Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Yesterday, a man I was waiting on told me that I have wasted my undergraduate years on a useless degree, and I will eventually have to go to technical college to be able to support myself, just like his daughter had to after she majored in Philosophy. Everyone at the table agreed, and urged me to double major in something responsible like Pre-Law, with the implication being that if I didn't I would be stuck in my current job for far longer than I anticipated. When I told them it was too late for me to double major, I was met with an awkward silence.

To offset this unpleasantness, I was gifted with an extremely pleasant and uplifting conversation with my ultrasound technician this morning about how you never know which way the job market will shift, and philosophers may indeed be in high demand in coming years. We also discussed the recent ruling against Obama's moratorium on offshore drilling, and how we both secretly agreed with it because it was a political maneuver not based on facts.

These are the people to whom we should pay attention. Because, believe me, you would rather have me a homeless, broke thinker, than building your bridges.

1 comment:

  1. I have come across many people with so called "useless" degrees and they are responsible for building bridges. College is about persistent and training the mind to think says I. We go to college to learn but often as we leave the skill sets are so different in reality that we must relearn our careers.

    One of my favorite ironworkers had a degree from a college that was so erudite that they actually learned languages so that they could study the original texts of calculus or euclidean geometry. He went on to become the I.W. Union Rep. in S.F.

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