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If you went to college what did you major | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
| Glendonian Bilingual Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 5723 days ago 26 posts - 37 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: German, Italian | Message 121 of 169 07 October 2009 at 5:26am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Interestingly, the UK and Israel are democracies, whereas China and the rest of the Middle East are almost entirely dictatorships or authoritarian régimes.
That's true here too. I attend a liberal arts college, which is very heavily white. That's an anomaly in Toronto, believe me. People don't immigrate to Canada so that their kids can study history, or, gasp!, French Studies. If you talk to young immigrants about their educations they have a lot to say about qualifications, practical skills, and of course, salaries - social and political debates, not so much, although when pressed they sometimes have passive opinions about them that they don't really have arguments to defend. This of course with the very big caveat that this is only a cultural trend and of course there are many exceptions on both sides, although yes, people who sit around talking about electoral reform and the difference between sex and gender are likelier to be at least born in Canada or the West. Edited by Glendonian on 07 October 2009 at 5:27am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6856 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 122 of 169 07 October 2009 at 5:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think my opinion has been stated well enough, so I'm not really going to comment further on our little thread derailment. In the end that's all any of us are giving (our opinions). Take it or leave it. That said...
Yeah. That's kind of the point of getting a PhD. It's a research degree, intended to prepare you for teaching and research at the university level. You don't get a PhD just because you find the subject interesting but you intend to work in corporate management. Why would I be offended?
Now, why is teaching and research at a university the "safe" approach, while a career in Finance/Economics is a real job in the "real world?" Professors don't have to worry about the mortgage, pay bills, provide for their families, plan for retirement, pay taxes, and all that other stuff that you "real world" types have to deal with? So spending 8 years of my life in grad school (2 for MA and 6-ish for PhD) so that I can hopefully get a position at a university and eventually pay off those student loans I'll (also) have, and then fighting for funding so I can do the research, teaching a bunch of freshman who don't want to be in class and won't put away their cell phones, and trying to get published so I can one day (hopefully) get tenure and make some decent money and finally have some job security -- that's the safe route? How is that any different from any other job other than the nature of the work?
If you're working at McDonald's with a bachelor's degree, there's something wrong. I have a Bachelor of Music degree (not even a "traditional" degree like a BA or BS) and I was working as a manager for a major retailer and making pretty good money doing fun work (fun for a while anyway) at a job where I wore flip flops every day and talked to cute girls for most of the time I was there. It isn't a job you'd want to do for life but it was fun for a couple years while I figured out what I really wanted to do with my life. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6442 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 123 of 169 07 October 2009 at 6:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Just a quick question... Where did this discussion start from, and what does this have to do with languages? o_O
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| JasonBourne Groupie United States Joined 5758 days ago 65 posts - 111 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Arabic (Written), Turkish | Message 124 of 169 07 October 2009 at 7:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Sorry, Mr. Moderator, I think I started this. Obviously touched a nerve with some people.
OneEye, I only meant tossed out into the "real world" immediately after getting my degree, while you still have 6-8 years of loan deferment, affordable housing, relatively stable/cushy research assistant jobs, etc. Surely in your college career you've ran into people who go to grad school to avoid the "real world". Not saying you have it any easier per say, but it certainly influences your view of education. Graduate school is often used as a refuge (albeit a very expensive one), one cannot ignore that fact. Edited by JasonBourne on 07 October 2009 at 7:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Belardur Octoglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5617 days ago 148 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2, Spanish, Dutch, Latin, Ancient Greek, French, Lowland Scots Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Italian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean | Message 125 of 169 07 October 2009 at 9:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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OnEye beat me to some of this, but in response to Jason's second comment on it - graduate school isn't the real world, and is often used as a refuge...but you seemed to imply that "academia is not the real world." As someone nearing the end of my Ph.D. program (subjectively) and beginning to have to be concerned with the things OneEye mentioned, let me assure you it is just as competitive and real as any other field. Heck, I bust my butt to write and get published now, so I have a better shot when I'm done.
I note, though, that Jason seems to be talking about going to grad school where OneEye is talking about work at the end of the educational program - not the same point. I would say that you have to compare work situations, not one graduate with someone who is in grad school. That said, and relating it to languages, I do find that facility in several languages opens a lot of doors for me in this regard. Some of them are absolutely required in my field, not merely in the degree program (koine Greek, for example). Others widen my ability to keep up with different trends in different countries without waiting on translations, and be more on top of current research than some of my colleagues. I'm counting a little bit on my advanced facility in German, at least, to make me a more attractive candidate when I'm after a permanent position, and both German and my functional ability in French open up several other possible places of employment simply because of the language of instruction. That's not to say I wouldn't love these languages and study them regardless, possibly excepting ancient Hebrew, but the benefits I get from them help me immensely. Oh, and I'm not saying drop vocational job skills, merely that we shouldn't shortchange education for skills. And no one is scoffing at a "lowbrow culture," as if there's a cultural divide - rather the increasing creation of a "party subculture" and "overspecialized drones" (not my term!) that comes from a shortchanging of well-rounded education and an effort-to-dollars focus with a dollars-to-pleasure hedonism. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kai13 Diglot Newbie Portugal Joined 5222 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English | Message 126 of 169 16 August 2010 at 10:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Majoring in mandarin chinese and minoring in japanese. My japanese is much better than my chinese though. university courses suck. If I had not to study other stuff as geography and history my chinese would be much better and my japanese too.
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5387 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 127 of 169 16 August 2010 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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B.A. Hons. Linguistics
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| JPike1028 Triglot Senior Member United States piketransitions Joined 5403 days ago 297 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, French, Italian Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech | Message 128 of 169 16 August 2010 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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B.S. in Music - Vocal Performance
Hopefully going back for a Graduate Certificate in Literary Translation this fall though. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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