I have had more PhDs recommend against college than for it. I’m not joking. It’s scary.
They’ll tell you that if you can get by without a degree, by all means do or at least heavily consider it.
Education is undoubtedly important, as often evidenced by people’s lack of it. But even those who ran the gauntlet decades ago have lost faith in the system.
And now we have a whole new litany of problems on their way because of the rising prominence of GenAI and I can confidently say that academia is wholly unprepared for the shit storm coming it’s way.
I’m guessing that’s more because they’ve spent a good decade or so working on their degree, which is probably too specialized to get the job they want in their field.
There is such a thing as too much college too. PhDs are very handy if you want to be a professor or go into a very specialized field and hope there are available jobs. Not so much for everyone else.
There is also the cost to benefit ratio. Even IF you can get a job in your chosen field, the cost of the education to get there and the increasing pace of industrial change as required knowledge grows and changes can make your degree not really worth the effort. While I certainly don’t know for sure, it could be conceivable that the world might not even miss half of collage graduates produced today. And most people could make a living with a “simpler and more focused” technical education.
The world will always need carpenters, plumbers, electricians, accountants, and garbage collectors. And perhaps not so many people with a Master’s degree in library sciences or maybe with the advent of AI, even human programmers.
I think there’s an inflationary effect where so many people go to university that a regular degree is devalued. It leads to people who wouldn’t otherwise do postgraduate study to do some to be as competitive as an undergrad degree was years ago. I see people sleep walking into postgrad study because they don’t know what to do after graduation because an undergrad degree is so limited nowadays
^ This … my father has his doctorate, yet is talking about chem trails, stockpiling guns and food for the coming apocalypse, and is a full on Trump supporting MAGAT right wing Christian.
I have had more PhDs recommend against college than for it. I’m not joking. It’s scary.
They’ll tell you that if you can get by without a degree, by all means do or at least heavily consider it.
Education is undoubtedly important, as often evidenced by people’s lack of it. But even those who ran the gauntlet decades ago have lost faith in the system.
And now we have a whole new litany of problems on their way because of the rising prominence of GenAI and I can confidently say that academia is wholly unprepared for the shit storm coming it’s way.
I’m guessing that’s more because they’ve spent a good decade or so working on their degree, which is probably too specialized to get the job they want in their field.
There is such a thing as too much college too. PhDs are very handy if you want to be a professor or go into a very specialized field and hope there are available jobs. Not so much for everyone else.
There is also the cost to benefit ratio. Even IF you can get a job in your chosen field, the cost of the education to get there and the increasing pace of industrial change as required knowledge grows and changes can make your degree not really worth the effort. While I certainly don’t know for sure, it could be conceivable that the world might not even miss half of collage graduates produced today. And most people could make a living with a “simpler and more focused” technical education.
The world will always need carpenters, plumbers, electricians, accountants, and garbage collectors. And perhaps not so many people with a Master’s degree in library sciences or maybe with the advent of AI, even human programmers.
I think there’s an inflationary effect where so many people go to university that a regular degree is devalued. It leads to people who wouldn’t otherwise do postgraduate study to do some to be as competitive as an undergrad degree was years ago. I see people sleep walking into postgrad study because they don’t know what to do after graduation because an undergrad degree is so limited nowadays
We always seem to equate common sense and education.
I’ve met some dense people with PhDs. And some smart people that never got formal education.
Obviously best case is smart and educated. But you can’t teach someone common sense.
Therapists do that sometimes
^ This … my father has his doctorate, yet is talking about chem trails, stockpiling guns and food for the coming apocalypse, and is a full on Trump supporting MAGAT right wing Christian.
Just out of curiosity - which country was your sample from, if I may ask?