Learning to Think Outside the Box
Redirecting your thought process is difficult on a good day. Redirecting your post-high school plans is nearly impossible, especially if college has been the one all-consuming thought you and your parents have had since you were exhibiting sheer finger-painting genius in preschool. The farther you’ve driven, the harder it is to turn the car around.
Even though eighteen-year-old me would never have listened to any advice involving my not going to college, that doesn’t mean I was correct in my closed-mindedness. Whether or not it’s advice you want to take, only fools assume their way is always right and disregard all other input and information. (That was directed at me. I’m the idiot. Or, I was the idiot. I’ve made so many horrific blunders that now I’m wise beyond all measure.)
Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist has an excellent piece about college education and what it really means in this day and age. It’s difficult to open one’s mind up and really consider what she says, especially if you’ve grown up thinking the way I do about higher education. But that’s part of growing the hell up and learning to examine all options and relevant information when making a decision. Penelope tends to think outside the box, and the more miles you walk through this world, the more you’ll realize how valuable that quality is.
Posted by Alexa Harrington
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I find myself agreeing with both yourself and Penelope but I would offer a somewhat different approach to the same conclusion. Go out and sample job announcements. You need a large sample, several thousand from a variety of sources and locales. Then bin the announcements according to what qualifications are required. In particular pay attention to how much experience is required and what kind, and how many require college degrees and what those degrees are.
I suspect you will find that there are very few announcements requiring degrees in liberal arts (and almost all of those will be academic announcements.) Many will require degrees in the technical (non-Capellan) disciplines. But when one has done this sufficiently to have reasonable confidence in the bins, I suspect that one may conclude that unless one wants to teach a degree in liberal arts (of whatever discipline) is not in rich demand.
I realize this approach violates the whole concept of a liberal education but that concept has always been aeconomic in practice and hence any economic argument is largely orthogonal.
It is difficult to think of other options when you are raised your whole life being told that you need to go to college to find a good job.