Indeed: A Bachelors Degree in the Classics should get him out of the toilets.
To finish his degree is an amazing accomplishment and we should not be looking down at him. Unfortunately he pursued a degree that unless the college decides to make him a professor, his only other option will to be stay on as a janitor - a highly educated janitor, but a janitor none the less.
Good for him!
AMEN to him.
A degree in the “classics”?! Oh well. At least he actually works. Otherwise, I’d say we have a future OWS on our hands. He must like his janitor job a lot.
The article is incorrect in one way. It says he got his degree for free. That is not entirely true. He had to declare every class he took as regular income at the rate Columbia would have charged a cash paying student. He paid Social Security and Medicare at a minimum, and probably some local, state and federal income tax as well.
There isn’t much of a call for employees with a Classics degree, but... He now has a good command of a few languages, a strong work ethic, American citizenship and a college degree. Even if he stays at Columbia, he should be moved up to supervisor/management in the very near future.
To me, he sounds like a perfect candidate to open his own business and become one of the one percent.
The 52-year-old janitor donned a cap and gown to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in classics.
You are 52 years old you are getting a free education and you choose a degree in classics?
Okay so you can now stop cleaning toilets and maybe manage a McDonalds!
I love his attitude. He wants to live a life that is humble and honorable. He takes pride in his profession. I respect that a lot.
Well done, Mr. Filipaj.
I hope that you are able to fulfill your dreams of scholarship and passing this knowledge on to future generations.
Probably the only useful and worthy graduate of Columbia in years.
“Ah, Bach!”
What I like best about this graduate, is that he earned his degree, but it doesn’t sound like he feels the world owes him a six-figure income. His expectations are commensurate with the degree. This attitude is the complete opposite of many of the OWS crowd. Plus, he worked within the system to graduate with what sounds like little, or no loan debt. He’s in a much better position to now pursue his graduate studies.
Never thought I’d see achieving an Ivy League Classics degree being denigrated on FR.
As a Columbia employee, his classes were free.”
Amazing...that would be an interesting strategy for someone. Get a job there, and get that benefit rather than paying or borrowing the tuition.
Columbia’s classics department is actually outstanding, and isn’t the cesspool that most others are. It has some great traditional classics scholarship.
That said...this isn’t a career move for him. But I’d reckon he knows that.
I would agree with those who identify a liberal arts degree as unmarketable at least for now. But what i really like about this story is the attitude. We should all be life long learners.
As an individual who has a B.S. degree from the early 80s, I just this semester took my first community college class to learn what I thought was impossible for me, the subject of algebra. I spent 46 hours in the classroom, 30 hours on-line and somewhere around 90 hours in homework/book study and review. What might be an easy A for some on FR for me turned out to be a well earned B. I have nothing but a smile ear to ear and next week will start intermediate algebra. This whole concept of actually learning and enjoying math would have been laughable one year ago.
Set goals and be a life long learner.
What can you do with a major in Classics? Anything! The Classics major, like other majors in Columbia and Barnard colleges, is not designed to be a pre-professional training, and while some of our students go on to become professional Classicists, most use the education they receive to help them succeed in a diverse range of fields unconnected with their major. Like students who major in other subjects, Classics majors become doctors, farmers, lawyers, writers, executives, chefs, teachers, social workers, politicians, entrepreneurs, and anything else they choose.The importance of an undergraduate education is primarily to train a student’s mind to cope with the challenges it will meet later, and only secondarily to fill that mind with any particular set of facts. Since all major programs at Barnard and Columbia have been designed to provide similar benefits, we believe that students should choose their fields of study based on their interests. For many people, the undergraduate years offer the only chance they ever have to explore the subjects which really fascinate them, and we hope that every student at Columbia and Barnard will take full advantage of that opportunity.
Having said that, we believe that the particular training offered by the Classics program will be more useful than most others when it comes to success later in life. Classics is a difficult subject, and students who have mastered Latin and Greek will find other intellectual challenges much less daunting than people who have never learned anything quite so difficult. Classics graduates know how to absorb large quantities of information quickly, retain it, and use it rapidly. They know how to analyse and interpret, to pay attention to details without losing track of the big picture, and to relate a work or event to its context. They have the kind of thorough understanding of grammar that only a training in Latin and Greek can give, and that understanding is reflected in the high quality of their English writing. Having been taught for four years in small classes by professors who know them as individuals and want them to succeed, they have received an education tailored to their own needs and goals. They also have the ability to read some of the world’s greatest literature in its original form, and at times when the task of earning a living seems tedious and uninspiring, many Classics graduates are very glad to have access to the riches of ancient literature, as well as to the many later works which cannot be fully appreciated without a substantial background in the ancient world. In addition, on a crasser level, Classics degrees are highly respected by law schools, medical schools, and employers.
Marking
Where will it take her? To medical school in the fall. Don't count out where a solid education can take anyone.