Tuesday, November 25, 2008

"Higher" Education and America's Future

In the USA we have fallen behind in the number of students who finish their proposed collage major. We also have the fourth lowest collage participation among competitive countries. Additionally, there seems to be a growing anomaly that has self-perpetuated since the late 1980s -that anomaly is what type of collage majors are actually graduating and entering society. The vast majority of collage graduates are located primarily in the discipline of Business (marketing, financing, accounting, and economics). Nevertheless, the USA -and much of the world- has seen a large slow-down in certain technological advances compared to prior decades. Additionally, we have seen a change in the total world population being considered in a state of "extreme" poverty, which has increased slightly since 1990 - but also there has been a jump in the number of people who are impoverished. Finally, there have been more economic problems since 1980 to 2008 than in the last 110 years combined! Who are we to thank? Is it not true that our society and its functioning depends on the younger generation which educates itself to become the leader? Yes, but why all the problems? One of the reasons for the problems we are experiencing, is the sever polarization of higher-education toward business majors and business related majors.
Why is such polarization bad? This answer is quite simple; as we progress toward one side of the spectrum of education we experience a imbalance of the collective and progressive thought of society, which also leads to less people (especially intelligent and productive people) participating in studies that could produce great beneficial discoveries for mankind. Nevertheless, those people have opted-out and have joined the dark and greed infested world of the merchants, and thus, we have seen a incredible -and unjustifiable- growth in world economies. This augmented growth in business majors is relative to other aspects (I am aware of this), but it has been principally generated by this idea that "business is the only way to go to make money." Of course I am aware that we must make "money" to survive -but do we make money to enrich our selves, to help others, or to use resources unnecessarily?
As I had noted earlier, there has been a reduction in extreme poverty in the recent ten years, but there has been an increase in poverty. This increase in poverty is partially due to the proliferation of large companies into third-world nations that take UNFAIR advantage of the lives of some of the desperate populations. Some may hold that such companies are doing a favor, and that the proliferation of business majors has lead to the increase from Poverty X to Poverty Y (Y being somewhat better than X). This is not a valid argument. The number of impoverished people has risen disproportionally to the amount that has left extreme poverty, so that means that some people have actually lost economic status.
Moreover, we have personally witnessed what happens to world economies when you let some ignorant money-savvy chump sit behind a desk and make millions of dollars a year by only knowing how to manage some company. Those men -and their greed- have caused a down fall of many american and human lives. This is unacceptable!
We have also seen a decline in human morality/ethics. It has been reported that white collar and 'simple' crimes have increased 20% in the last decade on a world-wide scale!
Now, all you economic majors should be aware of these states -after all you are a "Social Science" rigt? Yes, you are, but what has happened is that one of the most solid social studies has degenerated into the field of business. You see businessmen are cunning, and they know that economic majors should have some knowledge of how things move in society. Since their product deals with society it is logical to higher them -right? (By the way, I don't actually believe that many businessmen are logical)
The problem is that economics has taken its rank with finance guys, marketing people, and the exploitative sales jerks. Many economic majors that I speak to don't know @#!! about @#!! This is sad, and is the result of people thinking they can get a degree and go work for some major financial investment bank or firm and become rich! What good will that do, I ask? Going and sitting behind a desk making far more money than many of the worlds people, at the cost of the workers of society? Is that ethical?
So, I guess you could say that I shame you business majors. I shame what you have done to society, and you completely wastefulness. I also spit upon your misconceived notion that -if I am a businesses degree-holder, I will some day have my big company that makes me lots of money- in realty the majority of you guys run companies for guys that never went to school or studied something else.
We need, as a nation, revert back to the basics, the classics. Things that will allow us to survive are: Science, mathematics, physics, philosophy, sociology, engineering, chemistry and the like.

To bad that human egoism is so prevalent... God bless america.
J.R.P

P.S.
It is important to note that universities are, traditionally, the place of "higher-learning," and that should and would not usually include business studies; so, I think that we should just put all business studies in junior colleges or tec-schools (oops again.. they already do).
Here are some sources.
1) Major stats.
2) Major state 2
3) Poverty

6 comments:

  1. I found your blog and liked what I read. I've always felt that there were "real and fake" college majors.
    P.S. I of course have a real one. :)
    Kara Johnson (we went to highschool together)

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  2. Nice to have you commenting on this blog, Kara. I am also pleased to here -via your blog- that life seems to be treating you as well-as-can-be-expected. I welcome all comments or suggestions...(and congratulations on being one of the authentic majors in academia)

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  3. Hey, what's up? I've talked to you a few times but don't really know you very well. Thanks for the comment on our blog.

    I think your blog is interesting and I like reading your perspective on different subjects. I'd have to disagree on your business education theory, America is great because of capitalism. Businessmen and women have built up America to where it is today, and yes I agree some businessmen are crooks and unethical and should be punished for their illegal behavior, but for the most part America isn't a third world country because of capitalism and the freedom we have that other countries do not have. So to say that business degrees are a waste of time and a waste of a college education I'd have to disagree.

    People will study what they're interested in doing, if you like philosophy go right ahead and study that, but personally I can't stand that. So I'm going to study business because I want to be independent and I really don't want to work for such a small wage to make someone else rich.

    And I read your post on Obama and Hitler. To put those two names together is ridiculous. Just because you don't agree with the new president (and I don't either) doesn't mean you should compare him to Hitler, who is one of the worst characters in the history of the world.

    I look forward to reading your response and other posts.

    Steve.

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  4. Steve,
    Thanks for the comment. I think that you have hit on some great points. But let me clarify myself. Let us consider the current state of the world; more than half of the total population is living in extreme poverty, and more than 70% is impoverished generally. Almost 95% of the worlds economies have been capitalism-based for more than 50 years, and in that time we have seen an increase in the total net suffering of the world.
    Capitalism is not bad if it is implemented correctly, but has it been? Capitalism was intended to produce small and medium sized capitals, which -in effect- create and maintain a competitive market that distributes the wealth equally. Our system is a consuming-capitalism, meaning that the system produces excess monopolies and mega-capitals, which cause general disruption in society.
    So, america is not good because of capitalism, but rather in virtue of the ingenuity of the people - (Karl Marx held that how we run capitalism would lead to its downfall, and it seems we are seeing that with the bail-outs).
    The next question: has america become great because of business people?
    Well, I am sure that business has contributed to that, but were the majority of those "famous business people" business majors? Actually, a very very small minority are business majors; many of them owned business, but they did not go and study it -I suppose that their managers and directors did :)
    An example of famous people that have dramatically affected society via business are:
    Carl C. Icahn, corporate raider (Philosophy)
    Frank Moran, founder of Plante and Moran (Philosophy)
    George Soros, financier and philanthropist (Philosophy)
    Steve Jobs, Apple CEO -founder. (Technical Writing)
    Bill Gates, Microsoft founder. (Drop out, but studied comp sci)
    Howard Stern (Communications)
    John Mccain (Marine Eng.)
    Jay Leno (Speech Therapy)
    Oprah (Drama/acting degree)
    Steven Spielberg (Film major)
    Donald Trump, CEO Trump Properties (Quantitative Econ)
    Michel Dell, Founder of Dell Computers (General Studies -drop)
    Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein (Drop outs)
    Nori Maksonia, Stock Trader (Mathematics)
    J.P Morgan, most influetial banker in history (Mathematics)
    John Maynard Keynes, economist /business mogul (Math)
    Ed Torpe, the innovator of e-trading on wall-street (math)
    J.Hill, Banker (english)
    Other Megafamous People With No Business Degree:
    Thomas Edison (Philosophy chemistry)
    Ben Franklin (science)
    Einstein (Physics)
    John D. Rockefeller, Oil Tycoon (drop-out)
    Walt Disney (English, Philosophy studies)
    Richard Branson, Virgin Records (Drop-out)
    Ray Kroc, Mc Donald's
    These are just a few, but I am getting tired of typing from my list. Actually, according to Time mag. (2001 ed) in the top 1000 people of all time only 10 had business degrees! This seems to follow from the prior list; all those people have done more for society and humanity than the majority of fly-by-night business majors. The point is that you don't need a business degree to be a very productive business person. You don't need to waste your precious neurons on something that is learned 'a posteriori' (by experience) anyway - you should focus on educating yourself in a way that complements your skills, in a way that tests your mind, and diversifies your thought process.
    And if you need more proof of how poor an education it is to be a business major consider this:

    Average GRE Scores by Intended Graduate Major:

    Verbal Reasoning
    1. PHILOSOPHY 590
    2. English Lang. & Lit. 559
    3. Humanities & Arts – other 558
    4. History 543
    5. Arts – History, Theory 538
    6. Religion 538
    25. Business – Bank. & Fin. 476
    38. Business – other 450
    50. Business – Accounting 415

    Quantitative Reasoning
    1-10 are math, chemistry, etc..
    29. Business – Administration 562
    Analytical Writing
    1 is Philosophy, and 2-20 are humanities, english, and the sciences.
    35. Business – Administration
    45. Business – other

    Buisness is pretty much on the bottom of the page with reguard to the GRE exam. But what about the GMAT (Master's business school test)
    Business majors (administration) -0.8%; and Business management was at -7.7! That is lower than all other majors on a Business exam!
    (Philosophy scored the highest)

    So, thats why it is a waste of a university education, but not a technology school or junior collage. And in the end I side with Caloritoni, "the men that I PAY to run papers and type letters are the business major; the ones that work beside me are anything else"
    Best,
    J.R.P

    http://www.philosophy.eku.edu/scores.htm

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  5. I agree that business skills are learned by experience, but so are most other skills. The benefit of studying in college is it speeds up the learning process, instead of learning the hard way through trial and error most people can skip the basic mistakes and excel in what they are trying to do. This is the same with chemistry, philosophy, engineering, etc.

    I understand most of those great business people weren't business majors. Do you have a list of famous business owners with business degrees? I personally know quite a few (not famous but local ones). A lot of extremely successful people even had no education at all, so essentially it comes down to what a person wants in life and whether they've got the balls to go after and get it.

    Have you ever read Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill? It's a good book, if you haven't check it out.

    About mega-capitals and monopolies, they are mostly created by consumers, not their owners. People like uniformity, they like knowing that every time they go to McDonald's they're going to get the same tasting hamburger that they would get at any other McDonald's in the world. They also like knowing that every Lowe's and every Home Depot stock they same products at the same price. While on the other hand, local stores and restaurants are mysteries to people not familiar with that particular city, prices could be to high, quality of food and taste could be off, and many other factors. So it's the consumer that's been screwing up the perfect capitalist system and not the business owners.

    Although, I'm sure the owners don't mind the popularity and support.

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  6. Steve,
    You are right that things are learned via experience, and school is just that. However, the specific way school allows for this "experience" is by aiding people to augment their logical, critical, and specific/general skills. The point it, then, that at the undergraduate level one should be more diversified and study something more rigorous and then, once you go to graduate level, you should then go for something like an MBA -if you are set on business (and now days most businesses only look at MBAs for their higher paying positions). Moreover, MBA+ a diversity degree will z you from the average applicant and make you more marketable (and I think that the grad tests show that such is the case).

    About the capital stuff. Is it the consumer or is it the psychological conditioning by the large businesses that make such large companies? Like, for example, the Wal-mart spends more than 100 billion a year on adolescent and child marketing! Is that just?
    JRP

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