[存]What I Really Learned In College.

The last eight months or so have been a time of intense personal reflection for me. With the exception of a field season and my thesis, I have finished my undergraduate degree. This, combined with the events of last fall and my subsequent involvement with community organizing and progressive journalism, has got me thinking about the media narrative surrounding higher education:
What is college for really? The answer depends on whom you ask. Is it cut-and-dry preparation for a career in the workforce, or is it a more humanistic endeavor to increase the amount and quality of knowledge that we collectively possess as a people? These questions have, in part, been due to the fact that the field in which I study has been intimately plugged into this debate.
Last year, the American Anthropological Association changed its mission statement, removing the word 'science' from the document. This spurred a flurry of debate in the field and on the blogosphere; it was a heated discussion for many reasons, not least of which being due to the position the field has found itself vis-à-vis funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation.
The question popped up again in July, when members of Congress, such as Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), attempted to legislate trimming the funding of social sciences research out of the NSF’s budget (see further this article from Savage Minds link). When you also consider the statements of Florida Governor Rick Scott (4 words to sum it up: Anthropology Not Needed Here), you can see how this public debate plugs into the questions I posed above.
 According to various people representing organs of power in this country, the purpose of getting a college degree is to train people for the workforce. Reading between the lines, it would seem that their imperative is to increase the amount of technocrats capable of running a country governed by a ruling oligarchy that wants compliant yes-men running the day-to-day operations, as opposed to freethinking informed citizens. The implication is: if your degree isn’t in business or the sciences, then you have wasted everyone's time and money in getting one.
This is far from an earth-shattering conclusion, and I have heard this very argument posed in many different contexts. It's still thought provoking; for those of us not in the STEM fields, we often wonder what the value of our degree truly is.
Given that people with degrees in the humanities and social sciences is about 10% nationally in both areas, and that underemployment in this category is approximately 30% (see here for more info), the question does arise: Are the folks like the Congressional Subcommittee on Research and Science Education and such as Rick Scott right about all of this?
Are our non-STEM degrees qualifying us for jobs or are they just worthless scraps of paper and ink? We ask: is the sluggish economy to blame for our dilemma? They might counter that there is a glut in the market of people with these degrees. I don’t buy it necessarily. I would ask, is it that the structure of the economy has changed such that new skill sets are required? The financial elites would probably say yes, as they would like to shore up their position in terms of the means and relations of production. Let’s not forget that human capital is just as important as industrial and financial capital. This question of value presupposes that our education is a capital-heavy realm in which powerful investors are making the choices about how the system is structured rather than a system we have any control over organizing.
Honestly, upon reflection, I realized that the question of the value of our degree is baloney. Posing this question in financial and economic terms just plays into the hands of those who want us to buy into their model of higher education. Knowledge is power, and those who frame the terms of the debate gain the upper hand. They want us to think of education in terms of value, allowing it to become monetized. This allows them sweep us along with a brush from their mighty financial instruments, a process we have been duped into not resisting. We can do better.
Let us not think of our degree in terms of monetary or economic value. Perhaps the better question to ask is: what skills did you learn in college? What is inalienable to you from your experiences? What did you get from college that can’t have a dollar sign attached to it? I’d like to know what people think is most valuable from their college experience. This is equally for long-graduated students on hard times, recent grads, and people still in the pipes. I’d encourage you to think long and hard about what you really got in the process of obtaining a degree.
Not intending to toot my own horn, but I’ll share, as an example:
·I learned how to budget my time and energy.
 I learned that to be successful, you must keep a schedule.
·I learned two critical foreign languages, Farsi and Russian, and the skills to learn more as needed.
·I learned how to acquire, organize, synthesize and report on large amounts of information.
·I learned how to network.
·I learned how to work effectively in teams.
·I learned how to break down a complicated task into subroutines that allowed it to be accomplished more quickly, more efficiently and more thoroughly.
·I learned how to juggle multiple projects at once.
·I learned that I am capable of planning a long-term project, both conceptually and logistically, and carrying it out to completion.
·I learned that sometimes you just have to take a break and smell the roses.
Many of these things are not content-related or field-specific. Some are just my own personal experience, but many are the kind of generalizable and transposable skills and abilities that you must learn to be successful in college in every kind of degree program there ever was. And they are just the skills you need to do just about every job there has ever existed except rocket science, nuclear engineering, and military special forces. And best of all, most of you have these skills, or at least the potential to develop them!
Think about what you really learned or are learning in college. Is it just a bunch of facts? Is a degree just a useless piece of paper that just gets you in debt? Next time someone rolls their eyes at you for complaining about student debt because your degree is in philosophy, you will be able to counter with examples of why your degree isn’t worthless.
[Comment]
-Guest
I have a mixed opinion about this subject, originating in my decision to pursue a degree in both the social sciences and a STEM field as well as my upbringing. I suppose I should also make it known right from the get-go that there is no way I can exclude earning potential from the value of a college education.
Coming from very little money, the ability to even attend college was in serious question upon my high school graduation. Thankfully, I earned a rather substantial merit-based scholarship. Showing up on campus in the fall, I decided to pursue a degree in anthropology, as it had been my dream for some time to be an archaeologist. This did not prove to be exceptionally difficult; I finished the majority of the degree as well as my general education requirements in two years. I was then faced with a question: should I graduate early? My ultimate decision was hell no. My scholarship was good for four years, why would I ever limit myself to just two?
I decided that I would continue my education by declaring a chemistry major. Why? A few reasons.
1) Modern archaeology makes extensive use of chemical analysis (this may be a tangential reason to some)
2) A degree in chemistry would no doubt help me stand out when applying for grad school
3) There is significantly more earning potential in chemistry than in anthropology
4) I just find it plain fascinating
My first quarter as a chemistry major proved enlightening. One class gave two 7 hour midterms, required 12 hours of class/lab time a week, and necessitated countless more hours of studying. At least in my experience, no anthropology class ever came close to rivaling this work load or intensity. I distinctly remember my professor, prompted by complaints about the workload, saying, "Hey, just remember that English majors won't have jobs when they graduate. You will." That very sentiment seems to resonate given the topic. I found it exceptionally difficult to find an anthropology internship/research position for the summer that paid much money if anything at all. The first chemistry job I applied for, I got interviewed and hired as a co-op for a decent wage. While my professor's statement was a hyperbole, I definitely view it as easier to get a job with a STEM education than with an anthropology degree, owing at least partly to the rigors of the education in a STEM field.
So, is the purpose of the degree just to train you for a job? Yes and no. I believe my outlook would best be phrased as this: a college degree is to get a job or qualify you for additional education/training. A college education, however, is to make you a better person. I believe that distinction is important. I also firmly believe in the value of a well rounded education, that is, history is as important as science, math as important as art, etc. The degree, however, is nothing more than a succinct summary of your educational qualifications, whether entirely accurate or not.
Now, some reading this may find my desire for a well-paying job to be particularly unsavory and indicative of a misguided direction in my college career. To that, I have this to say. What I want out of my education more than anything else is to be secure in the future. Growing up in poverty (well below the poverty line at times), I see my education as the best route to financial security for myself and, most importantly, for my family.
To those who are pursuing a degree in anthropology or other "soft" sciences, I wish you nothing but the best. I have immense respect for the social sciences, though never forget that you will need a job at some point, and you are probably not taking the easy route to getting one.
I apologize if my musings are disjointed. I have not slept for 36 hours because of chemistry.
-Safarnaameh
Thanks for your comment!
For the most part I feel ya on what you're saying, but having been through an extremely rigorous undergraduate program combining training in anthropological and archaeological field, lab and archival methods, two foreign languages, intensive study of social theory and writing a 100+ page thesis, I get a little more than irritated when students pursuing degrees in the so called "soft" sciences are derided as lazy and unemployable by people from STEM fields. I realize you are not necessarily saying this yourself but also commenting on the fact that people do say and believe these things.
Similarly, I tend to eschew distinguishing between "hard" and "soft" sciences. If people believe for one minute that lab chemistry or engineering or whatever are somehow more rigorous and difficult than planning and executing scientific expeditions in another country (or even at home), they are seriously misinformed about what it is that we do professionally.
But that said, my experience as an undergraduate (when I compare to my peers in the same or similar disciplines) has been rather different. I was fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of opportunities to get engaged in research very early on in my undergraduate career and this led to a much greater awareness of what it would take to be employable in my field. But then again, due to the language skills I have developed I'm employable in far more many lines of work than just academic anthropology.
But hey, it's good to know others are reflecting critically on this too!
-JM Worthem
Anthropology, Sociology, History, Literature, all of these things give humanity perspective both ahead and behind us and maximize the benefits of science and technology. If society is left without the perspective that these disciplines give, we will happily walk off of a cliff and not see it coming.
I would say that so far in college I am learning more information than anything, when I get a chance to write a paper, it is a stressful marathon and not an organized endeavor. I have not learned really any of the the things you say you have learned. Maybe as I get higher in my studies there will be more professors who have more of a direct influence on me, but I seriously feel in the dark about the method. At this point in my life, however, I am the one driving what I want to do and know more or less what skills I need to do what I want. However, this does not mean that colleges cannot, in the future, provide individualized educational plans. I think they should do this.
It is one thing to learn all of those self-management skills you mention simply because being put into stressful situations where you need them causes them to develop and another thing entirely for the institution to foster their development. Which was most important for you?