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</p>
<p>Source please.</p>
<p>Actually 34%.</p>
<p>[Even</a> Harvard Grads Feel the Job Squeeze - The Paper Trail (usnews.com)](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/blogs/paper-trail/2008/06/23/even-harvard-grads-feel-the-job-squeeze.html]Even”>http://www.usnews.com/blogs/paper-trail/2008/06/23/even-harvard-grads-feel-the-job-squeeze.html)</p>
<p>I promised myself not to bash Harvard too much, at least in public. Don’t make me do that. :)</p>
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<p>Ah, your source is what I thought. But the data of the source is crucially (if subtly) different from what you claimed. It’s not as if 34% of Harvard workforce bound seniors couldn’t find jobs at all, but rather that they couldn’t find jobs that they wanted. Let’s face it, Harvard graduates are not going to take just any job. </p>
<p>[Harvard</a> Graduates Head to Investment Banking, Consulting | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2008/6/22/harvard-graduates-head-to-investment-banking/]Harvard”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2008/6/22/harvard-graduates-head-to-investment-banking/)</p>
<p>
Same thing. The son of my friend graduated from Yale last year. It took him 4 months to find a job.</p>
<p>No, it’s not the same thing. There’s clearly a major difference in power relationships between truly not being able to find any job at all and not finding a job that you want. </p>
<p>Put another way, according the above link, in 2007 when the economy was still strong, nevertheless, 27% of Harvard seniors headed for the workforce did not have a job at graduation. Now, clearly, practically any Harvard graduate could have gotten some type of job, even if a mediocre one, in 2007. The overall nationwide unemployment rate back then was less than 5%. </p>
<p>There’s a clear difference between not having a job because you don’t want what’s on offer and not having a job because there truly are no jobs available at all.</p>
<p>sakky, almost all graduates from virtually any good university should be able to find a job of some sort. But the notion that HYP grads all get choice jobs is not true. I have known many students who graduate from such schools that struggled to find jobs of choice. My own administative assistant in 2002 was a Yale graduate. She graduate with a 3.7 GPA, was very well spoken and extremely (EXTREMELY) presentable. She just couldn’t find a job of and had to settle for an administrative job that paid her less than $30,000/year. According to her, many members of her class had the same trouble finding jobs. She ended up quiting her job as an admin and enrolled into Georgetown Law school.</p>
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<p>Sakky, I think I understand why you use an example drawn from engineering training. Your premise is that this is one of the most practical, market-oriented courses of study; so, if even that can be shown not to teach what you seem to value, then (you assume) no other part of the curriculum does, either. But we were talking about the value of education in the liberal arts and sciences, no?</p>
<p>Consider instead the kind of “Thought Questions” that have appeared on exams in Biological Science “Core” course sequences at the University of Chicago:
- Compare heat production in a muscle with heat production in a combustion engine.
- How would you go about proving that the islets of the pancreas secrete a substance which is essential for normal carbohydrate metabolism?
- *Which is more ‘fit’, a fish or a bird?"<a href=“examples%20from%20Donald%20Levine’s,%20%5Bi%5DPowers%20of%20the%20Mind:%20The%20Reinvention%20of%20Liberal%20Learning%20in%20America%5B/i%5D”>/i</a> </p>
<p>Answering these questions well would seem to require a combination of technical knowledge, practical judgement, theoretical knowledge, reasoning and communications skills. A proper evaluation of the responses would entail more or less extensive commentary by the professor. There is certainly room for variety in the answer. The student is allowed, even encouraged, to argue with the ‘customer’ (read: the professor) about the kinds of information relevant to a good answer. He or she needs to marshall appropriate facts to support a point of view in a clear, convincing way. He or she is encouraged to think outside the box to generate alternative solutions.</p>
<p>Do companies not value the knowlege and skills entailed in this kind of learning? Do they not value the intellectual “manners” cultivated in high-quality academic discourse? If they don’t, it may speak more to the nature of the companies and the work they do, not to the intrinsic value of liberal education. If they do, then I think we are talking about knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are transferable from school to work (and to life). I also believe we are talking about a curriculum model that can work in many institutions, not only the very most selective ones; therefore it is rational to have regional (or social class) variations in perceptions of “prestige”. If for example every top-N college provides essentially the same liberal arts and science curriculum (with minor differences in facilities, etc), then it is reasonable to rank your preferences according to extracurricular features that <em>you</em> value.</p>
<p>Russia and Eastern Europe:</p>
<p>Harvard
MIT
Stanford
Yale/Princeton
???</p>
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</p>
<p>Oh, sakky, some doctor’s incredibly tacky website, complete with music, proves nothing.</p>
<p>^ You can turn the music off in the upper right hand corner… ;-)</p>
<p>Just curious though…how would “pizzagirl” design a less tacky website for an opthamologist? I wanna be impressed with some of that McKinsey-level consulting acumen.</p>
<p>sakky, with credit due to the esteemed doctor, his website states:
“He received his training in ophthalmology at the prestigious Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah” in addition to his Harvard/Yale pedigree.</p>
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<p>Actually, he’s just trying to score some free consulting. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>^^ you mean ophthalmologist? I’m just having fun with you but most people seem to forget the letters “h” and “l” in that word…</p>
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<p>Not a McKinsey consultant and never claimed to be. Website design is not my specialty!!</p>
<p>^ I said “McKinsey-level”. I know you never claimed to be.</p>
<p>Dunnin, thanks for the spell check.</p>
<p>
Alexandre, if your Yale assistant was unable to find a lucrative job upon graduation, I would place the blame entirely upon her. Graduates of HYPSM hold globally respected degrees whose values actually MAFNIFY rather than diminish the farther one travels from campus. A Harvard degree is exponentially more prestigious in the Middle East and Asia than in Boston, MA. I recently heard a story regarding an acquaintance of a friend who was offered the curator position in a well-respected art museum in Hungary without any qualifications in the business of managing art collections whatsoever and solely on the basis of the name recognition of the Harvard degree. People fall head over heels in love with HYPSM grads internationally and in fact revere them as gods in places like India and China.</p>
<p>If your administrative assistant went to India or China upon receiving her Yale degree, she would have no problem finding a cushy job with many perks based on the power of her diploma alone. She should be held responsible for her inability to leverage her Yale degree in a way that would work in her favor, which in this case would necessitate her to travel internationally.</p>
<p>^^^ Based on your username, I can tell it must be a darn shame that you didn’t get into HYPSM…</p>
<p>East Asia:</p>
<p>Harvard
Stanford
MIT
{gap}
Yale
{gap}
Princeton
Columbia, Cornell
???</p>
<p>^^^ Don’t doubt for a minute that unqualified Ivy grads occupy cushy jobs all over the world. Travel a few hundred miles into the Chinese interior and a Columbia degree could get you one. Venture into the inner reaches of Chinese Turkestan and even a Cornell grad can have wealth and power for the asking.</p>
<p>It’s just astonishing we’re not running everyone else’s economy instead of worrying about losing ours to the Chinese.</p>
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<p>Said like the naive college freshman you are who has absolutely no clue or understanding what the current job market is like out there, and who certainly has no frame of reference as to how it’s been far better in the past. And who also has no clue that packing up and moving to India or China is not the desire of most people in this country.</p>
<p>
If true, that was enough to make me shudder. I can only hope it was not a position at the Museum of Fine Arts, because I want that person as far from antiquities as possible.</p>