What is the true half - life of a bachelors degree?

[atreides]

I've been thinking about this for a while as I find myself not using all the hard skills accumulated in school in my current job, and know of many others that ended up in completely different fields than they studied in school.

A lot of schools now offer the BS/MS five year option for many programs. Is this is a sign that the academic bar has shifted, (a high school degree used to be enough to break into some industry and live decently 20 to 30 years ago) and you need an MS to break into most fields. In other words is the MS the new BS?

Again, what is the true half -life for a BS?

 

[bigbadwolf]

Sure the bar has shifted. That's patently obvious. A graduate degree has become the new bachelor's degree and in many areas even that is not enough to guarantee a job, let alone a well-paying one. That's why graduate programs have been proliferating for at least the last 20 or 25 years. MBAs, JDs, masters in education .... It's not that the skill level of the jobs has increased, it's simply that there are more hopefuls out there contending for a limited (and often shrinking) number of jobs and thinking that a graduate degree gives them an edge (which it would save for the fact that so many people now have them). In addition, sagging academic standards and (almost equivalently) grade inflation mean that the bachelor's degree is not what it used to be 40 years ago, let alone 80 years ago. The master's degree supposedly makes up for the deficiencies of the undergraduate program.

The powers-that-be have a vested interest in pushing more education. For the politicians it's an easy response to the systemic problem of shrinking employment opportunities in sagging post-industrial societies. No job? Get some education. And the universities have an obvious vested interest in keeping their customers for longer and longer periods of time -- regardless of the fact that there may still be no viable job opportunities after having finished two or more degrees.

I'm not saying anything original here. For several years there has been a growing lumpenproletariat of Ph.D.s, making a hand-to-mouth living as adjuncts. The people working in bookshops and coffee shops often have degrees (and are grateful for the jobs they have). The security guard in my apartment building in Minneapolis has a business degree but is grateful for his humble job. And for how lawyers are faring, see this blog: http://temporaryattorney.blogspot.com/

 

[Dave Haan]

I think it depends quite a bit on the area of study. Maths and physical sciences have held up better than social sciences and humanities (computer science may even have gained in value due to the rapidity of technological development). But the proportion of business majors has doubled (largely at the expense of SS&H), as has the ratio between service and manufacture. I'd also say that the Associate degree is overall more in line with high school graduation 40 years ago.

But keeping up with the skills is definitely important to employment prospects, if narrowly.

 

[bigbadwolf]

But keeping up with the skills is definitely important to employment prospects, if narrowly.

Sometimes I think it's more of a credentials race. Look at the posts on this forum: there are innumerable queries about GPAs and the standing of particular programs. There's relatively little discussion of FE ideas.

 

[Aditya Chitral]

Let me TRY to have the fun and satisfaction of digressing the thread from what it was intended to do.

Why do all of bbw's posts boil down to criticizing the system, the ugly politics etc etc.

I would rather take it as a theorem than a postulate.

 

[Dave Haan]

Sometimes I think it's more of a credentials race. Look at the posts on this forum: there are innumerable queries about GPAs and the standing of particular programs. There's relatively little discussion of FE ideas.

Well of course credentials are going to be the most pertinent to those trying to assemble them, which makes up the majority of forum participants; it's up to those of us who have been there done that to provide a corrective perspective. Mine is informed by 25 yrs inside large institutions, both as consultant and officer, working with quants, programmers, traders, researchers and risk managers; I have been privileged to have a go at each (through circumstance not conscious pursuit), but found my comparative advantage (and autonomy) was at the nexus of these different roles. My Math BS was broader than most and enabled me to build upon it on my own, but wholly homegrown programming skills are what got me on to the Street in the first place. Now the terms of entry have certainly been raised, and in some sense I think I know how test pilots felt when astronauts came along (or better, how ad hoc engineering was supplanted by a more formal systematic approach). Specialization now opens doors, but there are fewer locks into which the key fits (and keys are a whole lot more expensive these days, while the vaults seem emptier). A good overview of what drives the business (presented in the context of bankers' pay) is to be had in the late Sept posts at epicureandealmaker.blogspot.com, though per one footnote:

For the purposes of my discussion, I will focus mostly on what are known in the trade as "professionals," i.e., those individuals armed mostly with college and/or MBA degrees who do the line work of an investment bank, like M&A, underwriting, and sales and trading. I will not discuss the huge numbers of highly effective and highly paid support staff without whom no investment bank could even open its doors. Suffice it to say that while few of these latter ever become millionaires, they do tend to earn extremely attractive wages in relation to people doing similar or identical work in other industries.

So yes, credentials are an edge, but one which must be wielded properly; some appreciation of banking practice and culture cuts better than a marginally higher GPA or program ranking. And of course both together are better still.