The Glade 4.0

I don't care of he wrote a thesis. He spent 35,000 studying puppetry. That is not a very marketable skill. He pursued it to do what he loved and he expects to make money off of it.

He went in with naive expectations expecting that because he has a degree on what he loves he could find employment in that field. Realistically if you want to work in an area you love you find real job opportunities and find one you like and see if you love it - if you do you then spend money in the pursuit.

It is as a useless degree as exists Khross. I don't give a rats-ass if he knows a ton about puppetry - it isn't a marketable skill and the guy is a fool for thinking it is. The market for puppeteers is perhaps 200'ish and I think that is being generous. A few kids shows here and there, a few muppet specials, a few movies.

Or we could simply observe reality. The man cannot get a job paying more than his old one with the degree. As stated that seems to be the goal he had in mind for getting it (that goal might have changed but its his goal now). Thus there is no use towards that goal that the degree is facilitating. Useless - without use. It fits.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

No, he spent $35,000 studying puppet arts, which includes classes in Stage Management, Script Writing, Production, Set Design, etc.

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Which has facilitated...debt and nothing more. Without use.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I don't have a degree.

I told them that a degree without the will to succeed is useless, and if one has the will to succeed, nothing can stop them except if they give up.

That said, I have one son going to college for a mechanical engineering degree (no student loans), a step-daughter going to school for a business degree (no student loans) and another son in the National Guard who is just finishing up his associates degree (again, no student loans).

I pay half for every "C" or better, after I'm shown the report card.

Now, can we talk about the false dilemma you're trying to perpetuate about needing student loans to get a degree?

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In time, this too shall pass.

Nope, because I never said anyone did. Nowhere, ever. So, how about we talk about your blatant misrepresentation of what I said?

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such degrees are a gamble. There are people who make large amounts of money with them. There are also people who work as waiters and waitresses while they try to find such jobs.

Finding work backstage in theater is not that hard however. My information is 15 years old, however mid-range salary for someone in the field working backstage was about $40,000/year. The job market is considerably better than for actors obviously.

There aren't any degrees that guarantee you success in life; there aren't any degrees that are useless. There are a whole bunch of degrees that aren't economically viable, but people pretty much already have them. In the future, there will be a whole lot more degrees that aren't economically viable. And, if the Obama administration has its way, THEN ALL degrees will cease to be economically valuable.

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So, which is it? Are you perpetuating a false dilemma or a non sequitur? I was assuming that your comment showed at least some capability at understanding what you were replying to, so I went with "false dilemma".

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In time, this too shall pass.

Taskiss:

Oh, right, I forgot ... this is the Glade; asking questions is verboten.

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Heheh, Khross, I'll believe what I've read.



One of his problems is that he went right back to the public teat looking for employment rather than going the route you propose.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

And what you read demonstrates a terminal degree with a significant amount of non-puppet-related work and study.

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Nope, it doesn't.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

So, this means that all of those Broadcast Journalism classes like Broadcast News Writing, TV Studio Techniques and Producing, and Media Law have absolutely no knowledge or applicability outside of the area on which their names are based?

DAMMIT! I knew I should have picked something with real-world applications, like Arguing Fruitlessly on Internet Message Boards.

You have a job in your field Farsky? Not without use.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I just didn't realize I wasn't supposed to use that knowledge or taught skillset outside of the area specifically defined by my major. I'm not anywhere close to Journalism. In fact, going by my current career path, I'd have been 'better served' by getting my degree in Graphic Design with a minor in Advertising/PR.

But I believe that's Khross' point: Just because something has 'puppet' in the title doesn't mean that the core knowledge being taught isn't applicable for other, related areas. I'd wager that someone with a degree in Advanced Puppetry was taught the exact same skill set as someone who went in for a straight Theater Arts degree (writing, direction, set design, construction, et. al.) with Puppetry speciality on top of that, and the skills are thus applicable to any of the theater, television, or film areas.

I thought that might be his point too, but when he took exception to my generic observation that a degree that doesn't at least pay for itself is useless, I began to suspect he's got a specific attraction to pulling strings and watching herky-jerky.

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In time, this too shall pass.

No degree pays for itself. Possible exceptions would be lawyers and doctors (and maybe a handful of tech-related certifications). You have to make the degree work.

if the degree can be leveraged to provide increased income, and the increased income is greater (over some period) than the cost of tuition for the degree, then the degree pays for itself.

The key is leveraging the degree.

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In time, this too shall pass.

That's rather the person holding the degree doing that. The degree itself is inert (as I said, with the exceptions of a handful of degrees that act as status symbols or tech certifications).

Primarily, I'm taking exception to your continued insistence on the use of the word "useless"; secondarily, I'm chuckling to myself as you continue to validate this guy's statements. You see, it's not the degree that's useless. Most of those classes are cross-listed with other majors, especially at the Graduate Level; and that's done for bureaucratic reasons. You multi-list and cross-list a given class with a given professor (or professor pool) to clear up the confusion about what classes count and don't count toward a specific degree.

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As FarSky notes, you're holding the degree accountable for the individual's failing; which is, incidentally, why I asked you how many kids you sent to college. By the by, note that verb--"sent"; I didn't say you put any of them through, nor did I ask you about any of their debt-loads.

We can get into all sorts of discussion about the nature of education and universities/colleges in the United States, but the whole "useless degree" talk just annoys me to no end.

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I don't see a useless degree. I see a specialized degree that the guy hasn't made useful.

Now, I might buy that the college might be overselling the rate at which graduates holding such degrees convert it into something useful, aiding and abetting potential students in making poor choices. I'd have to see some stats on how big their puppetry MFA class sizes are over the past several years, and then follow up to see what some such graduates are doing.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

It'd be useful if he was in Hollywood working for a special FX company that dealt with animatronics.

Or Disneyland.

So its a *very* narrowly useful degree that's not being utilized properly.

That makes that guy an idiot.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Yet, no one stated anything resembling those remarks. What I took exception to was the statement that there was significant "non-puppet-related work and study". That's obviously not the case.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I think you'll find that many people find work outside of their area of degree specialization. I know I did. My degrees and licenses had nothing to do with finance, for example. You'll find, if you care to look, is that this guy left a full-time position as an Elementary School Drama Teacher at a public school. He should have been thanking his lucky stars that his school had that position and that he held it, rather than becoming frustrated enough with "class sizes, limited resources and bureaucracy" that he left to pursue a specialization that didn't significantly broaden his career possibilities. To compound his "wisdom" he came right back to the public school system he'd left because of "class sizes limited resources and bureaucracy".




Many public school systems increase a teacher's pay just for attaining a higher degree, this guy's problem is that he left then came back.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko