Is UT=Ivy of Texas?

navyarf
Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:13:21 +0000

Listing CEO’s of fortune 500 companies by major is not helping your case and in fact, strengthens mine.

Most of these individuals are very smart. That is what propelled them forward in the corporate world. In addition, Gerstner and Otellini received their MBA’s from places like Harvard and Berkeley.

I never said “liberal arts/business majors are worthless”. I am arguing that for the average person with average intelligence, majoring in liberal arts/business, graduating with an average GPA from an average school, is probably playing a negative sum game both in terms of personal capital and social capital.

We need smart people to major in history. We need smart people to major in business. We need smart people to major in sociology. What we don’t need are more mediocre students graduating in these fields. And no, not every student at UT is smart.

My conclusion. Liberal arts/business majors are useful for smart people. Same goes for law school.

I agree with the one poster above who argued for setting quotas and raising admission standards for liberal arts, communications, and other soft majors. This would ensure student quality in these programs and help UT with its reputation.