What universities / colleges you attend or attended - Page 4

Are liberal arts the humanities? I don't believe I heard that before (sorry I'm British)

Originally posted by LA Guy: Different courses??

Yes. Liberal arts are humanities. Literature, languages, philosophy, history, etc.

Thanks.

No. The MSc is essentially a taught masters. The PhD, obviously research.

NYU Stern, get my B.S. in marketing in 3 weeks (and counting) Ryan

There are now at least three people on this list with BAs in Asian Languages. Talk about useless, but enjoyable BA University of Washington Asian Languages and Lit ( Chinese), BA Asian History UW Law School - grateful dropout UW MBA

Originally posted by LA Guy: Hmm. At Cal, if you don't finish or do your thesis you end up with a masters. I don't recall any obvious masters program when I was there. How is Dr. Abelson? I spoke to him when I was at the campus, when I was deciding where to do my doctorate.

I don't know if I would say that a BA in Asian languages is useless.   On the other hand, it was certainly less useful than many people thought when I started, at the height of the bubble.  Too many people thought that 2 quarters of university Japanese would land them a job as Akio Morita's assistant at Sony. It was only the begining. Bic

That's true of the Chemistry and Biology departments, which from your previous posts I gather to be your background. In engineering fields, it's pretty standard to pick up your MSc on course requirements alone (we took about 5 classes a quarter for two years, as opposed to the 3 or 4 classes total the Chem and Bio guys took) on the way to the PhD. I don't know Dr. Abelson personally - Rudy Marcus is still pretty healthy for his age though.

When I watched the Apprentice, I think it shows that a college education is not that important. Troy, who never went to college, was a much more effective leader than Kwame who had a MBA from Harvard. Sure, the MBA helped Kwame in the boardroom when he had to spin his defeats. But, Troy showed true business abilities, something they can't teach you. Its sad but I think that a college degree today is the equivalent to a high school diploma 40 years ago.

Wharton is the University of Pennsylvania's graduate business school. I doubt that Trump went to Wharton for undergraduate studies. Having seen only a part of one Apprentice episode, I too could come to the conclusion that the tv show had very little relation to real-world business acumen.

I wouldn't say that a degree in an Asian language is useless. Some of the classes I took as an undergrad and in law school were a waste of time, but I don't regret any of my Chinese studies. Although not the path I ultimately took, I have a number of friends who studied Chinese, and ended up working for a living in China or Hong Kong. Still another friend is a professor teaching Chinese. They have certainly had good mileage out of their language degrees. For me, I only occasionally have any use for my Chinese language skills, although it has been useful on occasion, as my company does business with Chinese companies, and being able to listen in on the other side's conversations during negotiations has on occasion been most helpful. From a purely personal standpoint (as opposed to being related to my employment) I still enjoy Chinese poetry and art, and when I travel in China for pleasure, it makes things a lot easier. If I had more time, I would take some graduate classes to keep on top of things.

Wharton has an undergraduate program. In regards to Trump himself, what I gleaned from a bit of googling is that he went to Fordham, then transferred to Wharton after two years, where he got his degree. Personally, though I couldn't care less about business and finance. Two tedious and bland intro econ classes proved that for me.

This begs the question, important for what? An unfortunate effect of a society where everything is measured in dollars is that it's easy to lose sight of the real purpose of higher education. Education is supposed to show students that there is life beyond their limited worlds, that there are wonderful traditions of literature, art, science, that human imagination has led to incredible discoveries and produced wonderous things. Simply stated, a good education enriches life. When someone asserts (and usually belligerently) that "college education is a waste of time" I know right away that that person is nearly invincibly ignorant, belittling something he either does not understand, or envies and hates. As for business school in particular - I don't believe it is really education. It is training, and it can teach effective management. Leadership, imagination, and drive cannot be learned from a syllabus.