"number in someones bank account" is not the best indicator of a person's value to society, but their net income over their career (which is different than amount in the bank) is probably the best indicator of a person's value to society. Certainly among the top 3 indicators. I don't know how anyone can seriously dispute that anymore.
I'm using the phrase "number in someones bank account" to refer to the amount of money they've acquired. How they got the money doesn't make much of a difference. It's not a measure of their value as a person or to society, beyond the taxes we're assume they're paying.
There's no shortage of lucrative careers that are absolutely a drain on society.
And I was pointing out that income over a career is a better indicator of value to society than the amount of money a person has acquired which can, as I believe you were trying to note, come from sources such as inheritance or crime. Your career income is a great indicator of your value as a human being.
Pay is not determined by education or degree, even though it's often correlated. Salaries are tied to the job itself and supply/demand. If a liberal arts grad can work as a software engineer (an in demand job with limited high-quality supply) they will be paid around $150k-$200k early in their career.
If instead the have limited specialized job skills, they'll find the pay/jobs they are uniquely qualified for are also very limited. So they end up in jobs that have few barriers to entry such as baristas, entry-level corporate jobs, admin, etc. These jobs all pay closer to $40k a year.
It's easy to get at most schools. It doesn't take smarts. Rarely require science or math courses. It's what keeps college business going. Graduate masses of them any way possible to get their tuition. You don't see STEM degree folks begging for student loan forgiveness.
you're trading in a bs theory. most of the humanities majors i know are MBA, lawyers, certified teachers. it's a "first degree" approach, and some of the lawyers and businesspeople started out humanities majors. so treating the 2 as separate is junk.
Here’s a better idea, go take an organic Chemistry class, a differential equations class, spend a day at a hospital shadowing med school residents (who are paying for the privilege of working long hours for Medicaid and Medicare patients who get care essentially for free), and spend a day at an engineering firm working on getting a project out on deadline. Then tell me those professions are overpaid.
You know damn well that a lot of people are incapable of passing intellectually challenging classes in O-Chem and Diff EQ. Why should they be penalized monetarily?
organic and differential equations are not "intellectually challenging" on anywhere near the level you need to earn money by learning them. You have go WAY beyond. Graduate degree.
I don't believe "autistic" exists, it's just the modern word for nerdy. To succeed professionally at math and science you have to be a nerd. Be driven to absorb yourself in the material, all the time. You don't have to be great at it, you just have to love it. Otherwise it's not worth the effort, even for a lot of money.
You know damn well that a lot of people are incapable of passing intellectually challenging classes in O-Chem and Diff EQ. Why should they be penalized monetarily?
organic and differential equations are not "intellectually challenging" on anywhere near the level you need to earn money by learning them. You have go WAY beyond. Graduate degree.
I don't believe "autistic" exists, it's just the modern word for nerdy. To succeed professionally at math and science you have to be a nerd. Be driven to absorb yourself in the material, all the time. You don't have to be great at it, you just have to love it. Otherwise it's not worth the effort, even for a lot of money.
Grad school is not really necessary for engineers. Engineering, nursing and the IT fields are probably the best paying undergrad degrees one can get. Organic is probably the class that drives most pre-med students to become teachers and differential equations is the class that pushes most aspiring engineers into construction management.
I have a liberal arts degree (paired with a master's, TBF) and do just fine. You think a liberal arts major would be better prepared to communicate what they can offer when applying for jobs, but alas ...
A lot of liberal arts majors get into law as well.
I wouldn't say science or engineers are smarter - they just have skills that are currently more in demand in the market. That said, a lot of tech layoffs this year after overhiring in Covid. There are plenty of smart liberal arts grads who perhaps have their heads in the clouds about the real world wants.
I do some silly corporate STEM/tech stuff. I studied a STEM subject at a big liberal arts university. BUT, sometimes I rather work with people who studied english or philosophy. They're typically more open minded and adaptable, especially since part of my job includes human interaction—I can't trust the software developers to do that. I work with lots of very stuck-in-their-ways engineers and scientists that can't think outside the box.
BA in History from a Big 10 school. 60 years old; SVP at a Fortune 500 company. (I did take some supplementary business & finance courses.)
Net Worth in the neighborhood of $4.4 million. Just starting to think about retirement. No regrets about my Liberal Arts degree.
Also a history major but from a small liberal arts school. Also an SVP at a Fortune 500 company. Under 40, target compensation is 1.3-1.5m and NW approaching 8 figures.
Obviously average salaries are higher in engineering disciplines and among folks in medicine and big law given the highly specialized skill set. Those that I see really driving the business world and making a lot of coin while doing it have a multidisciplinary set of talents. Many come from a liberal arts background and/or finance.
Probably the only thing I agree with Jordan Peterson on is the value of a traditional liberal arts college education. The movement to turn higher education into a strict vocational training program where anything that is not needed for the student's eventual job performance is cast out as being a "waste of time" is making for a generation of drones who know nothing other than their job duties, bit coin and Barstool Sports. As Peterson says, the point of a liberal arts education is to give students the opportunity to be cultured, understand history. the arts, literature and science, and build the capacity for further academic achievement by learning the value and process for academic research and writing. Students come out of a liberal arts education well rounded, articulate and able to carry on an interesting conversation. These skills are essential to success in almost any endeavor as Scott Galloway notes that successful people get to where they are by building alliances along the way. You can't do that when all you know about the world is that a convertible debenture is a debt that can be repaid with equity and never read any of the Classics and have no idea what happened during the Reformation.
Your thesis is partially correct. However, people in the arts and liberal arts are as smart as engineers, different brain functions. Turn off all the music in your home, no film, no books. Your world is quiet and boring.
I would also add that the people I knew at a "liberal arts college" have, regardless of their major, also the skill of interpersonal communication. That was sort of required in the liberal arts environment.
Now, 30 years into our careers, that ability to work well with people, manage teams, and communicate is not easily replaced by cheaper foreign labor or AI. I would say that the "soft skills" of nuance, psychology, and communication have made this cohort safer from job losses than the kind of people who can be replaced by overseas workers and AI.
Your thesis is partially correct. However, people in the arts and liberal arts are as smart as engineers, different brain functions. Turn off all the music in your home, no film, no books. Your world is quiet and boring.
It’s important to remember that engineering, technology, and medicine are essentially vocational degrees. You learn to a lot of facts and gain practical skills (e.g. running AutoCAD or reconstructing an ACL). These skills are incredibly practical! People will pay you for them!
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