Philosophy is genuinely a fantastic subject to study and I have no idea why school curriculums don’t reflect this
Stupid people are easier to control.
I mean also I studied philosophy and have had no regrets. It’s awesome and fascinating and rich and appeals to the fact that you just know that the world doesn’t really make sense
I talked to a guy who had a master’s degree in philosophy. He told me he worked for an investment firm.
Me: What do you do there, convince investment bankers not to kill themselves?
Him: Yeah, pretty much.
Me: 😳
convince investment bankers not to kill themselves?
Sometimes there is great value in a job done poorly.
I have a masters in philosophy.
I work in IT security and compliance. I’m getting promoted way faster than most of my peers who have masters in technology… because they are really bad at understanding new concepts and ideals and how to apply them. Their mental flexibility is limited.
So… I’ve spent more time than I care to admit attending University/College. I started out Undecided became a Science major then A Technology major before leaving with nothing to show for it. I’ve told myself for months now that the only way i’d ever go back was if I could be a Philosophy major.
Literally half of why I changed my degree lmao
A philosophy degree might actually stand out more in today’s job market than a CS one.
I was a dual major Electrical Engineering/Philosophy. The rigorous logic in some branches of philosophy was very helpful for programming principles. And the the philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of mind has overlaps with and supplements modern AI theory pretty well.
I’m out of the tech world now but if I were hiring entry level software developers, I’d consider a philosophy degree to be a plus, at least for people who have the threshold competency in actual programming.
Yeah, the CS head at the small college I went to was also the Philosophy head (he got his doctorate in philosophy). The same formal logic class was a requirement for the CS, philosophy, and law degrees.
Most of my programming career was spent working for small consulting firms that created custom software for (relatively) small clients. The most important skill by far was the ability to talk to customers (and listen to them as well) in order to understand what they needed the custom software to actually do. Not only is this skill not taught in the Computer Science curriculum, it’s not even conceived of as a thing. My bosses were constantly hiring freshly-minted CS grads and could not understand why I rejected having them placed on my team. I instead always looked for people that had experience not just with programming but with things outside of the programming world entirely.
That being said, I sure would not have wanted a freshly-minted philosophy grad either, for the same reason.
If I can contribute anything: don’t do a Ph.D. just because you’re not sure exactly what you want to do.
It may work out in the long run (thankfully it did eventually for me), but a M.Sc. is much shorter, and you may be more employable with one vs. a Ph.D.
Although do what you feel, maybe just think of this comment if you’re questioning.
(Also sorry, my experience is only in science)
My family member got one in early childhood ed and can’t find a job because he’s over qualified and their afraid they’ll just find a better job.
A PhD is only worth it (both in time and money) if you have a real interest in what you are researching.
I went to college and got a diploma, not a degree. That was because I knew where I wanted to be in the world. I was going to be a sysadmin/network admin/IT support. That was where I was going.
At the time, the available courses for system administrators that resulted in a degree didn’t fucking exist. A big fuck all for degree programs. So I got a diploma, and went on my merry way.
I looked at available degree programs last year and there’s still pretty much sweet fuck all for degree programs for IT support workers, with a few exceptions. A handful of colleges in my country now have some degree programs, and a couple have created one for system/network administrators. They’re massively rare, and the only course plans are for full time class loads. You want to take the degree course, but you have to work? Get fucked. You’re not getting anything.
I actually (foolishly) emailed some of the colleges asking if they would offer enough of the credits in remote learning courses that I could feasibly, eventually, get a degree. If someone could laugh over email, I’m pretty sure that they would have. Needless to say, the answer is a big fuck you.
Yet… I have well over a decade of real world experience and a lot of places are putting up job postings for sysadmin jobs asking for degrees plus years of experience.
So, essentially, they want me to go get a degree, probably in computer Science, which, by the way, isn’t really computer Science. There’s really no Science to it and the only relation to a computer is that you’re doing programming. CS majors cannot do my job. They would be so bad at it, that I would laugh, then cry, knowing I probably have to fix all the fuckups that were just made.
So, they want to hire someone who can’t do the work because they want and need a degree for a job that doesn’t have a degree that actually teaches you the correct skillset.
The entire fucking job market is completely fucked. Unless you do development, GFL wading through all the asinine postings to find one that is reasonable enough to recognize that CS majors are not the people you want working in system admin positions.
The worst part is that businesses can’t see what they’re doing wrong. C-levels, owners and managers, have no fucking clue what I do, nor how I do any of it. Unless it’s a company large enough to have a CIO that’s got a lick of fucking sense, the job posting is going to be utter horse shit for the crap that they’ll expect from you.
“Enjoys a fast paced environment” - you’re going to be over worked.
“Works well independently” - because you’re always going to be working alone, since they won’t hire anyone else to work the job.
"Requires knowledge of: Windows server, VMware, networking, Wan/LAN, VPN, desktop, printers… " You’re the only one working IT and you need to do it all.
“Enjoys a challenge” - nothing is under warranty, so every vendor will tell you to fuck off anytime you are in over your head and call in for support.
I’ve seen this shit so much over the past decade+ that’s it’s all shit. I don’t even fucking read job postings half the time, if it has a salary to it that looks good to me, I check if it’s “hybrid” (aka, in-office, but you can work from home, with managers approval that you’ll never get), in-office, or remote. If it’s anything other than remote, I’m probably moving on. If it passes those first two checks, I skim the requirements for “you should know” shit to determine if I’m working on a team, if they’re actually looking for an IT person, or is this posting, just a poorly worded website design or coding job… And if I don’t see anything too stupid on the list I just throw them my resume.
Look, I’ve done this job long enough that I know my shit, I know I know my shit, and I couldn’t give a fuck less if you call me or not. If you don’t see my potential, your loss. I don’t want to work for someone who is too blind to see that experience > everything, and that what I put on my resume isn’t who I am. I couldn’t possibly cram enough info into a CV to accurately convey the sheer amount of shit I’ve dealt with. Not even fucking close… And if you need someone with at least 5 years experience with ERP-xyz-Max 2010, and won’t even consider anyone who hasn’t used that software, well, you’re too dumb to be helped. Do you have any idea how much specialized software is out there? Give me a fucking break. My expertise isn’t in one specific software, though I have a lot of knowledge of some of the more common ones… My expertise is decoding the shit pile that the publisher calls “documentation” to actually support the program well enough to keep it running. I RTFM so you don’t have to.
There, I said it.
This exists and makes me howl. https://missing.csail.mit.edu/
Wow. I don’t even know what to say to that.
CS grads don’t even get taught about the CLI?
That’s embarrassing.
And people wonder why employers are hesitant to hire juniors.
And it’s entirely the tech companies making their own bed and then laying in it. In the few jurisdictions where the engineering regulatory colleges won out in protecting their title, there’s a slough of highly qualified Professional Software Engineers who’ve graduated from accredited programs alongside the people who grad from more theory-based compsci programs
Looking down on manufacturing jobs is so cool.
How else are you supposed to look at conveyor belt?
everyone looks down on people they feel are social inferior to them.
job, education, grammar, race, sex, take your pick.
job, education, grammar, race, sex, take your pick.
I’m gonna go with “calf muscles”.
Then the cyclists and marathon runners can actually get some respect to make up for the free time they lost to training.
I dunno, I used to have seriously monster calves until I started heavy cycling and running. They’re still OK but they definitely shrunk after I lost 30-40 pounds.
Ahh yes, working in a factory… my life’s dream is crushed.
Look, as a 40yo I have to advise new kids to yes, do what you want, but research the market first. If you want to do Philosophy to be a teacher great, but if not mayber try other areas like socialology or history that have a slightly better market…Or just learn IT because that’s the future and you are never out of a job
or just study what you want and get job skills separately.
our education system shouldn’t be teaching job skills anyway. it should be teaching higher order skills and the jobs should be training you at the specific job. most of the job skills you would learn in school will also be a 5-10 years out of date when you enter the workforce. or, if you are really lucky, your company will will be operating on skills from 20-30 years ago and your 10 year old skills will make you seem like a genius
Not really. I’m not sure how it ended up so rounded, but getting a degree is more than just “get skills for the job”. When you are getting any bachelor’s degree, you also have to take a certain amount of history, music appreciation, etc, heck my school even required lifetime fitness. It’s also learning alongside your peers to suffer together, I mean work together.
Also, for something like engineering, you don’t want a job to teach the basics of safely designing a building. You want that in school so when your job asks you to do something dumb, you can explain to them why it is unsafe and correctly refuse.
I like how my friend put it: “You COULD go to a technical school to get a job, but you wouldn’t be very interesting to talk to.”
Ugh and I just imagined if they made something like “Walgreens pharmacy school” that would train you to be a pharmacist but only for Walgreens. Imagine if your ability and certification to work in any field was tied to a specific company. No way to leave to CVS or whatever unless you go to “CVS pharmacy school”. Sounds awful.
that’s not true. maybe you were required to do that, but every school is different and maybe have entire dropped the trad liberal arts or general ed requirements. my college had no such requirements you should take whatever you wanted as long as you had a major.
some schools still also only offer liberal arts style degrees and have no technical degrees.
Computer science graduates have one of the highest rates of unemployment
Really? I mean I’m not in the US but I never had a problem.
Like currently, in the US; there was an article about it floating around Lemmy a couple days ago. Oversaturated from a decade+ of telling everyone to go into compsci, and now companies are cutting staff
Yeah I imagine, but won’t all of this AI require support? Idk for now we are ok here but the future could be bad.for sure.
Is that Mandy Patinken?
why study when you can become a manosphere grifter for free?
Philosophy major now running an IT department at a major university checking in
