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Comment by cmollis | Hacker News Reader

exactly.. why don't more people say this? so much of the 'worth' of your college degree is essentially a function of how valuable it is in the current workplace. If you major in 'business' or 'communications' then you are majoring in 'fucking around'. There aren't too many jobs that I know of are looking for this.

If you go to college to get a degree that is useless, then you will work at Walmart. I mean, seriously, is that really fucking news?

What's news is how colleges still manage to increase their tuition costs some 5 times the inflation rate year over year just to crank out vast quantities of mindless degrees that are of no use in this economy.

Bill Gates thinks it's a supply-and-demand issue, but it sounds like unmitigated greed to me.

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> If you major in 'business' or 'communications' then you are majoring in 'fucking around'. There aren't too many jobs that I know of are looking for this.

Not true, and this is a large issue of the STEM mindset. People majoring in communications or business can work just as hard as someone who is a STEM major (note: I say work just as hard, not that one is more or less difficult). It is what you, as the individual, choose to take from the experience.

>If you major in 'business' or 'communications' then you are majoring in 'fucking around'.

Most of the sales team that I work with must have majored in 'fucking around' then. Somehow they manage to work just as hard as us dev guys and pull their weight anyway.

You've got the correlations mixed up. Just because lots of skilled people majored in business does not mean most business majors are super skilled/motivated.

It could be that both 1) People genuinely interested and determined to get into business, and 2) People fucking around major in business. This matches my anecdotal experience.

> so much of the 'worth' of your college degree is essentially a function of how valuable it is in the current workplace.

I wouldn't call it "valuable in the current workplace", but "valuable in the current world" instead. The former makes it sound like the situation would be solved if only corporations/government created more jobs for those unemployed/not valuable people. However, people with useful/practical skills can freelance as well, or start their own businesses. The problem is no one (even other people) is willing to pay them money for their skills, talents or output.

> If you major in 'business' or 'communications' then you are majoring in 'fucking around'. There aren't too many jobs that I know of are looking for this.

Businesses aren't looking for finance guys, salesmen, and accountants? My technology company has quite a few, including me. I guess I should tell them they're wasting millions of dollars a year.

but of course any intelligent person can do those jobs without a "business" degree.

Go become an accountant without an accounting degree and tell me how that works out.

this happens all the time in the UK. big accounting firms and F100 companies recruit people in unrelated degrees all the time.

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