Is Philosophy the Most Practical Major? - Edward Tenner - Technology. One of the many small surprises of the recession has been a significant growth in the number of philosophy majors, according the the Philadelphia Inquirer.
It has slightly exceeded the growth of enrollments in the last ten years; many other humanities and social science fields have just kept up. At the University of California at Berkeley, despite or because of the state's economic turmoil, the number of majors has increased by 74 percent in the last decade. What makes philosophy different? It can seem self-absorbed; philosophers themselves joke about Arthur Koestler's definition: "the systematic abuse of a terminology specially invented for that purpose.
" But it also is a tool (like history and religious studies) for thinking about everything else, and every profession from law and medicine to motorcycle maintenance. It's also one of the most competitive disciplines. Thus philosophy is a demanding major. It is true that philosophy majors' salaries aren't especially high. The Harvard Classics: A Free, Digital Collection. During his days as Harvard’s influential president, Charles W.
Eliot made a frequent assertion: If you were to spend just 15 minutes a day reading the right books, a quantity that could fit on a five foot shelf, you could give yourself a proper liberal education. The publisher P. F. Collier and Son loved the idea and asked Eliot to assemble the right collection of works. The result wasa 51-volume series published in 1909 called Dr. A big h/t to @eugenephoto. No frills university college offers half price degrees. The college is aimed at students concerned about taking on debts to fund their higher education.
Photograph: Christopher Thomond A "no-frills" university college offering teaching seven days a week and degrees for around half the price of traditional universities will start recruiting students next week. Coventry University College will focus on professional courses including accounting, law and marketing, at a maximum cost of £4,800 for a full-time degree student. It is an offshoot of Coventry University, but students at the new institution will not have access to the university's library, IT or sporting facilities. Instead of the traditional long summer holiday, the university college will be open 42 weeks a year. The college is aimed at students concerned about taking on debts to fund their higher education, as well as helping employees combine work with gaining new skills.
Middle East Studies in Upheaval - Daniel Pipes. The troubled academic study of the Middle East and Islam by Americans is changing in fundamental ways.
I offer some thoughts based on 42 years of personal observation. From Western offense to Islamic offense: Muslim relations with Christians divide into four long periods: from Muhammad’s hijra to the First Crusade, 622–1099, during which time Muslims expanded at Christian expense; to the second siege of Vienna, 1099–1683, which saw a mix of Muslim advances (e.g., Anatolia) and retreats (Iberia); to the Arab oil boycott, 1683–1973, with Christians on the offense; and since 1973, with Muslims on the offense. When I entered the Middle East and Islam field in 1969, Americans looked almost exclusively at the Western impact on modern Muslims; today, the Muslim impact on the West features almost as prominently, from American slavery to the problems of Malmö, Sweden.
Then came the revolution. The old masters dropped off of syllabi. The College Scam. What do Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Mark Cuban have in common?
They're all college dropouts. Richard Branson, Simon Cowell and Peter Jennings have in common? They never went to college at all. But today all kids are told: To succeed, you must go to college. Hillary Clinton tells students: "Graduates from four-year colleges earn nearly twice as much as high school graduates, an estimated $1 million more. " We hear that from people who run colleges. That's why I say: For many people, college is a scam. I spoke with Richard Vedder, author of "Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much," and Naomi Schafer Riley, who just published "Faculty Lounges and Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Paid For.
" Vedder explained why that million-dollar comparison is ridiculous: "People that go to college are different kind of people ... They would have made more money even if they never went to college. The research is often on obscure topics for journals nobody reads.