Friday, March 05, 2010

When Liberal Arts Majors Marry Engineers

An extreme example, but will highlight the point I'm trying to make here, I know a couple where the guy got his masters in computer engineering and her a degree in journalism. Her dad was a brain surgeon or heart surgeon or something big and thus she had a house and a car bought and paid for as well as a spending account until her knight in shinning FORTRAN armor came along and took over from the father.

Now, with children, the wife stays at home, doesn't really work, but woe upon you if you dare suggest she wasn't really ever independent in her life and didn't support herself.

Naturally what irks me is the hypocrisy of people who major in a worthless field, espouse to be independent and self-reliant, and then marry somebody who actually produces something or work, YET STILL MAINTAINS THEIR lefter leaning ideology about wealth distribution, essentially taking the stance their engineering majoring spouse should be taxed in a quasi-slave-like arrangement.

Ergo, why my blood pressure rises when I see this.

Who precisely do they think is going to turn the country around or produce the wealth to pay down our debts? Additionally, how much you want to bet those liberal arts majors are going to be scurrying for engineers when the stimulus money runs out to make ends meet.

As always, enjoy the decline.

13 comments:

ngthagg said...

This decision makes perfect sense to me. Computer science is a male dominated field. Male enrollment is relatively decreasing. Computers are expensive to maintain. Therefore, computer science should be cut.

The fact that computer science majors will contribute to GDP when they graduate doesn't add a cent to the university's bottom line.

In fact, I can see some positives if this becomes a trend. If more computer science programs shut down, the supply of of university educated computer guys will decrease. This will increase the value of comp sci degrees (a plus for the men who hold them) and increase the value of computer guys without degrees, since they will be in greater demand to fill the lower end computer jobs. And these guys who start getting jobs without the degrees are going to stop putting a ton of money into the higher education bubble.

Simon Grey said...

"Ergo, why my blood pressure rises when I see this."

Why? If anything, this means that another leftist college will eventually be forced to close its doors because the administrators weren't intelligent enough to figure out the demands of the labor market.

John said...

Oh Hell, Aaron, you know that what she really majored in was sex!

she said: said...

Additionally - science degrees are heavy in math.

Oddly, this is a valuable asset.

Engineers stay employed because a lot of people can't do math. Like journalism majors.

raliv said...

Spot on, Cap. The women's studies majors that I see are mostly daddy's girls with plenty of his money. While they love to talk about womens rights, careers, and other feminist rhetoric, I honestly wonder what they going to do with their precious liberal arts degrees. Be productive citizens and hard workers? I think not.

We need more posts on new and fun ways to enjoy the decline.

Eric said...

FORTRAN is a dead language. They quit teaching it to all engineering students in favor of other languages at my school 15 years ago.

Thankfully this engineer married a gal who was studying Chemical Engineering. She did switch to biochemistry, which is still a worthy major. The pay is less than half though. :( Not that it matters as she is home with our children now.

PeppermintPanda said...

I think this is just another example that exposes the true business of higher education.

When you compare the University required for me to receive my Computer Science degree to the resources required for most liberal arts degrees, and recognise that the tuition and government financing of these degrees is the same, it becomes much clear why the University cuts computer science first. The University doesn’t care about providing a worthwhile education for their students; they only care about increasing their profit margins.

If I was in charge of the government, on of the first things I would do is change how universities are funded. The funding would be based on a per-student basis, and worthwhile degree fields would receive substantially more funding than liberal arts degrees; and there would be a bonus to the university for every student that received their degree and found relevant work in the private sector.

Amateur Strategist said...

Brilliant Deduction, PeppermintPanda.

What's going to be sweet is the inevitable outcome listed in PMAFT's Spearhead article about this very subject. No more success stories or donations if no one can find work with useless paper.

Anna said...

I majored in engineering... those of us who put ourselves through college saw early the benefit of a little concept called "making a living".

But seriously, has anyone else noticed a common spousal pairing of male engineer with female teacher? I see this all over the place, I know at least 5 couples personally and I have seen it on TV and the wider world as well.

Is it because smart pairs with smart, and smart girls are urged to become teachers? (People tried to get me to be a teacher, and even still people tell me that if engineering doesn't work out I could always teach math, hahaha)

And we all know that teachers are usually liberal, and major in sex and beer most of the time. And then they want a high paying career handed to them and act like martyrs when they can't have it. But I digress.

sestamibi said...

FORTRAN armor??!?!!!

How many generations ago was that?

Maureen said...

One of the best Big Bang Theory episodes was where Sheldon was informed that if he didn't show up at a fundraiser, rather than giving money to the Physics department, the donor might just give the money, to one of the liberal arts, maybe even gender studies! - I killed myself laughing.

Anonymous said...

I thought you were a capitalist? The decision made perfect economic sense for the university. More people (especially women and NAMs) major in stupid, worthless "studies" subjects than in computer science, thus generating more profit for the university than difficult compsci. Thus, the university cut the relatively unprofitable major and kept the profitable ones, despite the uselessness of the latter to owners of those degrees in the real world.

And do you really need a college degree to do computer science? Much of college compsci is useless theoretical crap anyway, not stuff that helps you in the real world.

Anonymous said...

Straight out of the female playbook: go to college and get an easy degree, use your time at college to have sex with dozens of alpha males, get an easy job, pretend to be interested in working for a couple years, marry a guy with money, immediately stop working (by this time she's about 26) and become a "stay at home mom" in other words "the parasite that spends his money". She can then claim that she is not a worthless parasite, but that her plan was to have a career, until the man came along and made her "give up her life". Win-win for her, sorry for the poor loser of a guy. She gets to wave the feminist banner and claim to be an educated, independent career woman who sacrificed it all for family, then she can be lazy parasite who married for money, without being criticized for it!