DUmmies Discuss Liberal Arts Jobs

[GOBUCKS]

marmar  (1000+ posts)        Fri Dec-18-09 12:35 PM
Original message
NY Times: At Colleges, Humanities Job Outlook Gets Bleaker 
At Colleges, Humanities Job Outlook Gets Bleaker

By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: December 17, 2009


With colleges and universities cutting back because of the recession, the job outlook for graduate students in language and literature is bleaker than ever before.

Economy Doesn’t Slow Demand for Early Entry to College (December 18, 2009) According to the Modern Language Association’s forecast of job listings, released Thursday, faculty positions will decline 37 percent, the biggest drop since the group began tracking its job listings 35 years ago.

The projection, based on a comparison between the number of jobs listed in October 2008 and October 2009, follows a 26 percent drop the previous year.

“Students thinking of going to graduate school in English should understand that right now their chance of landing a job that provides them a livable wage is 50-60 percent,” said Rosemary Feal, executive director of the M.L.A., the world’s largest association of scholars and professors of language and literature. “What I often hear from grad students is, ‘I had no clue it was this bad.’ They need to go into it with their eyes wide open.”

While the association does not having listings for every academic position available, its list does track the overall faculty job market. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/education/18professor...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7263436
Bad news for DUmmies, but nothing really new. Those unmarketable degrees they pursue, mainly because they are easy to complete and don't require any of those pesky, judgmental math courses, are nearly worthless for anything except teaching the same thing to other moonbats. And those jobs are scarce.


This DUmmy has seen the truth, and it's ugly:

Nicholas D Wolfwood  (1000+ posts)        Fri Dec-18-09 12:53 PM
Sure, you can do and learn whatever you want. Just don't expect someone to pay for it.

 

msedano (578 posts)      Fri Dec-18-09 12:49 PM

2. looking for work in all the wrong places
a humanities degree, an advanced one more so, prepares people for effective productivity in the information economy, work related to sales and distribution: thinking, writing, speaking, listening.

with the US economy no longer a primary producer of goods, our forte has become service and moving information, "the knowledge industry". material purchased overseas for import into our markets requires folks skilled at purchasing and inventory control, shipping, warehousing, writing marketing copy like catalogs and webpages, training, and, ultimately, finding customers, either regional distributors, jobbers, or end-users. sales. sadly, being "in sales" leaves a bad taste in some mouths. get over it.

Now this DUmmy, spouting democrat orthodoxy, really irritates me. It is a universally accepted fact among moonbats that the reason they live in endless poverty in the richest nation on earth is because we no longer have any manufacturing industries in this country. We simply import stuff, ship it around, and buy it. They don't consider where all that money comes from to buy the stuff, but it's the reason they can only find part time work at a fast food joint - there are no manufacturing jobs anymore, they say.

Nothing is further from the truth. The U.S. is still by far the largest producer of manufactured goods in the world. China is gaining, but with four times our population they have miles to go on a per capita basis.

Conspicuous consumer junk, electronics, and clothing are imported. DUmmies think that is all there is, but our prosperity was never based on assembling Mardi Gras beads.

The USA’s share of the manufacturing output, of the countries that manufactured over $185 billion in 2008, 28% in 1990, 28% in 1995, 32% in 2000, 28% in 2005, 28% in 2006, 26% in 2007 and 24% in 2008. China’s share has grown from 4% in 1990, 6% in 1995, 10% in 2000, 13% in 2005, 14% in 2006, 16% in 2007 to 18% in 2008. Japan’s share has fallen from 22% in 1990 to 14% in 2008 (after increasing to 26% in 1995 then steadily falling). The USA has about 4.5% of the world population, China about 20%.

Based on the latest UN Data, for global manufacturing, in billions of current US dollars:

Country       1990   1995   2000   2005   2006   2007    2008
USA            1,041  1,289  1,543  1,624  1,712  1,756   1,831
China            145     300     484    734    891   1,106   1,399
Japan            810   1,219  1,034   979     927     923   1,045
Germany        438     517     392    571    608     711      767
Italy              240     226     206    295    302     345     381
http://investing.curiouscatblog.net/2009/10/13/data-on-the-largest-manufacturing-countries-in-2008/

[thundley4]

With colleges and universities cutting back because of the recession, the job outlook for graduate students in language and literature is bleaker than ever before.

Economy Doesn’t Slow Demand for Early Entry to College (December 18, 2009) According to the Modern Language Association’s forecast of job listings, released Thursday, faculty positions will decline 37 percent, the biggest drop since the group began tracking its job listings 35 years ago.

What?  This makes it sound like the only jobs that Language and Literature are suited for is teaching other students. How can that be?

I do see the need for learning English, but there are only so many teachers needed.

[jukin]

ORDER UP!

[thundley4]

ORDER UP!

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92utho4PjH0&[/youtube]

God, that is so annoying!! 

[Oceander]

ORDER UP!

No, no, no!  You gotta start off practicing "you want fries with that?"  If you can't get 'em to commit to the fries, you can't close the deal and get to "order up!" in the first place! 

Here's all I have to say about these stupid effing idiots:

[Celtic Rose]

I have no sympathy for those who are using their lib. arts degree as an excuse for not having a job.  I majored in History, and had a job within 2 months of graduation, and I still have it almost 3 years later.  My  best friend majored in Film Studies, and got a job, in her field, within a month or two of graduating.  Another friend majored in math, which might as well be a lib. arts major unless you have a graduate degree, and once she realized she was having trouble finding a job, she joined Teach for America and got a job that way.  When DUmmies claim that they've been unemployed for X number of years because of their major, I roll my eyes.

I have a friend who uses her Theater major as an excuse for why she doesn't have a job, but her problem is that she wants her dream job, now.  She wants to me a magazine editor, so she applies for the top positions rather than for the lowly copy editor, file clerk positions to get in the door.  She doesn't want to "settle."  Meanwhile, her resume is getting a larger and larger unemployed section. 

[crockspot]

I have no sympathy for those who are using their lib. arts degree as an excuse for not having a job.  I majored in History, and had a job within 2 months of graduation, and I still have it almost 3 years later.  My  best friend majored in Film Studies, and got a job, in her field, within a month or two of graduating.  Another friend majored in math, which might as well be a lib. arts major unless you have a graduate degree, and once she realized she was having trouble finding a job, she joined Teach for America and got a job that way.  When DUmmies claim that they've been unemployed for X number of years because of their major, I roll my eyes.

I have a friend who uses her Theater major as an excuse for why she doesn't have a job, but her problem is that she wants her dream job, now.  She wants to me a magazine editor, so she applies for the top positions rather than for the lowly copy editor, file clerk positions to get in the door.  She doesn't want to "settle."  Meanwhile, her resume is getting a larger and larger unemployed section. 

I majored in Art (photo) and minored in Politics. I got a job at a professional photo lab within a week of graduation. I was there for 13 years, working my way up the ladder. At about year 11 or 12, I realized it was a dead end job with no future, so I spent all my spare time learning about computers, and got a job in IT.

[sofa king]

math is hard! 

and i love any dummy that will take any loan to complete a masters or doctorate in wymyn's studies, racking up $100's of thousands of loans, and then look for any out to bail on that obligation they entered into willingly.  it all *should* be free, right?

avoiding payments for loans, collecting sdsi, and demanding that hard working and successful people pay for all of their failures are what dummys truly major in.  and they are very good at it.

[BlueStateSaint]

and i love any dummy that will take any loan to complete a masters or doctorate in wymyn's studies, racking up $100's of thousands of loans, and then look for any out to bail on that obligation they entered into willingly.  it all *should* be free, right?

Methinks that, soon, the flock of turkeys will come back to roost.

And then, they're ****ed.

As to the DUmmy OP . . . I know of a college classmate of mine who majored in governemnt (I think).  Never really saw her around campus.  She went to grad school and when she got out, she busted her ass.  Now, twenty-odd years later, she's got her own TV show on FNC (with Trace Gallagher) and occasionally subs for Gretchen Carlson in the mornings, because she didn't sit back on her ass and "let stuff come to her."  Yup--she works for "the evil" FNC.  (At least someone I knew vaguely made it big.)

[The Village Idiot]

and i love any dummy that will take any loan to complete a masters or doctorate in wymyn's studies, racking up $100's of thousands of loans, and then look for any out to bail on that obligation they entered into willingly.  it all *should* be free, right?

The only thing you can do with that is start a left-wing "non-profit" and get government grants.

[Randy]

The only thing you can do with that is start a left-wing "non-profit" and get government grants.

Yeah but then you'd have to do that yicky work stuff....ewww *shudder* /dummie

[The Village Idiot]

Yeah but then you'd have to do that yicky work stuff....ewww *shudder* /dummie

Well, you have to at least just pretend to that work stuff anyways