To those who believe that learning is its own end, like me, I don't see any problems with this.
It's really great, as long as you don't need shelter or to eat.
I don’t see a problem with it if the person can afford it.
But if you’re a young person starting with nothing, starting your life in tremendous debt that won’t increase your earnings is going to be rough. It doesn’t make you a bad person or anything, but if you went and got a a job and read about Egypt in the library, you might be a much happier, less stressed person in 5-10 years.
You can't even talk to a community college rep without them getting into money.
This isn't one of those pyramid schemes you've heard about. We use a different model - the trapezoid!
There’s a joke in the industry:
Q: Whats the first thing an egyptology major says when he graduates?
A: You want fries with that?
Back when I was a philosophy grad student there was a joke going around:
The head of the chemisty department goes to the dean and asks for money to buy some new lab equipment. The dean shakes his head and goes, "No, you are asking too much here. Why can't you be more like the physics department? All they ask for in their budget is pencil and rubbers... or better yet the philosophy department - all they ask for is pencils!"
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.
A phrase that would bounce around when I was in grad school.
I find this phrase rather demeaning. I am a damn good Instructional Designer, but I would eventually like to teach this to others.
Well, do while you can do. After that, you can teach?
I also find it demeaning. I can do so much, but I CHOOSE to teach.
Maybe I shouldn’t teach anymore.
As someone who fakes their way through life and can't teach, it's also demeaning to me. I don't know what I'm doing, can't really do it, and certainly shouldn't be teaching anyone else.
So do it till you calm down later in life, and then teach younger people
The saying sucks because it implies that they tried doing something in the private field and failed into teaching. Most teachers went directly into teaching, so they succeeded.
Usually said by angry types who never did either one.
Yeah that's so out of context that it speaks to the intelligence of students repeating it. It came from the old trades and people retiring into teaching after they literally couldn't do it anymore, not that they weren't once capable. Very similar to the "Bad apples" quote.
Wow, what a stupid thing to be around.
Hey that's what I did with philosophy. It's great to adjunct for three universities and get no health care. Definitely worth it!!
Maybe philosophy is so needlessly wordy and impenetrable because it's just people that weren't smart enough to see it as a dead end trained enough to make it seem esoteric and meaningful, to keep their heads just above water and their hands on books instead of chef knives.
Maybe philosophy is so needlessly wordy and impenetrable because it’s just people that weren’t smart enough to see it as a dead end
Quite a few philosophy undergrounds go on to law, business, and marketing, because the underlying concepts tie so well together. Lots of philosophy grad CEOs and heads of Law Firms. Some of the richest people in the country majored in philosophy.
Egyptology is significantly more niche. But it should be noted that we used to have a significant amount of money going towards archeological research. That's money state governments and private institutions have pulled back fairly recently.
We get to play this game with a lot of niche professions. There's a huge demand from back in, say, the 80s or 90s and then a huge structural shift to stop doing astrological research or civil engineering or sociology or education or whatever. All the money gets dumped into state subsidies for bitcoin miners. And then we call the folks who matriculated through those real professions "stupid" while smugly insisting the future is in digitally jerking ourselves off.
Chef here. We don't want philosophy majors playing with our knives or fire, thanks. The alcoholics, potheads, and methheads are enough to contend with without someone that really over thinks things.
As somebody with a PhD in the subject, there's some truth to this. Ever read Derrida or Deleuze? Some of thise continental guys are especially full of shit.
I still love the subject, though. When else do you get to just think about the big topics and work through fun arguments about them? We'd all be poorer if nobody did that.
I just learned to code after studying philosophy. It's all truth preservation. Super successful software engineer now.
what is a pyramid but a temporarily embarrassed disk
If he’s paying for his PhD, then that’s definitely a scam
Tangentially, shout out to Dominic Perry's History of Egypt podcast. Great stuff, very engaging without forgetting that history is an evolving and ever-incomplete field of study, and that things other than battles happened in the ancient world.
It took me way too long (into my adult years) to figure out that an Egyptologist is an archaeologist who specializes in ancient Egyptian cultural artifacts.
yeah yeah, farming and business and carpentry and sanctimonious politicians pissing everyone off. Just dull shit until it erupts into a war.
It's a reverse funnel system.
Get real.
maybach music
I'm not really sure how much empathy I have for this. I'm aware in the US you don't pick a major until a year in but even when you don't people, were ready to invest in subjects they knew would leave them with few job opportunities. They thought it was cool and wanted to go to university. Finding a job was a future problem. I was not and won't be anti-arts and humanities but they are just as popular, if not more so then many other subjects in universities and 90% of them know that it's a difficult field to find any work in
Don't pick a major until a year in? That definitely wasn't the norm when I was in university (albeit that's a long time ago).
A friend got a degree in Egyptology, only to realize that after she’d sunk in the time to get a master’s on the advice of her professors, that they were ensuring their livelihood by overselling the job prospects.
After a few years of low level museum jobs, she got her doctorate and became an Egyptology professor. Her hope is to one day become an Egyptologist, but I think she’s already in a gilded academic cage and doesn’t realize it.Sounds like she is a saleswoman for Egyptolgogy now too
The best thing is, she has actually posted the above screenshot to her socials.
Are there no ologists for other places?
Assyrology comes to mind.
There are sinologists
That's how the lure you in. They start with basic things like piramid, than they show you these symbols of power and immortality and promise a +2 on you ka which can be good fo D&D campaigns, and to enjoy a safe passage to the other plan of existance, when they finally get you to the secret room of the feather and the scale and that's when you know it's too late to get back
Thats a useless degree. Who would want to hire a person like that
Useless, if you believe that whatever generates monetary value in capitalism is what defines usefulness. To many people who don't dedicate their life to money, rather people who find value in knowledge or culture or something, it's very useful.
And to answer your question, there are employers for everything. Just not enough to make but a select few types of degrees have demand that meets the supply...
