Posted on 12/29/2007 4:25:58 PM PST by SeekAndFind
.S. News & World Report, which has made a name for itself by ranking and announcing the best colleges every year, is now ranking and listing the best careers for young people. A comparison of the latest lists shows a shocking disconnect and makes for dispiriting holiday reading.
While the price of a college education has skyrocketed far faster than inflation, many careers for which colleges prepare their graduates are disappearing. U.S. News' Best Careers guide concludes, "college grads might want to consider blue-collar careers" because bachelor's degree holders "are having trouble finding jobs that require college-graduate skills."
Incredibly, U.S. News is telling college graduates to look for jobs that do not require a college diploma. Among the 31 best opportunities for 2008 are the careers of firefighter, hairstylist, cosmetologist, locksmith and security-system technician.
Where did the higher-skill jobs go? Both large and small companies are "quietly increasing off-shoring efforts."
Ten years ago, we were told we really didn't need manufacturing because it can be done more cheaply elsewhere, that auto workers and others should move to information-age jobs. But now the information jobs are moving offshore, too, as well as marketing research and even many varieties of innovation.
The flight overseas includes professional as well as low-wage jobs, with engineering jobs offshored to India and China. Thousands of bright Asian engineers are willing to work for a fraction of U.S. wages, which is why Boeing just signed a 10-year, $1 billion-a-year deal with a government-run company in India.
Society has been telling high school students that college is the ticket to get a life, and politicians are pandering to parents' desire for their children to be better educated and so have a higher standard of living.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
hey - philosophy = analytical reading/writing skills = logic = software engineering
It’s a degree that’s carried me a long way in the IT field :)
where’s the anti-teacher posts ?
you mean the ones that point out that teachers are paid well enough ?
capitalism has nothing to do with politicians making trade deals.
That’s fascism.
good for you... but my impression of those majoring in philosophy was they all thought they were going to be philosophers. my question was always, big call for philosophers now days???
no... they just liked philosophy. most of them prolly flipping burgers now anyway.
That’s fascism.
It has a lot in common with fascism, except that fascism usually has a nationalistic component to it.
Perhaps you could call this "Globalistic Fascism".
I know the opinion of many in the technical/science fields about liberal arts degrees is the same as yours, but they are wrong (at least, they are wrong as long as the degree represents a high standard of achievement. You have to know the college and departments before that’s a given.)
Liberal arts degrees, for someone who is interested in any type of analyst work, are excellent preparation. You can assure yourself that a good liberal arts degree denotes very high quality in reading comprehension, writing and research abilities.
I have honors BA degrees in economics and philosophy, and I use those skills every day of my life. It’s all in how you package yourself. I took my interests in ham radio and electronics, paired them with skills in writing, analytical thinking and logic, and parlayed that into a very lucrative career in the software engineering/network engineer/systems administration worlds. Most engineers I work with can’t believe I don’t have an engineering degree.
I tell my kid she can major in anything, but she needs a plan to use the skills in some fashion.
Good one. Or just plain “corporatism” is probably appropriate.
true about the lib programs but the pure philosophy/womens studies/black studies/latino studies type programs etc. virtually never yield jobs in their field after graduation.
i see you majored in economics, so even if you had never studied philosophy at all you'd still be marketable with desirable skills.
That’s why I said you needed to know the school/department.
I know a kid who’s almost finished a French literature degree. Very worthless on its own, I agree, but the kid can think, speak, write a very well put together paper and defend it, and with a few marketing and business classes she took over the 4 years, she’ll find a good job.
Nah - when I graduated (I won’t tell you when ;>) ) I couldn’t find a job in any field related to economics thanks to a recession. I found a trainee job as a programmer by aceing the logic test for the position, and never looked back to the field of economics because I had found my passion.
> Chemical Engineering beats Sports Physiology, and it always will.
I have a chemical engineering degree. Check the life expectancy of a chemist or chem engineer. 55 years. I abandoned my chem engineer degree for mechanical and electrical years ago. My 3rd trip to the emergency room convinced me. Chem engineers may be one of the highest paying of the engineering fields, but I want to live to retirement age. I have 3 friends who got out of the field for similar reasons. One is now a programmer, the second a mechanical engineer and the third an electrical engineer.
I figured there must be a drawback to that average salary straight out of college. Would you say it’s the hours?
i always viewed lib-arts as for people who didn't know what they want to do. first year sees many major and or minor changes after the first semester.
some colleges are now starting all their tech/engineering freshman with the same courses with one or two core classes so if the student changes major they are only out one or two classes they have to make up.
logic was my favorite course... first day of class the prof says look in front of you and look behind you, look to the left of you and look to the right of you, cause come assembly class four out of the five of you won't be here.
and he was right. i was one of the 20% that graduated.
i also took a course in linear logic for fun.
I can confirm this is true in Chicago as well. In the suburbs, there are 100 applications for every open teaching spot, but no one in their right mind wants to work where their are "openings" in Chicago. Schools with metal detectors at the entrances seem to turn off new hires.
The "teacher shortage" is mostly a myth. The only shortage is in technical areas like math and physics. But people who are good in those subjects don't usually make good teachers, or don't want to teach. (There are exceptions of course)
Do a keyword search for education in the Free Republic search window. Then pick a thread at random and read some of the posts. Then get back to me.
I don’t think it’s the hours. I got pretty good pay right out of college. It took me 6 years to figure out that I was earning the higher salary because I was killing myself with chemical exposure.
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