I'm almost thirty with a degree in philosophy. College was easily the worst financial decision I've ever made. It's scary to reflect on how I made that mistake as a teenager. The people I've met that were able to successfully leverage the advantages of a college degree fall roughly into two categories: 1) people whose parents had the money to support them financially but also the sense to guide them with respect to a career; and 2) highly ambitious people with a plan. The problem is that there was a generation of students (myself included) that thought a university education led to a well-paying job. I know how incredibly naive that sounds. But it was also the understanding of many parents without formal education encouraging their children to attend. But I think in general there's an increasing awareness that this isn't the case and now we're having these anti-college conversations.
> The problem is that there was a generation of students (myself included) that thought a university education led to a well-paying job. I know how incredibly naive that sounds
I hear this all the time from people in their 20s and early 30s, earnestly complaining that they were tricked into believing this, and I think it's somewhat true.
But at the same time, I got my double major in Philosophy (primary was Computer Science), so I know that if you major in Philosophy (or Art, or Sociology, or--this will really get them going--Gender Studies), there will be people crawling out of the woodwork and lining up to tell you your degree is useless and that you should study engineering.
After seeing Yet Another Non-CS Major Software Engineer, I recently joked that we should send a letter to all Freshman and tell them "Just study CS--it's what you're going to end up doing anyway."
My coworker, a software engineer with an art degree, turned to me and said "UT sent me that letter when I started college. I ignored it."
So....we're sending mixed signals to teens. I think you're right that it's starting to turn around and get less mixed. More pro-trade school stuff is appearing on Facebook, for one (though maybe it's that my friend group is shifting).
I'm have a master is philosophy and don't regret it for a second. Helped shape my thinking in so many ways and was probably one of the largest contributors to my ongoing success as in software development. I've known a surprising number of philosophy majors in software, so I don't think it's an accident that it helped me. Seems like philosophy may be one of the better areas of study to help get your brain working in ways that are conducive to software.
I used to hate Philosophy and think it's something people who can't do anything do. My vision changed lately and I think Philosophy and theoretical thinking is important.
However, abstract theoretical thinking without an adjacent skill (like software development), is probably useless in the market today. This is probably why the OP didn't find financial success.
Suggesting a philosophy career is then a bad idea. Suggesting a CS + Philosophy career might be a decent one though.
Oh, for sure. Philosophy has pretty much 1 career path, acedemics, and it is pretty cutthroat and pays poorly. I figured out that didn't appeal to me in time to pivot into software development.
I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself. I have met some great technically minded program managers who majored in philosophy. Granted you may not get far in SV (don’t know - I don’t live there) but in other big Corp and fed govt you can find people who appreciate a well rounded candidate. Try sales engineering, product owner or program manager if you’re looking for tech jobs.
It’s too bad that we have such blinders on as an industry. There’s more to tech work than knowing the big-O notation of a given algorithm off the top of your head.
I have a philosophy degree (strictly speaking History and Philosophy of Science) and I'm a staff software engineer at Google.
I've been doing this professionally for 25 years, and definitely my career had a slow start, it took a good nine months out of college to find my first job, which essentially served as an apprenticeship. I've certainly never had a problem with being insufficiently technical, if you can work your way through Gödels incompleteness theorem then you can work your way through PAXOS or an algorithms text book
As a philosophy major, at my university we do so in our "Advanced Symbolic Logic" class. However, the depth with which you engage with Gödel's theorem depends on the professor teaching it and their interests when designing the course (we have 2 specializing in mathematical logic who flip back and forth iirc).
I remember, in an upper-level Philosophy class, the professor mentioning Gödel, and I'm pretty sure no one but me knew who he was. (Though, to be fair, at the time I knew him as "Go-Dell", so when he asked about "Girdle" I initially didn't recognize the name.)
That "Girdle" pronunciation is like nails on a chalkboard! The umlaut is an oo (or ue) sound. There is no "r" anywhere! As both a philosophy student and German speaker, whenever my professors pronounced it like that I shuddered in my seat.
I'm sure actual native German speakers could probably chime in, but I couldn't help but try to stop the spread of FUD around pronouncing poor ol' Gödel's name. :)
As a German speaker and (I assume) English speaker, you're likely aware that the sound represented by ö is not at all common in English. One can argue that it's not like "r", but it's a closer approximation of the mouth position and sound than others. The IPA for Gödel is /ˈɡɜːrdəl/ : the symbols don't map one-to-one with English orthography (then again, what does), but it's no accident that there's an r in there. And then there's the question of whether or not to pronounce names closer to how they're pronounced in their native tongue, or how they're more properly understood, or some other rational.
Thanks for the reply! I didn't know the standardized IPA was in fact with an "r." Strange though, because to me the umlauted-o sound is probably one of the easiest German pronunciations to do for an English speaker. Also, good point on the compiled/interpreted (using a programming analogy) divide in pronunciation of borrowed words. I do suppose there is plenty of evidence of butchered French terms already, so why not ruin some other language's beautiful sounds too! groaning laughter
Though, I should not be all that surprised. For my entire life in the U.S. people have pronounced my last name of "Wiese" as either "Wise" or "Why-se," both of which are totally incorrect (my family says "Weese" when anglicized). I much prefer the German pronunciation of my last name, though; too bad it's too much of a pain to explain the discrepancy between how it's spelt and what it sounds like to native English speakers. :P
I have no idea. We mostly glossed over it in class, but I had been given a copy of Gödel Escher Bach at some point so I dove a little deeper. My personal preference is Nagel's book which is short and clear (and you can probably find a digital version)
This was very much a theme of the way we were taught, there is no possible way to go into anything in depth in a lecture, if something sparked interest then we were supposed to read up on it, write a paper, and get criticized. Some classes had reading lists with well over a hundred books on them
I was so afraid of debt I religiously avoided it. But I had another friend who racked up major debt in undergrad and then law school. When I asked him about paying it off, he said he could just get out of it through bankruptcy. Apparently the law student hadn't checked the law on that.
I attended a grad program for just one semester (since I was able to get the first semester as a free trial - but the rest of the degree would have cost $150K and the program was ranked #1 in the US News scam rankings and yet the school refused to give any statistics on employment of graduates. No problem for the women, who all got the entire $180K paid by corporations. A couple of the guys, though, as I feared, were unemployed for over two years... after $180K debt for a program ranked #1 with an acceptance rate well under 5%! One girl needed a job in less than a week to stay in the US, so her boyfriend hired her as a programmer though she had absolutely no knowledge or experience and so she just started getting paid to study CS. By then, I had about completed a CS program at another school but couldn't get a single job offer.
Several of the guys told me their plan to pay off the $180K was to get Bernie Sanders elected so he'd just forgive it. In fact, that's the most common plan I've heard. Very few people want to pay back student loans unless they quickly get a lucrative job and I dunno if I've found anyone (in person) other than me who felt at least a possible moral obligation to pay if I decided to take out the loan.
Really brings into question what type of law education that guy was getting if he didn't know student loans couldn't be bankrupted...I think I learned that from high school...
> a university education led to a well-paying job. I know how incredibly naive that sounds
That was the god honest trust for about 40 years, so it wasn't naive. The market conditions changed drastically and abruptly, but the same advice was being given.
Is this really true? I have my doubts there was ever a time where an English or philosophy or art history undergrad degree had very much value in the job market. And if there was, what specifically has changed to make that no longer the case?
Very true. Circa 1980 there were lots of management trainee programs with large companies open to any degree. A friend with a BA in history joined one of the large rental car companies. After a six month training program became a manager of a local office. A few years later he was a regional manager, then a few years later left for a better position with a competitor.
Absolutely agree. A big part of this problem, which is still being perpetuated today, is this idea that if you go to college and study ANYTHING then it will get you that coveted 50k/year salary job upon graduation. This idea was mainly perpetuated by elementary, middle and high school teachers, as well as parents who honestly should not have even been giving career advice to begin with.
Also you are by far not the only one in this situation. I have friends on my facebook that I look back at and see them still working the same job they worked while in college (making roughly 23k/year in Southern California!). They have degrees in sociology, psychology, philosophy, communications etc. Their degree has made them worse off because now they have student loans to repay on a degree which simply cannot support the repayment of such loans. Likewise, the degree did not increase their income at all. It is hard to believe but in reality, they would have been better off not going to college at all.
