandfather said,
"someone who can get him to the head of the line."

Is this Russia?"

Hah. Best quote from the article. Between the baby boom, rising life
expectancies, and the 30-60% drop in boomers' retirement funds, people of
Scott's age are facing a completely different scenario than the two
generations before his. No shame in slacking by while society sorts itself
out.

~~~
hnal943
I think there is shame in slacking. It's not like Scott is forgoing a job to
work on something he views as more important. He's doing nothing but consuming
resources because of his own selfishness and arrogance.

------
pramit
One can also get a good education by reading the greatest books of all time.
For example, The Success Manual, which contains summaries of 100+ greatest
business and self-help books. <http://thesuccessmanual.bighow.com>

------
WingForward
Following on a recent magazine meme...what is the difference between an
entrepreneur and a small business person?

Give each one $50K, what happens?

------
known
I think within the context of globalization and internet, America should
review, refine and rewrite its laws and destination.

------
jameskilton
Or to put it succinctly: The Greatest Generation has given way to The Laziest
Generation.

~~~
noelchurchill
I assume by greatest generation you mean baby boomers. The article doesn't OP
doesn't refer to them as the greatest generation. And by given way, I think
you mean enabled, because the OP is making the point that Scotts parents have
paid his whole way and still pay for him while he declines job offers.

I have issue with calling the baby boomers the greatest generation. They've
saddled this country with an unimaginable debt burdon, creating a situation
where their kids may be the first American generation who's quality of life
may not exceed that of their parents, yet the baby boomers call their kids
lazy for not wanting to pick up the tab and pay for their extravagances.

However, Scott from the OP is still a lazy sack of ...

~~~
starkfist
"The Greatest Generation" refers to the parents of the baby boomers.

~~~
narrator
The "Greatest Generation" who guaranteed themselves the "Greatest Retirement"
package. In the fairy tale, all the goods and services they consume will come
from the magic money tree that the government fertilized somewhere with all
the money they paid into social security.

Back in reality land, a smaller population of heavily taxed and badly paid
members of the Gen X and Gen Y cohort will have to change grandma's bed pan
and they better be damned productive given how long everyone's living.

~~~
starkfist
Considering they were born between 1901 and 1924, the Greatest Generation is
mostly dead.

~~~
bitwize
But not _all_ dead! Mostly dead means slightly alive. All dead... well,
there's only one thing you can do: go through their pockets and look for loose
change.

------
mkramlich
Discussing whether college education is worth it is an inherently
controversial topic here on HN, I think, and here's why.

First, because most would agree that getting degrees in a technical field are
more justified and warranted than non-technical fields. So you're going to get
two totally opposite conclusions from the folks dissing $100k history degrees
versus the folks praising $70k electrical engineering degrees.

Secondly, software and business degrees are probably among the two fields
where you can arguably gain the exact same knowledge and skills outside of
college, free or very close to it, and at your own pace, and be just as
qualified to work in industry. Unlike say medicine or chemistry or physics,
etc. But here on HN software and business are probably two of our top most
interested fields among readers. So we know a lot about these fields in
particular. And the readers here should be very aware how easy it is to access
and use free and independent resources and techniques to teach themselves in
the areas of software and business. But with software and business in
particular we have two camps, each further split into sub-factions, and they
are all essentially right when it comes to their positions. Yes, having
college education is better than not. Yes, college is too expensive. Yes, you
can learn most things on your own. Yes, having that piece of paper WILL help
you in the long term. No, of course you don't actually need it (with
exceptions like doctors, etc.) All of these positions _seem_ in conflict, but
they're not, and that's where the controversy comes from. Because _everybody_
is right.

~~~
tjmc
Your post should be in the HN submission guidelines. With the banishment of
politics, religion and the other usual suspects, "formal education" has become
HN's flame war topic.

It would be an interesting experiment for pg to list flame war topics when
they emerge, link to a few insightful summaries (like yours) in the posting
guidelines and then ask people to write about something else.

~~~
mkramlich
thank you for the compliment. agreed the site would possibly be improved if
certain topics were banned or at least better moderated. it's hard to get rid
of all the bathwater without getting rid of little painful parts of the baby
though. :)

------
rufius
So the writing in this is atrocious. There's no clear line of thought. I got 5
paragraphs in and could not figure out just what the hell the author was
trying to tell me. LEARN TO WRITE.

~~~
mquander
What a shame that nobody has posted a pithy one-line summary for you. My big
condolences.

I spent three minutes skimming this article and it's perfectly clear what the
author's thesis is; that the millennial generation has been raised to expect a
breed of safe, corporate job in their favorite fields which just don't exist
in the quantity that young adults wish they did. He suggests that they had
better relax their standards and take some risks if they want to get work.

The author may not be Hemingway, but it's hardly difficult to understand.
Learn to fucking read.

~~~
jquery
> Learn to fucking read.

Is that necessary?

~~~
mquander
No, but if I didn't curse, my useless, content-free flamebait post would
probably only have gotten +10, not +20.

Amazingly, rufius's comment was at +11 before I posted. My speech must have
been very convincing.

I get the feeling that voting for comments on their merits here is a long lost
cause.

