Wall Street Journal Compares College Majors, Mid-Career Salaries

Turns out that by mid-career, Philosophy majors will be earning more than Architects, Biologists, Chemists, Geologists, IT guys, Marketers, and Political Scientists. Take that business school!

Classics conspicuously absent from this list. : (

The Bush Legacy

Anytime a President is about to do something you do not like, but you are not going to stop him from doing it, all you have to do is say that “history will regard him as the worst president ever.” Let us lay aside the fact that when people say this, they usually mean “public opinion” and not “history.” And by “public opinion” they mean their opinion, which is usually the only one that they care about anyway.

And we have repeated this process enough times from, say, John Adams onwards that the moniker has stuck at least once. To tell you the truth about it, I like the idea that history will take revenge on someone’s reputation after they have shed this mortal coil. But I am not naive enough to think that history always gets it right, or that it even matters who reigns supreme in the kingdom of worst presidents.

Yet, as we hurtle shakily towards the 20th of January, we may find ourselves with boiling blood and steam pumping out of our ears when we think about the past eight years of Bush administration. I need not remind you, faithful Dino-Readers, of our recent history in the Middle East, in New Orleans, in sub-prime mortgage regulation. Many of us feel secure, now, in the notion that finally the title will stick and Mr. Bush will become the worst president in all of history.

When lo and behold, rearing its ugly head into our airspace, comes this opinion piece by Prof. Stanley Fish, currently Professor of Humanities and Professor of Law at Florida International University, as well as Dean Emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Disregarding Prof. Fish’s critical lack of adherence to any logical system of thought in his postmodernist scholarship, could he be right that George W. Bush will wiggle his way into our hearts when we no longer feel obligated to hold him responsible (for the many things in which we were complicit)?

Unfortunately, I think the answer is yes. Consider it a reversal of what happened to Harry S. Truman and Winston Churchill. They, along with Franklin D. Roosevelt, are the greatest war-time politicians of the 20th century (and perhaps of all time – only being rivaled by Abraham Lincoln, at least on this side of the Atlantic). They enjoyed supreme unity amongst their fellow-citizens during the war, but once there was peace they quickly found themselves out of jobs. Come to think of it, the same thing happened to old Themistokles – he rose to prominence on his naval construction program platform, and after the navy won the Persian War he quickly fell from favor and eventually resettled in Persia itself (imagine if the old Bulldog bought a condo in Stalingrad!). They were good wartime leaders, and once their nations had used them for that, they were out the door before you could muster a “blood, sweat, and tears” speech.

Now George Bush will leave office in the wake of strong criticism during the entrenched battle that was his administration. Without any responsibility, and therefore no reason to blame him for anything, we may yet embrace him as that funny sounding Texan with the boyish swagger. Maybe Prof. Fish will be proven wrong and our disgust for Mr. Bush will remain. But the cogs of history are slow to work, slow to judge: the machinations of the courtroom of history click and whistle and belch up hot air for much time before a verdict, if ever, is handed down from the ivory tower jury.

I Would Like a Keg for My 18th Birthday

Finally, a debate worth having.  Puritans beware, university presidents are mobolizing to ask the only sensible question that can be asked in the face of obscene binge drinking on campuses: shouldn’t we lower the drinking age?

Unequivocally, this writer thinks yes, and it’s long overdue.  I’ve never understood the logic behind the age of 21.   MADD can quote all the statistics they want, but numbers do not remotely tell the story.  Nor do they indicate the real problem.

The issue is education.  Most incoming college students have had to complete some form of an alcohol survey and education course, usually online, mandated by their schools.  This is half the battle.  However, telling kids what drinking is going to do to them and their reaction time is not going to educate them on the proper way to handle alcohol, how to consume in moderation, and plan ahead of time for responsible drinking.  Any educator knows that words and theory are at best half the battle, without experience, those words are worthless.

Contrary to what MADD, furious Puritans, and most likely, lawmakers, believe, this does not need to be a revolution.  I’d be happy with a compromise that at least allows people at the age of 18 to drink with the supervision of adults.  The idea here isn’t to let kids get drunk earlier, the idea is to bring a tabboo topic into the mainstream, to educate kids before they arrive at college and learn their limits the hard way.

On a cultural note, there is also incentive to open certain 21+ venues to younger people.  I think specifically of the many jazz and blues clubs in Chicago.  How are young musicians and fans supposed to identify with their music, a form that is uniquely American, I might add, when they can’t even hear it live?  Concerts are unfairly, not by their choice, exclusive and it should be no surprise that these music forms are shrinking when they can’t capitalize on younger fans.

It’s tough to imagine the statistics MADD fears really escalating if the drinking age is legally lowered.  The reality is that those who want alcohol already get it.  Stricter laws just earn more money for the middleman upperclassmen who can supply the freshmen on campus.

There are many creative ways one can work to enforce it as well.  As I mentioned, a stipulation involving adults in controlled environments could be one.  Also, a limit on the amount purchased at a time can also provide a buffer.  Would it be ridiculous to suggest a learner’s permit for young drinkers?  Perhaps a card that can be swiped that wouldn’t allow them to make more than one purchase a week, per se?

Are there ways to get around these?  Of course.  But students are getting around the rules now, with the drastic results deriving from the education they’re not getting.

Slackers

Ever since Bluto Blutarski, college has been the privileged white American’s extended Rumspringa. Or at least where you went to avoid that Viet Nam draft thing. Now, with the democratization of education and the advent of the business school, by which device can be obtained an undergraduate degree without having to participate in protracted thought and analysis, the debauchery of the university is now available to all races, sexes, and creeds.

A report from sociologists at the Bowling Green University in Ohio now sticks some statistics onto the pimply, Natty-Ice-chugging face of that debauchery, seen every Friday through Sunday night at the frat house basement party or local college dive bar. And what have we learned? That full-time college students, relieved of the necessity of gainful employ so that they can study, use their time to socialize, use/abuse alcohol, and destroy property.

But even the kids getting good grades and degrees in actual subjects (no, food marketing does not count) are opting for low profiles in the towns they just graduated from. Said one ambitious UC Davis graduate,

I guess if I knew there was gold in the hills outside of Davis, I might be more willing to hop out and enter the work force. But I figure our economy is crumbling; I might as well just stay cool and not worry about it.

American ingenuity at its finest: no jobs? declining economy? No problem! Just chill out! This is the can-do attitude that built the railroads and defeated Nazism.

Has academia failed today’s students? Is my generation just generally prone to failure? Perhaps it is not necessarily us, for in almost any age mostly everything is mediocre or worse. The vast majority of poetry and scholarship is terrible, not to mention the moral bankruptcy of commercial, military, and political activity across time and space. So, too, the majority of students.

Still I shudder to think that the same California slacker who is thinking of becoming a teacher, writer, or politician may actually be elected to office one day. Or should I be more afraid that his lack of interest in the public sphere will allow less savory characters to gain power?

I can’t wait to go to India

An Indian business school has named a monkey god the official chairman of the school.

I guess Wharton’s reputation is safe for now.

Says the article:

“The position comes with an incense-filled office, a desk and a laptop computer. Four chairs will be placed facing the empty seat reserved for the chairman and all visitors must enter the office barefoot, said Vivek Kangdi, the school’s vice chairman.”

One can only hope they gave the monkey god a MacBook Pro.

Anyhoo, yours truly, the enigmatic and laconic third wheel of this blogging endeavor, is indeed off to India where he shall be spending the next two years working as an overseas recruit for Mahindra & Mahindra, an Indian conglomerate.