When white people go away to college, they tend to study what are knowns as the Arts. This includes actual Art, English, History, Classics, and Philosophy. These can of course be broken down further into Film, Womyn’s Studies (yes the spelling is correct), Communications, Gender Studies, and so forth. It is important to note that a high percentage of white people also get degrees in Political Science, which is pretty much like arts, and only seems to have the word “science” in it to make white people feel better about themselves.
These degrees enable white people to spend four yeas of their lives reading books, writing papers and feeling great about themselves. It is a known fact that Arts students firmly believe that they are doing you/society a favor by not getting a job and reading Proust. They use this to protest for reduced tuition, more money for the arts, and special reduced student rates on things like bus passes.
But what about the white people who study Science, Engineering or Business? Unless they become doctors, they essentially lose white person status (and can only be regained by working at a non-profit).
So why would white people spend all that time studying and working to get into college if they are just going to read books that they might have read in their free time? Because white people have it made. They can take that degree and easily parlay it into a non profit job, an art gallery job, or work in publishing. If the pay is low, no problem, their parents will happily help out with rent until they magically start making six figures or non-magically turn 40.
White people can also take that degree and go to graduate school (future post) and eventually become a professor or adjunct professor where they will still require parental support.
If they are REALLY ambitious and need to make money, they can take that degree and go to Law School.
But the real reason white people need these degrees is so that they can sound smart at parties. Of course it trickles down to making connections, getting hired, knowing rich people, and so forth. But ultimately it all begins by saying “reading Henry James was the most rewarding part of undergrad.”
Using this to your advantage can be very difficult as attempts to talk about the books they skimmed while hungover can expose you. It is best to say that you were a first generation college student and your parents demanded that you study math, chemistry, economics or computer science. You had to read Joyce on your own.
Stuff White People Like 
I was going to suggest “Liberal Arts Colleges,” but this pretty much covers it.
Oh man. That’s MY university you have pictured there.
yeah, it’s mine too. Why do you think I posted it?
[…] people love lawyers is the sense that they are giving back to the community. Most white people major in the arts, and law school is pretty much the only option for anyone with a BA that wants a decent paying job. […]
Yeah, we can read and get jobs. It’s rough.
I majored in theatre. Hi, I think I’m the whitest person ever.
Finally I find why I’m not so white! I had all that whiteness shaved off by 5 years of education in something real and useful. Or maybe it’s just the long-term effects of that southern breeding. Whatever, thank the heavens. Your vision of white people is entirely TOO accurate. No wonder I hate them so much.
Here at Princeton degrees in the arts seem to prepare students well for ibanking and wall street – yes, some white peers may disapprove, but they can still accomplish many other accepted white goals, such as enjoying the outdoors, a house on the beach, dressing like JCrew catalogue models (or wearing designer “resort” dresses from boutiques even when not on the beach), and saving the environment.
American and British whites prefer to major in the arts, but German, Russian and other Europeans more often major in Sciences and Engineering. There is truth in generalizations, but the generalization itself is not the truth. Find the truth within the generalization.
[…] #47 Arts Degrees […]
You should qualify that you are talking about rich white people – and probably mostly men. As a white person who is studying English, yeah you got me, but I’ve never been supported by parents, I’ve worked full time while going to school. Just because I like it. I like school. That you can blame on whiteness maybe, but the whole all white people have rich mom’s and dad’s stuff needs to be attributed to class (which yes I realize is related to racism and race, but don’t assume that white people like English classes because they have money and don’t need jobs- us poor people can read too, you know.)
Wow, funny to see the arts building on here. Those rooms made me whiter than any I have ever been in. Thanks to my arts degree, I now have a job with a non-profit!
Genius. I myself am going to get an arts degree, but I won’t be the Cliche artsy kid. You know the type, wear scarf’s, grandfather’s clothes, and go see “different” films. Oh, and rich ones buy clothes, SOLEY from American Apparel. They also like to indulge in drugs, drinking, but think they’re badass because they do so, when the rest of us do the exact same. But #47 hilarious.
I love the defensive posts!
RE: howardroark
ME TOO!
Real reason? Laziness. Math and sciences are hard as hell. I can either take all these extra hours of lab and might not get into a good med school or I can read a book or two and coast, hit all the parties, etc. Guilty as charged!
WE ALL CRAP BROWN
why mcgill?
“American and British whites prefer to major in the arts, but German, Russian and other Europeans more often major in Sciences and Engineering.”
these people have only recently become White and so they may need another generation or two for full adjustment.
“Here at Princeton degrees in the arts seem to prepare students well for ibanking and wall street”
Young white people in college love to preface things they say with the school they go to, but only if it’s an esteemed institution. You won’t hear a white person say “Here at College of Lake County, they have a class about the Comparative History of Organized Crime”
Sincerely,
The Duke of White People
I fucking love this
It is a known fact that Arts students firmly believe that they are doing you/society a favor by not getting a job and reading Proust.
And if you make the mistake of suggestion they should do more than prepare for life on the parental dole, they inevitably quote Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”. It is inadvisable to point out that, yeah, but Woolf was actually talented.
Yup, that’s me, Art History major working in a gallery, living on parents’ credit cards and student loans…
Please Please PLEASE do an entry on Library Science Masters Degrees… the trendiest way to bounce back from years of ‘opting out’ to be a stay at home mom. It’s got just the right blend of prestige, skill-less-ness, and comforting domesticity wrapped up in a pseudo-intellectual pashmina to make the white folk roll on the ground in rapture.
I lost my white person status when I studied science? Ummmm … I’m pretty sure that’s one of the CLASSICAL FIELDS OF STUDY going back to the Greeks, dood.
Like Herodotus. Or, uh, Anemone.
So, then, what did I become … you party animal? (P.S. No smartass “Will Hunting” answer copouts. I *need to know* if losing my status explains why I pig out on drum’n’bass.)
P.S. The email address is a fake.
You should have a note in there that an acceptable alternative to an Arts degree is one in Environmental Studies. That’s almost like science, but with hardly any science, and then you get to learn about the whales. Or wind power. Or what have you.
I’m a grad student in a related field of science (except you know, scientific), and it’s funny meeting the people who did Environmental Studies as undergrads because they suddenly have to catch up on all the science classes to survive. Onoz, classes full of Asian people! Doing problems with physics instead of writing papers! The mind boggles.
The quality of writing found in this blog (as with most others) is poor at best. Clearly the author didn’t take his education in the arts very seriously, or studied something practical like math or science…
I’m Asian and majored in white English, got a master’s in it, and now teach it to rich kids in a prep school. Any recovering white-washed folks out there?
I’m decidedly not white, and an immigrant and everything….i studied political science and then went to law school. however, i was the only “ethnic” person at my canadian university who was not a science major. the sociologists all say that a arts degree is generally not a feature of immigrants or first generation citizens, because their paretns force them to go into something lucrative. true enough, generally. my law school, however, was TEEMING with “ethnics” (probably because in toronto italians, jews, and greeks consider themselves ethnic) but that law school had some kinda policy.
i have to disagree with u regarding parental support however – all the white people i know worked throughout high school and university to finance their degrees and had massive student loans. they were prepared to finance their arty masters as well. all the ethnic ones, however, like myself, were completely bankrolled by their parents. in a lot of non-white cultures parents consider it their duty to make sacrifices so their children’s educations can be provided for as much as possible. and what’s this business about white people actually wanting their kids to move out? it boggles my mind. i’m 25 years old and my parents would love it if i lived with them until safely disposed of with some man.
You got me right in the eye with that one. but I’ve switched to the social science of Criminology. Is that still overly white?
stuffblackpeoplelike – eating watermelon! hahaha!!!
stuffarabpeoplelike – pumping oil! hahaha!!!
stuffblackpeoplelike – gang warfare! hahaha!!!
stuffmexicanpeoplelike – eating beans! hahaha!!!
stuffchinesepeoplelike – shooting heroin! hahaha!!!
stuffblackpeoplelike – welfare! hahaha!!!
stuffjewishpeoplelike – keeping money! hahaha!!!
stuffmexicanpeoplelike – wearing sombreros! hahaha!!!
stuffchinesepeoplelike – eating rice! hahaha!!!
stuffarabpeoplelike – kissing goats! hahaha!!!
stuffmexicanpeoplelike – wearing sombreros! hahaha!!!
stuffblackpeoplelike – sniffing glue! hahaha!!!
aren’t i funny and clever!!!
don’t you dare call me a racist!!!
Dude
you said wearing sombreros twice
boy I wish someone had of written this back in 1986. Reading this could have saved me a ton of disappointment achieved after Art School- you see I’m not white.
Perhaps that is why I a mere two cent stripper with a higher education and an overly censored web blog.
The only thing that can possibly save my brown (over 40 arse) now is a Hollywood (white person) producer (Spielburg) that’s likes me as much as Candy Girl and Juno brat- Diablo Cody.
i have yet to meat an Arts major whom is not a compleat idiot.
F****ing white people!
I’m white and I have a BA in English! But my parents didn’t pay for it, I’m still paying for it. I became a secretary and now I’m an organic farmer (very white). I will flog myself for you.
I’m a white lawyer with an Arts degree, and this cracked my shit up. Awesome.
I’m really amused by people trying to justify their Liberal Arts majors in the comments of this. As if this is really important and matters and people should be taking it seriously.
as i was looking through the different posts all i could think was, wow, this totally reminds me of people i went to mcgill with- this explains so much! any chance the sandwich shop post was about santropol?
“Arts” degrees? They’re called *humanities* state-side. Your blog is good, but you haven’t yet learned to wash off the Canadian.
Thsi is soooo funny, I almost became that minority going down the Arts road without the benefit of connections,a trust fund or whiteness. No worries I found myself in time and spent my senior year slopping doggedly through a million Biology classes to shore up my Poli Sci major. Yep I ended up double majoring as payment for my folly. And as if I didn’t screw up enough I am now taking more Biology classes to boost my science GPA while working as a Research Assistant…ahhh Karma…sure is a witch
quote : White people can also take that degree and go to graduate school (future post) and eventually become a professor or adjunct professor where they will still require parental support.
shit i nearly married that white guy from maryland. i’m happy i dumped him. i should have known since all his ex’s are also non-white. now he’s getting married to a pregnant white woman just like him. birds of a feather i guess.
you used to date a white pregnant woman?!?!?
Arts students- who’s have ’em?
Still, we look down on them at Edin Uni! Can’t walk through marchmont without tripping over a history of art undergrad
Death to the infidels! Death to the English Lits!
😉
Alison,
I was with you until you said “pashmina”. You had to overdo it, didn’t you?
This entire site is brilliantly funny, but I have to disagree with the notion that white people lose their whitey status by taking business. I think my business classes were about 80 + % white.
[…] which is a blog about, uhm, stuff that white people like. Examples include recycling, Whole Foods, Arts Degrees and – bring on the flame wars – Asian girls. I’m assuming the blog is tongue-in-cheek done […]
“This entire site is brilliantly funny, but I have to disagree with the notion that white people lose their whitey status by taking business. I think my business classes were about 80 + % white.”
Yes, some white people take business classes. However, white people don’t like white people with business degrees. I mean, how can you soul search while learning about capitalism?
man, people love looking down there noses at anyone with a degree in the arts. God forbid someone want to learn about literature or film or painting. That just makes them so pathetic because they could “learn just as much reading/looking at paintings/watching movies in their spare time” even though they wouldn’t have any professors or textbooks to teach them shit. You people with science and business degrees must think your shit smells awfully rosey. must be nice
I seriously love all the comments on all these posts re: how racist the blog is. Really, if this blog is among the most racist things that have ever happened to you, you have exactly zero of my sympathy.
Talk to me when someone throws rocks at your 12-year-old self because it’s 1991 and you’re “Japanese.”
— Asian Arts Major/Lawyer (I SO quote Proust at parties.)
[…] just stumbled across this fantastic blog. please enjoy […]
whoa that last anonymous post was intense!
for real. a bunch of silly jokes on a blog > lynching etc? fuckin horshit
[…] saw one friends, he arrived in his Prius and was listening to public radio. He had a coffee cup in the car, […]
While I was at Texas A&M University (oops, lost a hundred white points already), I majored in physics. Is my white status totally gone, even though I dig ’80s night? And if so, what color are you once you’ve lost “white status”? Clear?
Absolutely hilarious… keep up the good work!
This blog is becoming less and less about white people in general and more and more about upper-middle class suburban liberals from either of the American coasts, (but if from the East Coast, not south of the Potomac).
You know, people who voted for Howard Dean in 2004, or were too young to vote for Howard Dean but still had a Dean bumper sticker on their used volvo station wagon that their parents got them not because they couldn’t afford a new volvo sedan but because they didn’t want to “spoil” them.
what school is that in the photo?
You don’t need a degree in English lit to spot the sea of hatred below a wafer thin crust of tepid humor.
Alison 24,
Exactly right! And now the librarians are all knitting! Jesus!
Hate to break it to you, but law school isn’t really about practical skills either, but instead is further preparation for the aforementioned (cocktail) parties.
It is racist. It’s not particularly offensive, its pretty true, and I’m not taking it too seriously, but by definition it is racist.
[…] sort of vibe that will land it on Stuff White People Like (probably as a follow-up to entry #47, Arts Degrees). I seriously doubt that these ads will have any effect on my mom or other parents from cultures […]
Sorry.
ah yes, this makes so much sense. No wonder all my technical classes are full of blacks.
When I went away to school, I majored in y and x. I saw a lot of black kids on my campus every day. I never saw any in the classes that I took, so I thought that psych and ed were unpopular major choices for blacks. I switched my major to z after a year and found no blacks in those classes either. Then I asked a grad assist. who told me to look for them the first day(s) of the semester in class. I always did after that. They were there, but just weren’t showing up for the rest of the classes.
This is laughably ham-fisted and childish.
I think it’s interesting SWPL will scathingly critique anything except it’s own approach. :O
I’ll have two degrees in science (field of education) and 5 different areas of certification after I graduate in June.
And after reviewing number 31’s post…I’m going to have to assume that (according to him) he is chinese.
I have a degree in environmental geology and used to be everyone’s “hippy friend” and now I do contract work for the Army and other various govt projects. I lost major white people status.
damn man, you are bent out of shape. stop being racist and applying one bad thing to a big group of people
Oh I’ve been reading this and laughing, but this made me really laugh.
I have a BS in Geology I worked my butt off for and graduated magna cum laude (I am a white girl, so I guess I’ve lost many white points there).
But even though my degree is in something actually, I don’t know, useful and productive to society since I do stuff like test for and remove environmental damage (usually created by a white guy), all the white boys who drank their way through their English degrees with C averages magically got jobs at consulting companies through their parents with starting salaries of $50K.
They further got OTJ training (so why were they worth so much money?), and I was expected to hit the ground running, knowing what I needed to know in my field.
Funny how that works.
I studied English Lit.
I thought I was white.
Then I got my diploma and no one wanted to give me a job.
Being white sucked.
Thankfully, the parking lot at Home Depot was next door.
I didn’t tell anyone I had a diploma.
I told them I was Mexican and they took me to do gardening at their homes.
Gee – I got a degree in Painting, got a job in drafting, got into programming and engineering – guess I must be at least beige by now?
I’m pursuing a PhD at McGill (in the very building pictured in the entry). And I have an MA from there. Yes, both in English, specializing in Middle English literature and medieval medicine. Also, Latin. That white enough for you?
A lot of people getting awfully offended at something thats actually pretty neat 😀
Of course it’s not 100% accurate, not all black people like chicken etc, it’s just very commonly true. It’s not offensive at all, it’s not like he’s saying white people like being gay, or crap, just pointing out some of our odd things.
Wow I am the whitest black person I know. English Literature and History major here.
Keep up the good work, this blog is great
and don’t forget bagels, white people love bagels
Having gone to an “alternative” grade school (more of a ’60’s thing than a white thing), I have the math abilities of a sea slug (I can’t spell either). I failed at being an engineering student and went to film school instead. I often talk with a coworker about how stupid we were to major in something where unless you are very lucky you can’t make a living. He got a Masters Degree in music!
I am working on my Masters Degree (I can’t wait for the grad school thread) in counseling so that I can hopefully make money on guilty feeling white people and still avoid math.
Haha funny. But this doesn’t really ring true with my generation.
The generation currently in college is mostly composed of future I-Bankers, lawyers, and doctors (tons of econ, math, and science majors), and I go to a “prestigious” liberal arts school. It seems like everyone who isn’t pre-med aspires to be a lawyer or an i-banker. The few that are in the humanities, are really serious going into about journalism or going to academics (and, you know, achieving in those fields my beating out all their peers, i.e. actually WORKING at it). Either that or they take many languages and aspire to work for the UN.
This blog seems to only really apply to generation Xers, all my peers want to be the best and make MONEY!!!!
I put my English degree to good use. They’re not all useless.
I hate black people
You should add “looking at sites that poke fun at their race and finding humour in it instead of labeling whoever created them racists or contacting the NAACP” to your list.
A great White writer of all this stuff was G.K. Chesterton
Number 53’s got it spot on. Maybe Midwestern white people have some different genes or shit from Northeasterners or Californians. I know plenty of 1) minorities getting art degrees, 2) lower class-to-lower-middle-class whiteys getting art degrees, 3) almost all of said people are paying for their own art degree, 4) people who didn’t get said art degrees are cool with people who did get said art degrees, 5) no one’s bitter about anything.
Blog is pretty funny the first few times around, though. Too bad the one schitck will get old real soon…
Ha ha ha!
White girl, 53 years old, just re-entered college to get a Bachelor’s in………you guessed it………HUMANITIES!
And to make me even more white……..my minor is in COMMUNICATIONS! With an eventual goal of getting a Master’s degree in……….LIBRARY SCIENCE!!!!!
…Because it’s been my lifelong desire to work in a library and say “Shhhhhhhh!!!!!!”
…Say, could I go to Japan (the cleanest country on earth)
and teach English after all this?
(ha ha ha, see my post under the #58 Japan blog entry)
Well, if I can’t go to Japan and teach English or be a Librarian after all my schooling, I can still go to parties and sound cool talking about Sociology or History or something similiarly arty. But I absolutely refuse to drink wine at these parties. That I will not do. I shall drink Scotch.
BWAAA hahaha!
While some of the posts here only apply to rich, suburban, white people, like this one; some of the posts, like lving near the water have premeated the white culture so much that every white person, rich or poor, loves these things.
I was talking about this with my friend a couple of months ago…haha.
I wish more non-whites would go to college, and stop acting like animals in rap videos and the like.
kat: the cleanest country on earth is not Japan, it’s Singapore. if you litter, you can actually go to jail if you’re a repeat offender!
it’s all me. now i’m going to just lay my whiteness out there on the line…
art therapy, thich nhat hanh, buddhism although i’m not buddhist, utne reader, shambhala sun, cardigan sweaters (butt loads of them), a “partner”, prairie home companion, wait, wait, don’t tell me, this american life (all of npr really), talking about npr, “meds”, therapy, working on a graduate degree, fair trade coffee, time “abroad”, a friend from Japan whom I refer to as “my friend from Japan”, making my art, studies, and future career my main focus rather than reproducing, past sexual identity crisis, having close gay friends, cowboy junkies, dead can dance, cocteau twins, wailin’ jennys, putamayo albums (although i never remember the long complicated names of the actual artists), installation art, raymond carver short stories,…
so much more to say. but beyond all this meaningless crap that “makes me white” is the bigger stuff that’s the root of this ongoing chat. i’m tired now. the klonopin has kicked in. but there’s so much more to say.
thank you for this blog. it’s seriously eye-opening and funny as hell.
My degree is a Ph.D. in statistics. Now I know a ton of shit about very little.
Go figure.
Of course, I’m American NDN.
yeah, thats me.
Hehe, I’m in Biology and you’ve just decribed the 60% of my friends in “political science”and english literature.
As Dave Chappelle said, white people love Wayne Brady.
I got an arts degree (History, and then Classics) to try and get into grad school to become a professor but I got rejected. Six years down the drain. Alas, such is the fate of us humanities students.
You forgot to mention that, in an arts degree, we get to learn how to write/say pretentious things we don’t really believe. Good training for the corporate world if/when we finally need jobs.
I’m doing science and I’m still alive. I feel fantastic and I’m still alive. While you’re dying I’ll be still alive. And when you’re dead I will be still alive.
Still alive. Still alive.
Jewish guy studying Computer Science, which will actually net me a job with or without grad school. So glad to finally realize why I can’t seem to get dates: I’ve been trying to go out with white chicks, who immediately detect my insufficient whiteness.
Man, I never knew I was so generic until I read this blog. I majored in English and Spanish…
Hilarious post!
i loooooove that the arts building is being used to illustrate this.
I love art degrees. Educated people are almost always smarter than their counterparts. Get as much education as possible and better yourself. Jesus is not real and 50cent is a terrible role model for anyone.
What non white people like: Treating women like dogs, out of wedlock children, poverty, ignorance, acting like animals?
I went to Yale and this describes it perfectly!!!
i guess you didnt get to go to Yale jackson
Hahaha! This is great. Poli Sci/Communication Studies double major here. I’ll be attending law school next fall.
Does anyone actually read Henry James?
Rich white boys have it made
White science major checking in.
I’m a minority in every single one of my classes, which tend to be filled with Chinese pre-meds. They tend to work together in lab periods, and sit together during lecture, so it’s a rather alienating experience overall.
I not a loner, though! I am surrounded by a large cache of white hipster friends with degrees/jobs in the arts (design, animation, etc.) with whom I cannot carry a serious conversation about anything but their own interests.
[…] X#47 Arts Degrees […]
[…] in, day out struggle to prove that you are smarter than other white people. By the time they reach college, most white people are confronted with the fact that they may not be as smart as they […]
BFA = SOL
Fine, Asians major in science and engineering, but other minorities choose arts because it’s easier and they don’t have to work as hard.
horseshit again…. philosophy is a humanity and only figuratively an art, but its no arguably no more an art than engineering
[…] Arts degrees […]
You ARE pandering to the elite upper class pretentious liberal white american. Most white americans do not go to college….fact!
How do you account for all of the white people who are Lawyers and Doctors and Engineers?
You will also find that there is a lot of other than whites getting art degrees. My wife falls into this category but I do not.
this blog should actually be called stuff hipsters like. 90% of this list applies to the hipsters in my city, white or otherwise.
“wait, there’re non-white hipsters … ?” you wonder.
yes. five of them, officially.
Re: post 53.
You’re wrong to discount everyone south of the potomac river. Arlington, McLean, Great Falls all in VA (right outside DC). So, so, so white.
me: english and philosophy undergrad at a virginia “public ivy”, publishing masters at NYU.
I’m a Communications major and that’s a Science degree at my school.
Q: What do you say to a liberal arts major?
A: Large, cream & sugar
A friend emailed me a link to this blog…
What’s up with this racist crap? Are you like trying to do satire or something, because you’re doing a pretty bad job.
First, it’s called “arts, humanities, and social sciences”. Not just “arts”. All three of those have very different characteristics.
Second, EVERY RACIAL GROUP (with the possible exception of Asians) studies arts, humanities and social sciences more than science or engineering! A large number of White people study math, science and engineering too, just not to the same extent as Asians. Last time, I checked, most of the top people in those fields were White. Latinos and Blacks are MORE likely than White people to study a social science (how do you think niche fields like Chicano Studies came about).
The reality is that Asians in America are a statistical outlier, and you are making a bold claim if you are saying that “non-Asian” is the same thing as “white”.
I studied CS, ok? That doesn’t make me white or non-white. Computer geek? Maybe.
I DIDN’T LEARN anything practical in CS, because I already knew it all. For all my “practical” classes, I could sleep during lectures and still get an A+ on every single programming assignment. In that sense, I’d be no better than all those dreaded social science majors who are only in their field because they think it’s easy.
One can learn C++ programming on their own (or anything else practical in CS) just as easily as one can read Proust on their own. In fact, I did. Everything I learned on my own I learned better than the people who merely studied it in school. Many of the best hackers I know never studied CS, much less even went to college.
If you’re main goal for going to college is to get “practical job-oriented skills”, you’re wasting your time.
The curricula in most CS, Engineering and Business programs are best described as “poorly designed trade schools”. Having the degree gives you a slight advantage in getting a technical job, but few of the actual things you’ll learn in school will actually be useful for that job.
It could be argued that CS and Engineering are as much pseudo-science as Political Science and Sociology are. Hey, all academic fields have a lot of bullshit in them right now, ok?
And what about the people studying pure science and math? Those people are actually learning stuff that isn’t bullshit, but their job prospects aren’t any better than their friends in the humanities. In fact, the average English major has more job opportunities available than the average science major.
Having a degree in English says, “Hey, I know proper grammar and won’t embarrass your company because I can’t sling two coherent sentences together.” That’s important for most job. This is of course a stereotype. Not every English major writes well, but the majority are better than your typical science or engineering major.
Almost every single Biology major I’ve met wants to become a doctor. How many do you think will actually make into medical school? If the only reason you’re studying a particular subject is because it’s required for a certain kind of prestegious job, then you’re in for a world of pain when you’re on the same unemployment line as the art student (oh wait, those kids are going to have their rich white parents bail them out, so I guess it’ll just be you).
The majority of academia has no use in the real world. The real purpose of going to college today is to flaunt the name of “(insert prestegious university)” and to network with people outside of that small community you grew up in. Also, you need a college degree to get any kind of non-blue-collar job and most of those jobs don’t care what the degree is.
White people understand that. Black people understand it. Any American with half a brain of common sense knows it.
It’s usually immigrants from 3rd-world nationss (like um…Canada) that have the mistaken notion that universities are supposed to be like trade schools or guilds, and what you study defines your path in life. This is especially true of those developing 3rd-world nations where people are buying our capitalist propaganda, but they still don’t understand the meaning of the American Dream. Like um…Canada.
It ain’t a “white people thang” either. The American brand of liberal arts is descendent of the Oxbridge model and that comes from the Greeks. But the Chinese and Indian elites had their forms of liberal arts too. The idea of “liberal arts” is to produce well-rounded highly educated people. Of course, American liberal arts has become so degraded over the years that it’s nearly a joke, but that’s mainly because education is no longer for the elite but rather for a large middle class, and thus you have to sacrifice quality for efficiency. We’re still one step above people who view higher education like a “job training” program.
I TA classes in CS, and you don’t know how many students I see who don’t know anything outside of CS, and know very little about CS itself either!!! A lot of them just want to get good grades, but don’t care at all about what they’re learning. In my opinion, that’s such a waste of a college education. They’d be better off studying English (much better off if you have to read any of their writing)…
Those guys aren’t going to be getting jobs at Google anytime soon. Actually, I know someone with a poly sci degree who just got hired for a programming job at Google…
A subject that hasn’t come up yet are junior colleges and state schools. Do the privately schooled children of boomers attend these schools? If such children do attend these schools, do their parents avoid saying so in social gatherings?
It’s all true. I’m a perfect example that anyone in America can become white if they want to. My parents came here from eastern Europe fleeing communism. As a first generation American raised in the 60’s and 70’s I believed — I knew, I could be any kind of white person I wanted to be. I graduated with liberal arts degree in Telecommunications, married a woman with a sculpture degree, who now works as an Art Therapist, went off to Hollywood and worked in the film industry for twenty years and then chucked it all to move east and go to an Ivy League law school.
Through hard work, diligent application of what I’ve learned, and an uncompromising belief in the promise of America, I have managed to become a white sterotype, and I did it all bearing a funny sounding foreign surname holding enough vowels to choke a horse.
God Bless This Country!
[…] Asian – guilty of quite a few things on that list. (tea, yoga, traveling, indie music, Juno, Arts degrees, t-shirts, living by the water, etc.) Not good! Ok, I’m kidding. I actually don’t care […]
Im going to be white….by saying
Fuck all other races…
we rule
[…] in, day out struggle to prove that you are smarter than other white people. By the time they reach college, most white people are confronted with the fact that they may not be as smart as they imagined. In […]
Re: tehfeministsarecoming
I think you are secretly lying about your arts degree. I thought you had to take “Understanding Satire 101” to graduate.
I just saw ignorance…*shakes head*
Wow, I’m relieved to know that I’m not as white as I thought — maybe just 95% or so. This post is hilarious. I’ve found that all my friends at school who went off to foreign countries to teach english or who are working in non-profits (or see the post about grad school) have parents who foot the bill for everything! You can’t do non-profit or overseas work if you don’t come from a rich family (unless your college pays your way — in which case your parents were much poorer than the median US income…). I was not so lucky, and therefore am stuck as an engineer…
[…] in, day out struggle to prove that you are smarter than other white people. By the time they reach college, most white people are confronted with the fact that they may not be as smart as they […]
I wonder if Graphic Design is an acceptable “Arts” class…
Anyway, being an arts major I have to disagree about “reading writing and feeling better about ourselves.” A quarter of us want to pour acid down people’s throats because the other 75% percent are so stupid.
[…] in, day out struggle to prove that you are smarter than other white people. By the time they reach college, most white people are confronted with the fact that they may not be as smart as they […]
I went to art college for Graphic Design and Multimedia.
Now I’m making 6 figures working for Adobe.com.
I’m white and have proved your theory to be wrong. If someone has ambitions and works his or her ass off, you can be successful in any field.
[If you with Photoshop or Illustrator for Mac or PC I’m making money]
Wow, my tripleBA in Anthropology, PoliSci, and History and minors in Art History and French did work: I married a painter, run a non-profit, go to gallery openings, visit museums and self publish- How very white of me! Now off I go read about ethnic groups in a Garcia Marquez novel as I wait for All Things Considered to stream in 10 minutes, afterall I don’t watch TV either!
you spelled “years” wrong.
Hahahaha i have a new one “white people do not want to be considered white and will attempt to differentiate themselves by leaving defensive posts on satirical blogs.”
Its a fuckin satirical blog it is so “white” it’s glowing.
See the problem with generalizing posts such as this one is that they leave out the idea that all the white people who went into sciences and engineering, and all the non-white people who went into the Arts. The stereotypical ‘white people do arts’ thing needs to die so we can get a more people who can bring alternative perspectives into the field. Oh, and the little science I did take in high school taught me that a lot of scientific theories are actually named after their white discoverers……
Look here…
This site is mediocre at best. It is mildly entertaining. Half of the items on this list are garbage. The effort and thought put into this list is pretty embarrassing.
if you want some actual funny entertainment/blog/writing/insightful/great stuff
http://www.garbarrassing.com
go for it.
i’m part of corporate america and i was dating a guy who was working on his liberal arts degree, i cringed whenever anyone asked me what his major was and it only got worst when i had to explain that his plans for the future were grad school
#133 Maybe his white hipster friends cringed when you told them “I’m part of coporate America.”
“You can’t do non-profit or overseas work if you don’t come from a rich family”
OK, I missed this one earlier, but this claim is utter bullshit. I, and several people I know, worked for nonprofits and LIVED ON our $25,000 a year by renting cheap studios in cheap neighbourhoods/sharing housing, and being frugal. There may be some champagne-socialist types who get mommy and daddy to pay the bills but I didn’t know any of those. Similarly a lot of Americans who work overseas actually make pretty decent money by local standards and can live pretty cheaply and do what they love.
It’s always amusing to hear the engineers go on about how they didn’t have the “luxury” of working for a nonprofit when what they actually chose was a life of more material comforts in exchange for slightly less adventurous (though important and challenging) work. It’s a trade-off, and there’s no “right” or “wrong” choice, and no reason to sneer. Tell the grassroots organizers living on Ramen noodles and taking the bus because they can’t afford a car that they are “rich.”
The bit about hipsters sneering at corporates and pretending they don’t like or need money is legit. The rest is not.
#134 you’re right. the relationship was doomed from the beginning.
wrong, i crap orange. beta carotene addict.
You forgot Music School/Conservatory. That is a bastion of whiteness and Asian girls like no other. It also is a guaranteed segue into Graduate School.
I’ve got a degree in Graphic Design. It was cheap and it pays well if you do freelance work. Salary jobs are lame.
As for a college education not increasing your income ability… You have to take some really shitty courses to have a MBA or PhD and not have a high paying job.
Broke people with degrees ARE funny as hell. How dumb do you have to be to attend that much school and still not realize that you haven’t increased you income ability at all?
“you/society a favor by not getting a job and reading Proust”
How is it that they do me a favor by not reading Proust?
Philosophy = Politics, Ethics/Law, Math, and all Positivist Science’s daddy.
and plenty of people are lawyers and market analysts, there is no shortage of law degrees and mbas.
we could use more math and physics and engineering degree holders however.
shame that those with math degrees chase big R&D salaries instead of giving something back and teaching.
100% true. Especially the law school part. He he.
“They can take that degree and easily parlay it into a non profit job, an art gallery job, or work in publishing…”
OK this post is very true for snobbish artsy-fartsy white kids. But I have to act like I don’t have a sense of humor so I can make a point lol
I have to say, I was one of the only multi-ethnic females studying Art at my former school and I put myself through a 40k year college. I think all of these comments are really disappointing! This is why even in the well-off suburban neighborhood I live in (*sigh* so whitewashed) we only have parent volunteers that have to scrape together enough hard-earned grant money to teach” art” once a month in k-5 in public schools.
When will we realize that creative thinking learned through the arts is valuable, as it applies to all other subjects (math and science included, thank you very much)?! Kids can’t form their own thoughts anymore and they can’t write (i.e. COMMUNICATE) to save their lives. And people think it’s so frivolous =/ I don’t remember the last time math taught me anything about learning how to communicate ideas to other people, can you? =)
My wife has a degree in Art, works at a gallery and has Art friends. Damn you people are annoying. Like you rauccitron, who are you to chastise people for pursuing something practical and well rewarded with their degrees?
lol you think thats bad you should see the swine at actual “ART” schools lol, they don’t even have to read
I have to disagree with this one. All of the science majors I know (all non-white) are supported by their parents and will continue to be supported by their parents until they finish med-school, grad school or beyond. None of them have ever had any kind of job whatsoever (too busy studying), not even part time. They basically lead a soulless existence studying or comparing themselves to “inferior” humanities majors. Parents of science majors tend to steer their kids into the major to begin with, and are more willing to shell out the $ for a science degree in the hopes that it will add another M.D. to the family.
The most annoying thing about the post is not the post itself, but the defensive comments.
“I’m a white arts graduate and make six figures. Therefore, your theory is wrong.”
First of all, the author presents a generalization, not a theory. Generalizations are never 100% true, so a counter example doesn’t nullify one.
After 4+ years of education people still make this type of flawed argument. There is a real possibility that his rich parents or his artsy knowledge got him connections. The author is not ignorant, having mentioned both scenarios.
With all the education people mysteriously forget simple “art forms” like humorous and satirical writing. This is exactly what the author pokes fun at–arts majors especially.
Look, the author’s generalizations are true and common enough to be funny. If you’re feeling defensive, it’s likely because you don’t like the fact that you’ve been figured out (the author also makes fun of a white person’s inexplicable need to feel unique). If you’re angry that it doesn’t apply to you or anyone you know, feel free to crawl out of your bomb shelter once in a blue moon and breathe some outside air.
What about me? I have an art degree, and I am going to med school with a biology degree. Am I especially white? 🙂
Jeezuuuusssss, are you type casting here or what???? I love it!
From the pot smoking, tea drinking white guy with the bottled water (at least its locally bottled), living on the water, using his arts degree (three actually) to make a living, renovating his old house with his gay boyfriend and three dogs.
gotta love it.
[…] Who wrote that? Why, The Duke of White People, of course. And you can read more silly stuff here. […]
ah mcgill. ah arts.
life was jolly then.
[…] in, day out struggle to prove that you are smarter than other white people. By the time they reach college, most white people are confronted with the fact that they may not be as smart as they […]
English major grad from a Lib Art college here. It is easy to see the truth in this, but it’s also true that some people like me are pretty normal!! And I work in insurance now, so it’s not THAT bad. Or maybe it is =\
[…] in, day out struggle to prove that you are smarter than other white people. By the time they reach college, most white people are confronted with the fact that they may not be as smart as they […]
Yup. that’s why I went to law school. Needed money. Did public interest law, though – it still paid better than being a secretary or an artist, and besides, all the professor jobs were already filled with people who are just starting to retire.
I have a Bachelors Degree in Art History…and now I do medical billing, lol. I didn’t have noble dreams of a life of academia…I was just really good at writing research papers and, more importantly, bullshitting. That’s what it all comes down to. With arts degrees, if you can write a paper and just make it sound like you know what you’re talking about, you’re golden. Perfect for underachievers such as myself.
economists do it with models
[…] Arts Degrees […]
I lived in japan on 250$/month as a missionary and a volunteer teaching english. (how incredibly white of me) then I got an engineering degree (losing whiteness) with a double major in Japanese (whiteness restored). Then I worked for the lockheed skunk works (not white, but high coolness factor – working on black aircraft) got laid off and went to grad school (uberwhite) in mechanical engineering (loser coporate tool!!!).
But after getting my MSME I went BACK to japan to try to help a company introduce EMS helicopter ops into Japan (incandesant whiteness)
I achieved the white goal of getting compensation AND adventure, at the high cost of being a Japanese speaking nerd.
you to, if you follow the trust building advice of this blog, can achieve the trust of whites and achieve my level of fully bleached vacant whiteness
Ganbatte ne!
[…] #47 Arts Degrees […]
[…] #47 Arts Degrees […]
[…] In the (otherwise totally brilliant) issue of Esquire I just read with (Arch-Masculinist) Ahnold on the cover, there’s a ghey gag on the back page. It’s a grave marker for the author’s masculinity, which supposedly died the day he fed his newborn a bottle of soy milk. […]
It’s funny because as an English major, I realize the uselessness of my degree. Reading books for a living and telling people why it’s good helps me on my way to becoming a sloth. I should maybe become a farmer and grow organic food. Wait a second, White again!
white people are a minority at my university…who is responsible for this nonsense?
I’m a film major with a law degree because I needed to make some money. This falls into the “funny because it’s true” category. Scary how much of this web site describes me!
By an odd serries of flukes, I ended up at a tech school, instead of the liberal arts school I had always planned on going to. Now that I was surrounded by non-whites , and forced to do well in classes like “Electricity and Magnetism” and “Differential Equations,” I found myself becoming less white, and less like the people on this blog.
It was like finding Jesus.
I’m majoring in Enviromental Engineering, though. Hope that doesn’t make me too white, and still allows me to be useful to society 🙂
[…] people **That, and weak European economies aren’t able to absorb skill-less immigrants with useless degrees who are unable/unwilling to work with their […]
I majored in acting undergrad, and eventually creative writing for grad — my two degrees, put together, and $2, will get me on the subway. I am so white that I feel guilty for not reading enough books.
I pooped my pants
You obviously go to a useful school.
i think you need to take a deep breath and remember this is just a funny website.
I am a black woman, married to white man who met in college studying the arts. Upon graduation, we found we could not do anything with my fine jewelry and his photography degrees. We had to make any real money, which led me to become a probation officer and he a credit analyst. Now our half white children are in college seeking degrees in anthropology and history. Our youngest may be the “gifted” one, pursuing engineering because she wants to make money and look good. This is her choice only after she found that fashion psychology wasn’t a major.
Art school, food-coops, dogs and irony. I guess I really am a Twinkie. Damn!
Me too. I’m guessing they have a high regard for self-importance.
kitties crap yellow. they’re so cute.
What? huh? um, ok
Chris, surely there’s a barista job for you somewhere. Try moving to Seattle. The city is filled with folks like you – all eager to please because they know the 35 cents in change you fork over as a tip will mean the difference between foraging for food in the Micky D’s dumpster and licking the crumbs off the plate of my overpriced pumpkin scone (vegan of course).
Understand your hatred of whitey. Have you tried living your life in blackface? Worked for Al Jolson.
I’m with you brother. Ms. Feminist needs to relax, maybe with the Sunday edition of the NYT, her Apple laptop, and a nice steaming cup of some third world fair trade tea.
Shape shifters. I watch the Sci Fi channel; you can’t pull one over on me.
Whew, this blog and post came just in time. I was just sinking into an early “urban art school educated liberal” mid-life crisis. I left my Media Ecology grad school program because it costs a fortune and doesn’t result in any particular career, and because I found I love working in sales?!? Sales of course does not usually require higher degrees. This has caused for me a mini-white identity/ego crisis. I know this site is satire, but the list is so true. I didn’t know I was so heavily influenced by White Peer Pressure! White Peer Pressure is real people! And it has to be stopped. That is why I’m going compensate for my feelings of inadequacy by creating a non-profit to fight this real and destructive social problem! (wink) 😉
p.s. Art school graduates are encouraged to apply.
I’m a little surprised Psychology wasn’t included here. Everyone majors in Psychology. There’s nothing more rewarding than saying, “Well, Freud would tell us you did that because secretly your are sexually attracted to your mother.”
[…] children, awareness, traveling, having two last names, breakfast places, Apple products, sushi, art degrees, Japan, being the only person around, study abroad, threatening to move to Canada (which I did!), […]
No wonder you hate us so much?! Fuck you! Man this site is full of complete cunts, almost as much as the WBPL blog 😛
I was double-majoring in Economics and Art History. Now, I’m thinking of double-majoring in Economics and Political Science. Is that dumb?
Wrong.
White people tend to study Business and Finance because they want to make money
If you don’t get the joke, then you are the joke.
profound.
THE ARTS BUILDING 😀
you should be here! it’s finally getting warmer and all the cultural studies majors are emerging to sit on the arts steps and model their spring fashions, which this year include “ironic” sunglasses and mustaches. they’re all, needless to say, white.
[…] #47 Arts Degrees […]
You forgot your coma after Here at Princeton
Again, that dude forgot the coma after Princeton. What an idiot.
He is implying that you became Asiatic.
Humanties are courses: the degree is … of Arts (e.g. B.A. M.A.) or of Science, moron.
No, you just sold out.
I bet your life is BORING!
This is untrue, they will pay you to teach English, when you go to Thailand for sex with hookers.
I gotta take a piss…
Philosophy is not an arts degree. It requires rigorous analytical reasoning and a mastery of symbolic logic (i.e. an understanding of the foundations of mathematics). In France, maybe, philosophy amounts to an “Arts Degree” but in the English-speaking world, where Analytic Philosophy predominates, this is not so.
You forgot how to spell comma
Again, forgot how to spell comma. Wow.
[…] degrees can get that way. If you’re in the mood to make fun of yourself, read this post on the blog “Stuff White People Like”. Funny because it’s […]
Not all white college students are living off their parents–some of us actually have to work and pay our own way. Yeah, that’s right, we’re not all “preppy rich kids”.
Does the kind of Stuff White People Like include things like
Truth, Equality, and Justice?
http://www.survival-international.org
Masters degrees are totally worthless too:
http://www.everythingisoverrated.com/?p=13
The length of your post is appalling but a lot of what you say makes sense.
They like having those things for themselves, and talking about how important it is for ‘other’ people to have them. Actually doing anything to be sure than everyone else has them? You mean like lobbying, or marching in the hot sun, or taking time from important pursuits like shopping or netsurfing to do anything about it?
Naw.
Word
You both forgot periods.
I crap kittens. They’re delicious in curry sauce.
By your grammer, I see that you must be an Arts major.
All I can say to this comment is that the Aggie Network will prove you proud and connect you with whoever will help you in order to open doors of opportunity to be successful, regardless of your race or your choice of major, including Liberal Arts. (Maybe bad grammar here but I did not go to A&M so–sorry).
As they say, “What do you call a Texas A&M graduate?”… “Boss”.
Not only do I attend a liberal arts university, my major is studio art. Twice the whiteness. Boo.
[…] I have a dog, I love Arrested Development, and I’m getting an Art Degree. And of course I loooove irony and vintage. I AM SO […]
Now don’t forget to wipe.
As for the topic on hand, I practically revoked my ‘white’ status. Joined the Army out of high school, and I’m married to a Puerto Rican girl. And just for kicks, I’m an officer in the JCPD[Jersey City]!
hmm… most of the kids I knew growing up were -these- kind of white folk… you know. Artsy.
And to think, I wonder why they look down their noses at me at high school reunions…
hehe, this made me chuckle a little bit. Boy, how I love mocking the middle and upper class. 😀
right on homie!
Word!
I totally thought the same
thing in the exact succession as
these posts. hahaha
❤
Fish Noir Foul:
actually, i’ve found the reverse (at least to some extent) to be true… as exemplified by your bitter, ignorant post.
Nick Quick:
by your poor spelling, i see you must not be!
❤
hey, it’s not just the chinese:
we mexicans love to eat rice, too…
only with our beans! hahaha
❤
But you remembered your full stop this time.
Hahahaha.
[…] people understand that it is ideal for your one child to be headed to a liberal arts college for an arts degree right about the time you are ready to collect social security… Not a frightful idea in their […]
the whitest of the white? writing a blog.
name me all the famous chemists/engineers you can. now name all the famous authors you can.
when did chemistry/math become something other than white? the kids that read books still beat up the kids that are good at math.
The fact that you’ve implied that non-whites by nature are menaces to society should not be tolerated. The reason why these small markets exists for minorites is economic seclusion. You think if minorites could easily climb the corporate ladders they would still chose to live in diasporas and rely on niche markets.
They probably didn’t hire you because you told them you had a ‘diploma’ in English. They probably wanted someone with an English degree. I’m just saying…
[…] kooky white folk, with entries like “Dinner Parties”, “Outdoor Performance Clothes” and “ Arts Degrees”. Much to the dismay of my editor, I am sure, I have spent the better part of today reconnecting […]
Something common to the very white literary people I know is to use photos of writers as their computer and cell phone wallpapers. This way, when someone asks if the photo is of your mother/father/grandparent, you can snort and say, “That’s Mikhail Bulgakov/Carson McCullers; the WRITER” as snottily as possible.
I love Henry James. I even listed his work as a facebook interest. I am so white.
Hmm….Jupiter,
I think I sense a little white arrogance on your part, huh?
it’s kind of funny (this site I mean) but also part of what’s funny is all the shit that’s missing. if everyone just did science, economics, law we’d all be bloodsucking fuckwits like most white people (your liberal arts whitey is in the miniority afterall).
There aint nothing wrong with working for a not-for-profit, it’s got more to it than setting up a funny blog, complexities aside…
americans don’t understand irony
I majored in History, (ooooddddles of books to read!) then went on an became even whiter by going for the Master’s degree in, wait for it….Medieval History, which REALLY helps you in life especially when movies like “Braveheart” and “Rob Roy” and Troy come out because all your friends come to you and ask”Did they really paint themselves blue and moon their enemies?” and you get to discuss Woad and the proper undergarment attire for kilts and other historical things. This has had a major impact on my career choice…web designer. Actually, the history degree has taught me to be one hell of a good researcher, and using the net just makes things so easy.
“I’m not white, I’m freckled!”
I think the O-Man’s been here stealing all of our secrets.
…apparently- most don’t… they must have arts degrees
did she choose to be white and act white (Tiger Woods) or did she choose to be black, act white and then bitch about being black? (Obama), Seriously, she does have a choice. being an engineer, she’d better ditch that – low pay all the while working with the likes of these dumasses reading these pages who don’t get it
This post is hilarious because it rings so true! 😉
Setting aside the satire, I think it does reveal something liberal arts degrees. Namely, in an ideal world studying something that you love without regard to career or salary prospects seems to fulfill the lofty goal of higher education. However, keep in mind that only the privileged elite were able to send their sons (women were banned from the Ivys until the 1960s) to the university.
Because of their wealth, social status and connections, these students essentially had it made in terms of maintaining their lifestyle. In other words, it did not matter what they studied as an undergrad because either a) they could afford to go to grad school; or b) they would go straight into the family business or a cushy job on Wall St. with on-the-job training. What mattered was that they could speak and write in the language of the ruling class (proper etiquette, grammar, accent, etc). Some passing knowledge of art, literature, etc. would also be useful at cocktail functions so as to maintain the nonchalantly well-rounded persona required in these social situations.
(continuation)
However, now an undergrad degree has become a basic requirement for most entry-level white-collar jobs (positions that once only required a HS diploma). In fact, it has been my experience that companies prefer to hire and train college grads with math/science/engineering background for non-tech positions because of the perceived higher value of such degrees. The exception seems to be Ivy League graduates. Yet an undergrad science major from a state school appears to have better career prospects that a humanities major from an elite university who does not have wealthy parents, connections or the means to attend grad school.
The situation is especially difficult for students of low socioeconomic status who need to financially support their parents. Since immigrants and divorced/single working mothers oftentimes live in precarious financial straits, their children feel the added responsibility earning enough to support their loved ones. Attending grad school is not always a given because they might not be able to move back to live rent-free but rather move in to help pay for rent. Loss of that added income could jeopardize their younger siblings from finishing college as well. Working for well-meaning but low-paying nonprofits unfortunately would not be a smart (or caring) option for their loved ones.
Children from upper middle class families typically do not have this concern in the back of their head. It is more a leap-of-faith vs practical decision to make (“do what you love” vs “do what makes most money”). Moving out on your own is a rite of passage, and moving back home to save money for grad school is an available option.
Which brings me to the danger of promoting a liberal arts degree to everyone (keeping in mind that this blog is entirely tongue-in-cheek, just using this post as a springboard for discussion). Not everyone who attends college (even elite Northeast institutions) come from the same background. So “studying what you love” is not always practical or financially responsible.
It is also misleading from universities to promote liberal arts without acknowledging the rapidly changing nature of the global economy today. Multinational corporations want graduates who bring something to the table other than “critical thinking skills and ability to write” (vaunted advantages of liberal arts degrees). Graduates with specialized degrees can more easily hire a tutor to help them polish their presentation and writing skills in their spare time than humanities majors can do lab work on their own (without significant outlay of resources, never mind accreditation, etc). Corporations know this – therefore an undergrad degree in the sciences essentially carries greater overhead value than humanities (cost of labs vs libraries).
Even nonprofits prefer engineering/sciences/business majors. Third World countries are in dire need of doctors, engineers, etc. who can provide low-cost support to build their infrastructure, teach and pass on these skills to their youth, and so on. I think students who want to work for international non-government organizations like the UN should ask themselves: “What do poor countries need? How can I best serve their needs? How can I use my $100,000+ education to acquire the skills that are most in demand in that country and teach these subjects to train the next generation there?” If someone is willing to forgo a high-paying job to make a difference at a nonprofit, then he/she would be helping the most by addressing an urgent need.
I think a happy combination of the “study what you love” vs “study what is practical” debate is evaluating what you are good (and can reasonably enjoy doing on a regular basis) and how you can use that skill to help others. Others could be your own family (if you are poor) or indigent people from other countries or even your own neighborhood (if your parents/sibling are self-sufficient). In this way you can effectively serve by using your education as a tool to help others in practical ways (and avoid being a financial burden to others).
Just some thoughts to share…
Liberal Arts degrees are what rich girls with rich parents do to keep their daughters occupied so they can “find themselves”. It doesn’t matter really if they get a job (if they do its part time and a retail job)because going to Florence on mom and dad’s cheque, living in the chicest apartment with a bisexual roomate and shopping in “vintage stores” and american apparel are ways for her to “enjoy her youth and become acultured citified adult”. Top that with non stop author quoting, a 800 dollar DSLR camera and saying you love John Coltrane over and over again and I’m sorry but I’m ready to kick the crap out of you you little bitch.
Actually youre parents are just hoping you find a husband so they can strip looking after you and you horrible “inde” fashion sense ass that emabrasses them when granny comes over.
You try so hard to be different. You think you are so cool with your electro house music blasting and your crappy bicycle. You are just like every other frikken wanna be. I know you secretly study vice magzine in your room at night. You just automatically say Barak Obama is cool cuz “he’s about change”. You suck. I hate you.
You laugh at me when i talk about going to college for a business diploma. “oh thats boring”. I fucking paid for it myslef bitch. Oh and my boyfriend actually looks like man and not some pink fluorescent hatted skate boarder white trash ironic fake dj.
ugghhh…
Bingo. The Arts departments at my school were the smallest and least funded, unlike the finance and business departments. This whole idea of women majoring in the arts so they can “find themselves” was true like 50 years ago, where all they went to Uni was to find a husband, and could manage to have a “useless” degree.
I have no money, my family are working class. I just finished an art degree.
So most of the shit in that blog is untrue and far too general. I don’t have it easy and now that I need to find a job in the arts I still won’t have it easy.
I studied art because I like it. And because I could spend 3 years learning more about it and the skills I need to find a career in art.
Maybe it differs here, being in England. But I don’t suppose it differs too much. People still study things because they like the subject or because it’s something they’re good at.
Calm down.
Remember, assholes come in both sexes, but both sexes don’t come in assholes.
I am so white, but it looks like I lost my status through my science degree AND my disdain of art majors. Go me!
It just occurred to me that white people, which I suppose includes “somechick” as well as her nemesis “bitch,” like plain trash talking full of hate about that which they are not.
I would highly recommend you stop eating that pizza, get your pelvis off the couch, go out to get a life. I am sure you earned a job with your business degree, the question is when and how you are going to earn a life?
m
#1 I am not “white” in the classical sense you implying. If you include a brownskinned sephardic jew as white…
#2 I have earned a job with my business degree, and I have a very fulfilling life thankyou very much.
What’s wrong with venting my opinions? Unlike the the tightlipped witeys like you out there always being offended and such…, i feel more than happy to express my disdain for others. Who’s stopping me.
I happily get my ass of the couch everyday and enjoy a healthy diet which doesn’t really include copious amounts of pizza and refined garbage.
I don’t have to be a vegan, global warming, Feist wannabe chick to gain approval in my community. In fact I laugh in the face of those that try so hard to be different when in fact everythingthat they do to set themselves apart is really their attempt and follingwhat’s trendy and in style at the moment.
I have no problem and feel no ardour in expressing my opinions.
Thankyou very much for your concerns on my well being.
Somechick –
No you are not white. You are a Jew and it fits your personality because Jews love feeling morally superior to everyone. You even said it yourself:
“i feel more than happy to express my disdain for others”
What’s wrong with expressing my opinion? You choose to get offended, not me.
All you can really do is follow your heart, ya know? I was in grad school for an English lit masters, but I hated it so much that I left the program. All the snobbery, back stabbing and viciousness was too much.
I love to read. I love art. I don’t like the snottiness and the mean spirited bullshit that can come with that.
I changed academic focus on a vocational type job and now all my snotty grad school friends hate my guts. *shrugs* Oh well. They weren’t real friends any way.
What I hate is that these arts departments will lie to students saying that there’s so much out there for them. However, research told me otherwise. They just want cheap labor from the graduate students to teach the introduction classes that the professors are too lazy to teach or think they’re too much of a big shot to teach intro classes.
OMG!! I have an art degree!!!!! Finally, something that applies to me! Yes, I am a stuck-up, whine-swilling, elitist liberal white chick after all. Thank God. Oops, I mean The Goddess.
http://www.edwardsharper.com
what the fuck, matt?
somechick is absolutely right in the way she describes this type of ‘cool US arts degree white girl in europe’.
it is kind of annoying if people studying something so utterly useless look down on her for getting a business degree.
most of these people don’t know what a fulfilled life is, just like ‘middlegray’:
“I am sure you earned a job with your business degree, the question is when and how you are going to earn a life?”
as if a great taste in music, art or clothes makes your life more meaningful, or a business degree somehow prevents it from being so.
whoaa, that’s awful.
lol what? you don’t understand which kind of people this blog is about.
This is especially so!
Look at what one is trying to do at http://creativepassword.wordpress.com/
Being an art major myself, this one is particularly close to my deep troubled heart. I love the kids that grew up playing football and wearing skechers. The kids that have suddenly become deeply aware of their roots and can only release the termoil of an adolesence on the streets in Compton by tagging a canvas they bought at Michael’s….
one should never pay for items at Michaels
or “tag” on canvases
Many white people with “arts” degrees end up in insurance. Generally this low-paying, tedious industry is happy to employ smart, well educated ninnies like me. I have a B.A. and an M.A., I speak one other language fluently, and read two others. I have encountered majors in English, Spanish, Art History, History, Political Science, Math, French, Art, and a spate of other majors among insurance workers. We tend to look askance at anyone with a business degree or, heaven forbid, an insurance degree.
They of course didn’t mention psychology or the other social sciences, because it is a social science, not an “art,” although the social sciences are part of the liberal arts, as are the natural sciences. Political science was only included with caveats.
Do music majors and theatre majors (which is the correct spelling, NEVER “theater”) fall into this category? I know a lot of music and theatre majors who did 6+ years in college only to get jobs as wait staff in NYC/L.A./Chicago waiting to “make it big.” All the music majors I know past 40 work in insurance or some other mindless job and maybe gig on the weekends. What do you all think?
hey all, in today’s economy if you are not from an upper-class background and do not have connections then majoring in the sciences, I think, is truly the way to go. I have a deep interest in film, psychology, and philosophy yet I am not majoring in this. Why?
Because I would have to go on to grad school to find a decent job.
But mainly because I spend enough time on my own learning about these subjects.
I am majoring in environmental science because I want to work for a non-profit, overseas, doing environmental work. This is very altruistic I know; it is the only thing really keeping me in school.
I have yet to do a study abroad, and this is where I will tie in my arts education… in Paris.
But that is all the formalized liberal arts education I am getting.
Going to law school through a Political Science degree is hard but worth it. I know you write some of this stuff in jest, but it is false to assume every arts student or white student has wealthy parents and connections. The fastest demographic growth of poverty in the US and Canada consists of white people. I would argue affirmative action gives other groups the upper hand. Many people use arts as a stepping stone to their career. PS: arts students score the best out of all faculties on GMAT, LSAT and other professional school aptitude tests. Maybe I’m taking this to personally. have a nice day!
Two comments:
1. Clarifying that I have no degree and nothing that would qualify me for an intelligent comment, that being said, the receptionist in my office has an art degree. She makes 10.50 per hour.
2. I think the justification and offense driven comments are nearly as funny as the post itself. Although… aren’t online blogs/posts deeply loved by white people? I’m feeling less and less white upon completing each additional post.
Great post
Maybe they score the best because they don’t have a job, and therefore have the most time to study, or perhaps they score they best because you just made that statistic up.
What’s funny about this item is that it conflicts with liberal white America’s love of all things European. You see, in European educational systems, and educational systems inspired by Europe, Arts degrees are considered… B-List degrees. Smart kids get technical degrees, engineering, math, medicine, etc., and “dumb” kids get literature degrees.
Wow. I wish I had parents who would pay for my rent. Nope, this white person went to college, got a science degree…yes REAL science…and realized it doesn’t matter if you are white or not. You will not make more than 8.50 an hr. Unless you get really lucky beg the hirers and make a great whopping 10.50. And all that does not pay back all the loans I have. Because I did not have college paid for and no scholarships.
Since I’m European I don’t understand all the cultural references named in this discussion. But after reading this post I got guilty feelings because I’m leaving my moderately well-paid office job for doing a badly paid PhD in language history. That’s so white, isn’t it? I guess it is so white to do something you really like as linguistics research instead of making the owner of my company richer (such a snobbishly leftist statement).
This is the first of SWP posts that has a bitter streak. More than a bitter streak, it was actually not fun to read because it was uncomfortably close to being mailicious. What’s up with that?
And P.S., I’m white (Jewish, though) and got a degree in Literature/Writing with a minor in French Lit. College took me over five years cause I worked full time through all of it, and I got a job working at a software engineering company as a technical editor two weeks before I even graduated. I make $60k, have awesome benefits, and go to grad school part time at night for a degree in Rhetoric, just because.
That said, I still would have enjoyed this post if it hadn’t seemed so damn bitter.
Exactly!
thats such bull shit I make 15 dollars an hour and I just graduated high school, you must be stupid to accept 8.50 an hour i made that much when I was in middle school
yea, where the fuck are you making 8.50 an hour with a college diploma under your belt? are you sure you went to college because you sound retarded to me.
[…] things like non-profit organizations (#12), microbreweries (#23), the Sunday New York Times (#46), arts degrees (#47), and threatening to move to Canada (#75). Soon the site was logging millions of visitors, and […]
Did you get your “REAL science degree” from I’m A Fuckin Idiot College? 8.50/hr was the best you could do? I’m a receptionist at a biotech and I make 17/hr + benefits and bonuses. Your parents must be really proud.
I have a BS degree in engineering. The intent was to design automation equipment. Well, unfortunately, most of those jobs moved overseas and after about 5 years of working in the field, I went to law school, trying to capitalize on the degrees and be a patent lawyer.
I spent three years listening to pretentious lib arts major how much better and smarter they were and that I would not succeed. Well, I graduated magna from a top 10 (T14) law school in the country, worked in big law and after a few years joined a .com start-up. All the code jockeys who were white were lib arts majors, who ended up having to acquire technical skills. The rest of the code jockeys were some of the smartest people I ever met, foreign engineers.
I truly felt sorry for all the lib arts majors who had dreams of exploring the greater meaning of life and yet those dreams were crushed by 20 hr work days 7 days per week.
The real question is why does society allow liberal arts colleges to deceive impressionable young kids with the utter ridiculousness that a lib arts degree has a value of any kind.
wow, who ever wrote that is very ignorant and must be a racist who has nothing better to do then to insult people that are different.
Well, this is kind of off. It’s actually more like something a WASP-y white person would like.
For us foreign white people (i.e., Italian), to study anything arts-related means that you automatically become the black sheep and the weirdo. Family members will talk in hushed voices about you at get-togethers and will be extremely vague on your arts major of choice, preferring to talk about your cousin, who has a degree in business and law and is doing very well.
You forget that irony is also a very white thing to indulge in
Sure, this post was meant as a satirical jab at a seemingly vapid career plan, but I think the issue at hand is the appropriateness of some generalizations. Enjoying Sedaris, micobrews, coffee, euro-travelling, etc are easy to laugh at, but I can see why some people might be offended by some of the implications in this blog. There are certainly a fair share of pampered slackers living off their parents, but the vast majority go to college for four years and enter the job market immediately afterward. The oft generalized idea of having parents ready to bail you out “until the age of 40” is a bit much. For the poor whites out there who pay their own way through college (or even the middle class who go right from college to the workforce), I can see why such a statement would rustle a few feathers.
I have a poli sci degree. Needless to say, a degree in poli sci is essentially a degree in bullshit, which lets you spot when someone is full of it (and preps you well for sales positions by the way). I’m not saying that it isn’t a useless degree, because really it is. Ultimately though, very little of what you learn in school regardless of major is going to translate to your work in the field as experience is the real teacher. So let’s stop being all high and mighty shall we?
What about those of us who get BFA’s in Art? Or better yet, Graphic Design? Then we get cool jobs in advertising, wear ironic t-shirts to work everyday, listen to indie bands like Vox Trot and Wolf Parade and eventually date an Asian girl.
I’m white and of Brazilian descent. At the same time, I am a Government Major (political science) at an Ivy.
Granted, poli sci is not as difficult as engineering, biology, etc. Many people will just coast by in it hungover like the writer of this article stated. However, it is as difficult or fulfilling as you make it…if you’re legitimately interested in the workings of politics and ruling institutions, then study it, fuck what nay sayers think….a world of just engineers would be frickin boring anyway (or maybe just Asian, based on my campus haha). Besides, I’m hoping to go to law school or work for the Federal Government, so who knows what happens. In the meantime, bloggers can say what they will on this site/book and it really won’t have an influence on how I live my life…
Wow, that’s some serious hatred. Death to whitey!
No influence whatsoever…like say taking time away from your day to write a whole paragraph about something you don’t care about???
Sounds like the only person your convincing is yourself…
electrical engineering is the only real major.
I love all of you. Engineers and artsies, alike!
the one thing this really forgot to mention is the liberal part of arts degree, which allows one to act liberally in a bubble completely checked out of the real world. Partying by night and advocating the freeing of so and so or the environmental degradation of this and that by day. I’m white and enjoyed four blissful years of History and secondary focus on skiing and bullshit. To top it off, after 2 years in the working world I decided to re-instate my objection to the real world went ahead and got an MA in Arts Business at school outside the US all the keep the parental gravy train rolling into my late 20’s. A grand life oh and non-white people seem to find it pretty enjoyable too.
I’m a music major. Thankfully, there isn’t much room for leftist indoctrination in a school of music. What can a liberal professor do? Say George Bush writes parallel fourths? They’ll try to feed us occasional bullshit in musicology classes (like an article my sister’s African music class had to read, claiming white people have ugly souls and therefore can’t write beautiful music), but no one does the reading anyway. We’re all too busy practicing.
Womyn? Fucking cunt whores, get in the kitchen and make me some dinner before i beat the shit outta u and make u miscarraige, well i guess thats cheaper tahn an abortion huh u little slut?
This is very true. I really enjoyed getting my degree in Art History and the Visual Arts. I would also like to state that my classmate Tucker Neil did his Senior Comprehensive project on “Whiteness” which is, as far as I can tell, the study of how to feel guilty about being white. You may want to consider the study of “Whiteness” as one of the things that white people like. It involves guilt and useless knowledge wrapped up in an academic sounding package. BRILLIANT!
My major is Biomedical Engineering, but most peopl, white or black, tend to stop listening around the fifth syllable and say “oh that sounds hard.”
I have a degree in Advertising & Public Relations…and…Music. I just happened to learn enough to never buy a Steinway. It’s all marketing bullshit.
Music is a lot like biomedical engineering. Advertising & PR is a lot like BS.
Actual music requires too much practicing (as you mention, Soprano) and thus is too much work for a true white person. You’re more likely to meet white people who can BS at length on their “favorite” music (see #108) or musicology (see your sister’s full-of-crap African music class article).
…and eat sushi while driving to Whole Foods in our Priuses, wearing pea coats and getting offended?
But white people’s love of all things European is conflicted, because on the one hand they have all this cool stuff (old architecture, leftist politics, great fashion, study abroad programs) but on the other hand they’re the foundation of all our white guilt. It’s a weird relationship, James.
Sexist. There we go – you’ve just done one of those things that white people DON’T like.
I know exactly what you mean…that’s my major too. People either say that or “you must be really smart.” It makes things really awkward….
Brilliant and true…though not useless.
I majored in scatology and thought it was a bullshit major, but I found it very useful in the real world.
No, but you’re the gayest.
The British have by far the strongest tradition of holding the arts and classics over science and engineering. Margaret Thatcher was chopped off at the knees early in her career for having studyied chemistry. Alan Turing (solved the nazi enigma machine) was discouraged by all his teachers from pursuing math.
i will finance your project with my business degree
haha I used to be one of those white people, and thought that my liberal arts degree was a better choice in life because it reflected deep humanitarian concerns and a disregard for the concept of participating in the mundane economic workings of society. Then I tried to get a job. Long story short, you won.
Dear whitest person I know guy. I’m studying Maths, have I officially lost my white status?
Ahh the classic internets retort. “IF UR SO NOT BOTHERED THEN Y ARE U REPLYING?”.
You know it is possible to be interested in something and find it amusing without it influencing you…
Godverdomme!
I don’t like it when music is grouped with other arts degrees, it’s a lot more intellectually demanding than most people assume.
And I’ll convince you that maybe your miserable life is worth living when you read my novel.
Credit-crunch bitch!
Next?
. . . essentially the impetus behind this whole site, which I’d be willing to wager is visted almost exclusively by white people.
us white folks do loves our proofreadings
And profoundly white. In fact, both the truth and the generalization are valid. None of us are stereotypes at our cores – we only become so when we open our mouths (or mousepads). Pardon the philossphizing, but, as a white person, I have way too much free time on my hands.
Wow. The whitest country on earth?
I love how in this comment you can see where he just stopped caring about proper spelling.
This website is HILARIOUS! I am realizing I am a way too uptight white person! Funny thing is I appropriately “lived in New York for five years”. I was making a six figure salary, but I lost my job, living back home with my parents in Scranton, and I’m piss poor, so I can’t afford my white stuff anymore!
As an actual art student, I find this one particularly funny in the context of prior-degree holding adults who feel the need to get a generic art degree. Successful 40+ men and women who have a degree in business or law or something who decide to stroke their ego by going after a BA in a conceptual art school.
This article is great. Lots of biting sarcasm that nonetheless hold some truths behind it.
I’m not white nor did I attend school for white degrees (mine were in Finance and Management) but I certainly saw a lot of what this article describes.
The reasons students pick Liberal Arts degrees are as follows:
a) bar none they’re the easiest degrees out there. I had to take about 12 LA courses during my degree and they were by far the easiest classes to finish. Compare that with my Finance classes and we’ll see which ones tougher. Bullshi++ing through ten page papers was much easier to do than to take my hard core Finance exams. I mean come on, if most university jocks pick LA degrees that has to tell you something about how difficult they truly are.
b) it’s true, most students who pick them know they’ll always have a backup in life. Whether it’s through their parents or through their future spouse, “Anthropology” can be easily be picked because said student will always have someone else to support them. It’s why like 90% of LA students (at least in my school) were girls because they know their future husbands will be the ones with the steady career, while they’ll easily be housewives/moms.
c) there’s always the backup of a Masters too. Who cares what Bachelors you take when “apparently” Masters are where it’s important. Once these LA grads realize their degree only gets them jobs as a bank teller or secretary, they decide it’s because they need a Masters in their useless degree. And the cycle continues from there.
I cannot believe more people aren’t reading this post. They are sure missing a gem. You are brilliant, sir.
hey ade, womyns studies ?? haha
i feel like you are looking at my life when you are writing these blogs and this one really hits home. i spent 5 years in college. started as business major, then liberal arts major, but ending up with a degree in studio art – concentration on pottery. got married to a girl who had the same degree but in painting. we soon had kids and realized that there was no way in hell to support our family. we worked as graphic designers for some time but felt that our creativity was being zapped by the “man.” so i’m now a law enforcement officer and she takes care of babies.
love your blog. keep it up.
gabe
(art degree, wrigley attendee, friends with gays and asians, and more or less guilty of 90% of your list)
p.s. one difference – we did have to pay for our degrees by working odd jobs and taking loans that we will never pay off but somehow i don’t think that really contradicts any of your points.
As opposed to stroking ones ego as an actual art student?
How do you like being the man vs being zapped by the man?
Yeah, I used to enjoy the vegan scones, but ever since I started biking to this one raw foods cafe on Capitol Hill, I just feel so much more… much more alive, more white.
Seattle does some amazing things with whiteness; it must be all the artists who live there because of the good weed.
While I am guilty of having an arts degree, and I loooove this blog…I have to disagree that my English degree was one of the easiest. I often found myself doing way MORE and way more DIFFICULT work than many of my friends with other “real” degrees. English professors are assholes, period. LOL
This remains my favorite on the list only because I fail to understand how paying hundreds of dollars to take “Arthurian Legends”could ever be considered useful in the “real world” unless the “real world” was taken over by D&D enthusiasts. God fucking dammit. If English is a legitimate and useful degree (and couldn’t buy me hundreds of dollars of whiskey and likely a two story house in Ecuador) than I’m the fucking pope. Spend your parents’ money and get me a nose job instead of analyzing Shakepeare for the love of fucking god. I’m sorry I can’t take it.
seems like this guy is just full of angst, and perhaps has even taken a “white person degree” for him/herself. quit wasting your fucking time trying to sound smart and having management and science majors sucking your dick for making fun of arts students. i bet it feels goo though, especially when your self esteem is at an all-time low after having failed out of your very own liberal arts degree. get a real fucking job you retard.
Frankly, I think it’s rather retarded to assume people aren’t “following their dreams” when they get a business, MIS, nursing, etc. degree. I want to travel (so white, I know), but how the hell can I afford that when I’m trying to whore my “insightful” paintings out to yuppies? (Which is funny cause it’s people they don’t aspire to be like)
Sorry I have to wait to be able to afford to go to Europe.
Wow, so my engineering degree makes me LESS white? Sweet!
Makes me wanna go solder something or write some pseudocode. Woot.
My grandparents were farmers, my parents got to go to college and became economists in an Eastern European country, my brother is a senior economist with a PhD from Hahvahd and I’m twiddling around studying anthropology and German at an above average university in the US because my parents shipped me here in the hope of a better future. My dream, however, is to become a great chef. Oh, the travesty!
Beautiful.
[…] an ang moh. I will be at my unpaid internship from 10 to 6, and then going to a two-hour journalism ethics class. Boy, do I miss Singapore right now. Photo via […]
This posting(#47) has led me to believe I should be covered in the next installment. But forgive if its already been covered. I have just discovered this glorious blog.
Why should *I* be covered? Cause white people like me.
I am a minority from the hood. But, I am NOT a thug or especially “ghetto”. Having me as a friend allows them [White people] to have street cred and show their solidarity with the plight of the minority, without all the nasty business of actually having a murdering drug dealing acquaintance named June-Bug or something. It’s like being friends with Bodie without the possibility of being killed [see #85 The Wire]. It’s modern day slumming. Find a non-threatening minority raised in the streets that has been “enlightened” [ Stumptown coffee in portland anyone?… oooohhh Im goood! ] and share your new friend with all your white friends and you are lifted to the status of Alpha Cultural Hipster Extraordinaire! But here is the kicker and the thing that brings my point full circle to this posting… I have an art degree!
White people freakin love me!!!
Oh, and Im not joking. My paintings can be seen here:
http://blog.jerardestudio.com/
Peace out cracka’s!
I am replying to my own statement as a preemptive response…
yes I realize the article specifically discusses Liberal Arts. But I would argue that Hipsters and Yuppies, Im sorry… White People… like actual ART degrees even more.
I graduated as a political scientist. After two years of unemployment (I called it: becoming an expert of Machiavelli) I became a political risk analyst for a large investment firm. After two months, I was so exhausted by the workload that I had to quit and applied for a Ph.D…
Social science is not the same as arts. Arts graduates have a general (or rather vague) knowledge (most of the thoughts can not be empirically tested) of something which has very limited applicability in the world outside the walls of the academia (e.g.: the impact of French modernisms on Polish romantic literature of the 18th century). Whereas elections (or the lack of), ethnic conflicts or the current balance sheet of the country are essential components of our contemporary life, no matter what you are doing, and where. So sociology, political science and economics is far more useful than English literature and culture. Especially if you study it as Anglo-Saxon, in an Anglo-Saxon country…
I have a BFA, and I really like to accentuate the fact that there is an F in there.
Its totally true.
But I went back to school to get another degree since, well, lets face it… nobody else cares about the big F in my degree.
I haven’t hit 40 yet, but that low-wage/high-stick-to-your-artistic-ethics job gets old.
You seem responsible, and your point is valid. But…
That’s the problem with a lot of BFA students, they have some romantic notion of being an artist. They’re fine with with staying true to their convictions. Until they get tired of being poor. But not all BFA students go around painting the existential dilemma of man and recite poetry in book stores. Many of us treat it like a business. Now granted I am not successful (Yet) but I have plenty of motivation. I know plenty of graphic designers, Illustrators, and fine artist that actually make a living. A very good living! Maybe not the pay scale of an engineer, but certainly enough to own a home, a decent car, buy nice things, and go on vacation.
A quick google research session would reveal the world of successful contemporary and young artist, designers, and illustrators. In fact I bet many of them read this blog… they all like humus and have girlfriends with bangs.
These degrees disgust me. However the part about
“Of course it trickles down to making connections, getting hired, knowing rich people, and so forth.” is the main way people with these degrees get anywhere. The rest of them wasted time and money in my opinion.
The exception is people who used this degree to get into teaching, you know, summers off/holiday breaks, 6.5 hr work days, cheap benefits, union pay raises, never having to worry about losing your job… those are the smart white people.
“The exception is people who used this degree to get into teaching, you know, summers off/holiday breaks, 6.5 hr work days, cheap benefits, union pay raises, never having to worry about losing your job”
You’re wrong. What kind of teacher? Elementary and high school? If so, that’s where you’re wrong. On all counts. You’ll be hard pressed to find a teacher that comes in when the kids do and leaves at 3. And job security?! In this horribly litigious society? You look at a kid wrong and you’re getting sued and then fired.
As for college prof. Lazy! 🙂 TA’s doing all the work.
I don’t think so, i have 3 friends that are teachers (elem and high school), they work the standard day (yes, they may have to do a lesson plan or grade papers at home). And unless they do something sexually or physically inappropriate their jobs are backed by the union once they’ve been tenured (2 years) And they make good money (at least in my area, like 35k to start for elementary) and it only goes up from there, in addition to their guaranteed retirement. The school district pays for them to get a masters degree and then pays them even more money once they get it.
Back in HS I had teachers that came in early and stayed late, well boo hoo for them, it’s not required, they make full time wages but don’t work full time schedules, year round. In many businesses you work 8 hrs plus 1/2 hr or full hour unpaid lunch… Not 6.5 hours with a paid lunch and paid prep/break time.
Sounds like a good deal to me, unless you’re out to abuse kids.
“But what about the white people who study Science, Engineering or Business? Unless they become doctors, they essentially lose white person status (and can only be regained by working at a non-profit).”
Oh hell, it looks like I’ve lost my white person status.
Science, Engineering or Business?
White American students? Huh? Don’t you mean [name EVERY OTHER country here. *honorable mention to India].
It’s sad.
Besides, didn’t Mr Bush do away with Science in America? 🙂
It’s the study of Communication… not CommunicationS. 🙂
Well if teaching is sooooo easy, then why aren’t you a teacher? Thought so. I have respect for teachers. If you want a cushy job, try finance. The math isn’t too hard, you can run the firm into the ground and there are no consequences. Oh yeah, Golden Parachute anyone? I’m not sure that you get to keep your white street cred, though.
Gotta go now or I’ll be late for yoga.
Wrong, moron.
The furtherment of Lazy Hippies with long hair who dont stand fur nothing. Cut your hair Hippy! Get a real job!
Low blow.
I’ve got a political science degree and work in publishing…. this article owned me several times. Fuck.
i’m majoring in psychology, and minoring in bio. That’s technically a BA, but psych is classed as a “social science” (as opposed to a humanity). Does that count?
This one’s flat out wrong. I love most of them. Haven’t really seen one I didn’t laugh at. But to suggest that getting a liberal arts education is ‘stupid’ or ‘ignorant’ is one of THE most ignorant things I have ever heard. Once you have a liberal arts backing, and can reason critically, you can learn anything in the world, and on the job.
Just so you know, who has the highest verbal and critical reasoning skills of any major?
http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/philo/GRE%20Scores%20by%20Intended%20Graduate%20Major.htm
At no point does this article make any suggestions regarding level of intelligence.
(Except in the comments section)
most of you are.
[…] the list yet) scattered across in unnecessary amount of tables. However, a rare breed in Kaldis are liberals, they’re too busy in their studio classes. Most like entertaining the idea of belonging to the […]
I am graduating with a BA in English and Technical Writing this spring, and most likely I’ll go back to school and get a certificate in Web Development. It’s no Masters – but at least I’ll actually have a USEFUL skill.
All Colleges and High Schools should require students to learn a skill with which they might actually be able to get a decent paying job. And then, once they’ve done that – they can pursue Proust and Henry James to their hearts desires.
Just saying. There would be less people in coffee shops at 1:30pm on a Tuesday, but does the world really need ALL those coffee shops? And all those “artists?”
I didn’t think so. 🙂
It’s kind of pathetic how upset people are over this. There are two concessions that need to be made here.
1. Arts degrees are useless in many situations
True, when you want to fix a car or shoot a gun, knowing how Napoleon almost took over the world isn’t much help.
2. However, studying the arts is not worthless.
To dismiss the entire effort of understanding artistry is ignorant. Studying the past has always been useful in the present to see how similar situations may happen. Philosophers throughout the centuries have had an influence on the world, as have famous writers.
So no, perhaps a researcher can’t solder an iron but they certainly matter.
Sounds like stuffwhitepeoplelike has some experience with this topic. Colorado or UC Davis?
And showing you how to put apostrophes in right place-
I smell Communism.
And not surprisingly, communism smells like Kung Pao Chicken
left brain orientated,ultra rationalists will go to and thrive in the sciences and society esteems them more….right brain orientated,ultra emotionalists will thrive in arts and humanties.
Let us not rail at the universe for creating differences in our wiring! the world needs passion as it needs reason.
I take it you must have an arts degree. No?
this whole debate right here is whiter than the article itself
White people like to obtain higher degrees because they are mostly rational and self interested. Admirably so. I looked at the list of what whites supposedly like and it seems as if the author has only met yuppie liberal pukes that would live in most of the big US cities. SO…I have thrown away my whiteness for a degree in Chemical Engineering?
I think you mean liberal arts degrees, which include generally the humanities and social sciences. Economics, by the way, is typically a field in the liberal arts.
Having a liberal arts degree ACTUALLY guarantees more opportunities than someone who has a degree in something like business…because employers know one with a degree in something like philosophy or classics is intelligent.
Whoever made this website, you are really stupid…and you probably based it entirely off your life.
You’re both morons.
There are both communication (speech, human communication etc.) and communications (PR, journalism etc.)
Your thought process is encouraging. I’m considering a major French, with either a Business or Literature emphasis. Hopefully some employer will consider this “intelligent.”
Soon I will be graduating with a degree that required math up to Differential Geometry and physics up until quantum-specialization. An employer would be far more likely to hire me, someone with equitable skills applicable in multiple fields than you…someone who answered endless quandaries of no real relevance. The majority of ‘philosophy’ majors have somehow never heard of Ludwig Wiggenstein or Betrand Russel…I’d be shocked if they knew even the simplest boolean logic for that matter. However; Plato and Aristotle…yeah that’s helpful.
Hey you should go get a degree in literature…maybe then you would understand writing phenomenon like intention and person, and not make such an ass of yourself by calling the authors of this blog “really stupid.”
*persona
now who’s an ass…
[…] Tags Tara Donovan , Filed under: Funny #47 Arts Degrees […]
Yep. I have a Liberal Arts English Degree. I got it under the false premise that my critical thinking skills would make me an excellent employee.
“Once you have a liberal arts backing, and can reason critically, you can learn anything in the world, and on the job.”
Yeah, but who’s going to hire you if they have to train you?
The point of an English degree (for me) was not to read the actual literature, but to use the literature as a vessel for inter-disciplinary studies.
Yep. I’m that white.
Time to go back to grad school and pick up another degree so I can be an adjunct professor.
I wish I were joking.
I have found it hilarious how some of the same people that boast how their liberal arts educations make them critical thinkers seem to disprove their thesis in the same breath.
A paraphrased example: “This article sucks. What do you mean getting a liberal arts education is stupid? I got mine and it made me a critical thinker!” It obviously didn’t help your reading comprehension. 😉
Bravo! Your spot on when you point out that most people now view university education as a job training program. I’ve often wondered how necessary a bachelor’s degree is when it is now so common for people to have one. If we are all rich, we’re all poor; if we are all fat, we’re all thin. I attended a junior college and got a General Education degree and have had a job in GIS/Cartography for almost 10 years. Guess where I started learning those skills – high school co-op program. Now I’m considering a bachelor’s degree from a liberal arts college, and it is because I want to deepen my knowledge of the past. I don’t understand how people can totally disregard literature as important knowledge. If we do not study the past we are doomed to repeat it! Literature often is much deeper than ‘a story.’ There are many ways it can be applied to critical thinking and deep personal reflection. People who disregard this are doing themselves and everyone else they come in contact with a disservice.
So… come-downs on non-white shouldn’t be tolerated… meanwhile, this entire post is about making fun of white people? You are some kind of genius, aren’t you? I’m scared for this country.
This blog has to be written by some self-hating white person!
I guess some might find this humorous, but for me I find it insulting and degrading!
I for one don’t hate myself because I’m white, as a matter of fact I’m proud of my race and the accomplishments that we have achieved and I have no feelings of guilt over a past I had nothing to do with!
Live Long And Prosper!
That is because white people like getting offended. See #101
Man, I wish I had a degree in Philosophy so I could be the next Socrates. What am I supposed to do with this friggin Finance degree?
muahaha, my philosophy degree trumps your finance. Fear my encyclopedic knowledge of obscure thinkers.
There’s no need for you to be offended as Vulcans are not white. Your people fall somewhere on the spectrum between “swarthy” and “mod”.
HAH! Who’s the douche that got all upset because he was majoring in Philosophy!?
Oh. That was me.
I still am, too.
And Math.
But look.
Finance is useless in many situations.
Engineering is useless in many situations.
English Education is useless in virtually every situation.
Art History is ALWAYS useless (unless your white ;))
You know what’s especially useless? Business Management.
A decent kid with an MBA comes out working a dead end management job for some corporation like McDonalds or Hollywood Video. At best he’ll work for Xerox, Apple (oooh, exciting), or Global Consolidated Resources.
A decent kid with a Philosophy Degree can expect to get into a decent grad school and get a decent job as a Professor. While he or she is in Grad School they get great heads up on other White people majoring in English Literature by saying they are working towards their Philosophy PhD. Then they can proceed to sit there and act like they’re actually interested in hearing some ditzy lit major talk about how great Nietzsche or Sartre are. (“They’re like, so Existential!” “Uh, yeah, they were…Existentialists…”)
What the world really needs is an entire generation of college students that only aspire to become professors or lawyers.
[…] #47 Arts degrees […]
you are doing that thing white people do to make themselves feel better about themselves.
and my white neighbor is majoring in philosophy and math too while also stating these are the two most useful subjects ever. originality is hard to come by these days.
Great idea getting a liberal arts education!
Lol and philosophy
http://www.beabetterproducer.com
I’m Asian & I just switched from Human Bio to Dance.
So now I’m a Premed Dance major….yeah I’m pretty much white on the inside…
Oh crap, I lost my white standing…! I got a degree in something that actually pays. I guess it matter when you actually have to foot the bill.
I think this is one of the weaker ones on the list. Most people I know make fun of Arts students (including the arts students)because their future job options aren’t as good as science/business/engineer degrees.
That being said though, if you changed this to “knowing the stuff that is taught for an arts degree” then it would be bang on.
I may be a math major, which is about as far from arts as you can get but I do enjoy me my philosophy and english lit
I WANT A MILLION DOLLARS!!! Can one million RICH WHITE PEOPLE send me one dollar apiece, puh-lease????
I don’t want money from any Asians, or Blacks or Hispanics. You guys NEED your money. I only want one dollar apiece from RICH WHITE PEOPLE who seem to WASTE their money on obtaining arts degrees.
Waste it on me instead. Thanks so much! (First person who comments “You ARE a waste.” is a rotten egg. You thought it. I know you did. Stop lying. See? I knew it.)
http://thepighasacurlytail.wordpress.com/million-dollar-fund/
Ummm, has anyone actually walked through a math, science or engineering department? I’ve been through about 10 and I’m sorry poster, they’re disproportionately white and male – ESPECIALLY computer science – most non-whites tend to be either foreign exchange students or 2nd generation asians…
I don’t know about business departments but then that’s not a real academic field anyway so screw ’em… In fact I don’t even consider someone with a business degree to have gone to college…
True
Me too! Plus it is actually in FINE art. I am happy to say over $65k, about 12 weeks off each year, no weekends and with the best benefits possible. I guess you just have to know what to go for and then DO it. I grow weary of the old fine arts don’t pay myth. If you work hard, they will.
Oh yeah and I LOVE my job…almost always a good to excellent day there. Like you, I also paid my way through college. Every penny.
This one has ME pegged. Not only do I have an Arts degree in Political Science, and have gone on to law school so I can make some money.. I got my Arts degree from McGill, which is the picture in this blog post.
Please go away.
Wanker…
Idiots.
Dude I can only find 5 things on this site that I like and Im pretty sure im white
or maybe im not
I know, but if I cared that much, would I leave my full name and email?
Maths was traditionally considered one of the liberal arts
Coming from the blog “Ich werde ein Berliner” (how to become a Berliner and to blend in with ze Germans) I learned just from reading #001 to #047 that white people and Berliners are just the same. Now I understand why the Americans love Berlin that much, they feel quite homey.
Reading the comments is extra comfort – next time one says Germans don’t know humor and do not understand sarkasm I can refer to these comments (especially the one about veggies) – here are some fine examples of not understanding the concept of irony. Makes a German gal (not from Berlin) really happy.
Hey, that’s the McGill University Arts building! Go martlets!
Please see:
https://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/05/28/101-being-offended/
I graduated in computer science and was definitely in the minority as a white male.
i think this describes white yuppies more than white people in general.
All my mates with jobs are pissed off watching me doss about painting pictures all day, but I think im entitled to feel smug; soon I’ll have a fine arts degree and as we know there ain’t nobody giving a fuck about a fine art degree…
Nice…no matter how far in life you may get with a math degree, you’ll always work for somebody. I suggest taking an economics or finance class in order to form an actual opinion. Studying business is not college? Studying accounting would make even you, the almighty, pull hair out in chunks. Middle-management-destined bitch.
Business degrees, and MBA’s are jokes, and are easy enough for any simpleton. They may make more money eventually than engineers, science, comp sci, math etc. But they are still in the end useless and easy.
And middle management? Most people who go in the fields that require above- average intelligence do it since its fun and interesting, and like to be in the development of technology and knowledge.
Take someone with a graduate degree in any engineering, science etc. and put him in an MBA program, and he will do fine, if not excel.
Take an MBA and put him into a graduate science/ engineering class etc and I would like to see him do the homework.
Could do the same for any decently leveled class in undergrad, ie partial diff eqs or quantum mech. vs advance accounting or something.
No one thinks someone who gets a degree in philosophy or classics is intelligent unless they themselves got a degree in philosophy or classics. Most likely they wont hire you, call you a hippy, and outsource your job to India since you have no valuable skills.
Yeah…. neuro-science has actually shown that there is no such thing as left/right brain…..
That is all kind of a myth made up to make people feel good.
The reason that sciences and engineering hold more esteem is since those are the people who make new products, that expand the economy, and also help make peoples lives easier.
These are also the same people who go and make technologies that help solve environmental issues, food shortages, energy problems etc.
What exactly do you mean by saying Blacks, Hispanics and Chinese need their money? How rude of you to say, its obvious that you need the money because you are begging for people to give you some. You’re obviously not very wise because if you would know a lot of minorites are stepping up in the world and are making a big success of themselves! I think that it is wrong for you to say such rude things and even for this website to be up and running. And if you disagree with me, I’m begging you to write back! That was just taking it entirely too far and yes I am INDEED calling you out about it!
LOL I saw this site on http://www.DanielDickey.com and I must admit it’s just as funny!!
Don’t forget the degrees in the social sciences, too. Originally a math major, I switched to become an anthropology major. This have proved to be invaluable at dinner parties because I am now able to work Durkheim or Chomsky into casual conversation.
Cute!!
I’m starting to feel defensive over my Political Science major. Oh well, there’s always Economics.
Yeah, I’m white with a liberal arts degree. In Drama (see #43). In college I went to lots of #21, where I studied the nature of #50 and learned to #82. I did #72, and my boyfriend did so as well, in #58. Now I live in #91, where I have lots of #54, am careful about #64, and am looking to buy a #61 (because I can’t afford #60). I’m a huge fan of #8, and if the Republicans take power I will #75 because of the #94. I like to spend my free time with some #24 or #33, enjoying some #35, #10, or #109. Of course, this is all on my #106.
Holy crap, I’m white. I mean really, really white. (Have fun looking up the number references if you want to. My #55 if it’s boring.)
Best part being that neither Durkheim nor Chomsky were/are anthropologists.
art degrees are useless. you can learn anything there is to learn about art in public libraries.
People with Business degrees are still white people.
I had to read Henry James in high school. There was nothing rewarding about the experience
i love white penises
Yes – but do you know what a female looks like?
Stuff White People Like #Whatever: Undermining other white people’s degrees to feel better about their own intellect, career path or student debt.
I HATE MOTHER FUCKING WHITE CRACKER MOTHER FUCKERS THEY ARE GREEDY CONSPIRING BLOOD THIRSTY MURDERERS AND CHILD RAPISTS WHO PLAY PERVERTED POWER GAMES WITH EACH OTHER AND SUCK DICK AND RAPE LITTLE CHILDREN THEY WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING BECAUSE IT IS THE WAY OF THEIR RACE THEY DO NOT HAVE FEELINGS THEY ARE ONLY MOVING CARDBOARD THEY LIE ONLY TO LIE ABOUT THEIR OLD LIES THAT JUSTIFY THEIR LIES THEY CAN ONLY THINK IN THEIR OWN LIES YOU CANNOT CONVERSE WITH THEM BUT IN THEIR OWN LIES ECONOMIC SOCIAL POLITICAL POWER RELIGION THESE ARE THE LIES OF THE WHITE AUTOMATONS WHO CANNOT DO MORE THEN REUSE AND BUILD LIES ACT NOW AND COMMIT THE NECESSARY ACTS TO RID EARTH OF THE WHITES
MCGILL REPRESENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
probably white.
LMAO, epic.
“rid the earth of (enter any race here) automatically qualifies as a extra racist………
I love white women.. and they love me. nuff said. GO WHITE PEOPLE GO WHITE PEOPLE GO. oh yea, that guy is racist.
[…] raise awareness of HIV/AIDS, I studied abroad to learn a new language, and I have a degree in English. I won’t go on. You’re […]
So true.
haha this is rlly funny, and true
but wherever you are, you have not seen what white people like until youve been to gig harbor washington. people here are white, rich, and they KNOW it. they treat anybody whos not white, or rich looking, like their pieces of shit to be thrown away. its amazing. just look up gig harbor on google, and you might see it.
This place looks like a nightmare. How can you live there?
Engineering, Sciences ( chemistry, physics, maths ect.), medecine
The rest of the programs are easy as hell and anyone with half a brain can get in and pass their courses.
Arts programs have ridiculously low entrance requirements. I’m sure a Down Syndrome kid could get in.
A true standard in comedy blogging.
Another great site is http://www.SomethingYouShouldRead.com
The romantic idea of being an artist is ingrained in the white mind. Art school is a way for well to do white children to show that they too suffer, but they never do. This site http://slimspickin.blogspot.com/ is a perfect example of a white dudes attempt at art.
I think one can regain their “white person status” if they have a degree in the sciences and do not use it. Instead they should spend a year in a third world country and work a “service” job for minimum wage; essentially shitting on their Ivy league education serving hors d’oeuvres to other really white people.
Whew, I got to lay off the sparkling wine. I know too many really white people for this to be truly funny. scary.
I’m going for a BFA….because I love to paint. O.o
Then why are you going to school where you will waste money taking dozens of classes completely unrelated to your interests to get a slip of paper good for 30k per year?
Just go hole up somewhere and paint, much cheaper.
[…] My Liberal Arts Degree. Yes, it may come as a surprise to you all, but an English (!!) degree surprisingly doesn’t […]
[…] education revolution is evidently only supported by white people. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)One never knows where loyalty is born (thanks Mad […]
you don’t even realize how foolish you are
[…] them as Stuff Williams People Like. Put together a slide show of rugby, study abroad, recycling, arts degrees, Obama and so on. Comic […]
My last major was Art Education before I quit school LoLoL!
I love art btw, nothing wrong with that :D.
That’s pretty much true of any degree….
Everybody should get real majors that are gonna help the world someday. Like maybe ag science. Maybe learn how to feed all you dumbasses that think art is important. Or even maybe pre med. And do the world some good.
You make a good point, the white thing to do isn’t to actually go get a 4 year degree in one of these areas and do something with it, its to get it and decide to just have one and go try and make the world a better place outside of themselves. Most people that get the degree and use it are born into it or have a valid reason to support a family which isn’t what white people love but think they are made to do.
You say that arts aren’t important? Can you even imagine what the world would be like without them? All the different forms of arts in america, and the world, are part of what makes us human and keep us from all becoming zombies who merely survive, instead of actually live.
Your mind probably lacks the creativeness needed to realize things like this, and is more focused on logic than anything else.
Yes, I guess i didn’t really mean that arts degrees don’t have their usefullness. They definitely do. However, in order to actually live you must be albe to survive. And that is why i believe science majors are more essential and needed.
No it isn’t that studying art makes you more creative, it does none of that. Lewis Carrol was a mathematician, Kurt Vonnegut was a Chemist, Brian May of Queen is a physicist, the list goes on. These and many others did not need to study an art to become creative, creativity is not trained. Besides trying to say science and engineering isn’t creative can only be bred out of ignorance, as it takes creativity to be able to come up with intelligent solutions to problems. It is not all oh well x is true so we have to do y, it is never like that. We have to be creative, and also have to learn complex topics and methods of solving problems and finding appropriate solutions.
Besides almost all arts students never actually do anything important in the arts.
I’m an arts student and I opened the article on arts degrees to see what it had to say about people like me and lo and behold the first thing I see is a picture of the building I study in!
I found it rather amusing.
AHAHA this is soo funny, i was a poly sci major, and i have already applied and am currently waiting for law school decisions. I took a year to work/ apply/ save money in my parents house. I landed a job with a decent salary and they are gonna keep me on through school! Wish me luck!
Whereas almost all Science students end up doing something important for Science? Um are you demented? The numbers are the same. There are mediocre students across all disciplines. The ones who shine all share a passion for their subject, and to a great extent you don’t choose what you fall in love with. It’s pointless to compare art and science.
What about Graphic Design? or Web design? Illustration? Graphic design and web design form our websites and advertisements in all aspects of our lives. and Illustration is important in the medical and scientific fields, or even kids’ books. What about animated cartoons for both children and adults? Art is everywhere. Even on this very website.
And by the way, I’m an Afro-Puerto Rican artist. And I went to art college to get the piece of paper to get hired. 🙂
Dam another true Punn. You aint a artist if you have an art degree.
“Applied” arts is not useless. I’m an engineer and I have a high appreciation for graphic design, visual design, industrial design.
But how many comparative literature graduates do we need?
High schoolers have the grocery bagging market cornered!
[…] #10 Arts Degrees […]
amen, i wasted a part of my college career pursuing a shit ticket art degree. the only thing it will help you do is work at a gas station quicker. and white kids are still wanting to get them, its a damn shame.
You’re a moron. Study the history (Go figure) of the University and you would find that it exists precisely for learning the arts. Although I don’t believe college is necessary, When done right, it makes us better thinkers and better humans all around. This whole ‘productivity’ in society bullshit is fairly modern. It’s part of our post-industrial perversion, as a result of a mass population and globalization. And it has nothing to do with white folks. Keep wallowing in your biases and self-victimization and what you say will remain true… for you, that is. Stop bitching and actually pick yourself up, man. What the hell do you think our own successful black people would think of this? Just look up Cornel West.
Hey, without us fashion designers, you would all be naked
Thank God for all the black people who make all us law students necessary.
you’re a dick, i hope you fail at all you try to do in life
ummmm. no I would just wear clothes not designed by something with no life. I think pants and shirts were around long before “fashion design”. Besides I wear a suit to work everyday. that FASHION has been around a long time. I dont need you changing it. I like my ties and pants and shirts and shoes just the way they are.
the author of this blog attended mcgill, I believe.
u dum?
white ppl so good for society. w/o them, no1 to support rich, nxtGen immigrant lifestyle. who gonna do all that dumfak jobs like construction (building things), cashiers (take yo maney), and carpenters (make carpets)?? u think azn go be cashier? dont think so. we dont take maney and GIVE to someone else; we take and KEEP.
morefurther, they make real world less competition for us. u know, if all world = azn, so hard to get job man! wah! u want to plant ricefield? 1.3 billion other ppl already doin it. no room for u.
88
political science may technically be under B.A., but real political science study requires as much knowledge of calculus and statistical analysis as pretty much any B.S. degree such as biology, medicine, or chemistry. hardly an “arts degree” in the same way as philosophy or classics.
Right. Because two semesters of calculus and a stats class or two is as much as you need for any B.S. degree. Riiiiiiiight.
Are you serious? First year Stat and Calc, plus the second year bird versions of the same – like engineers, physicists, people who majored in other sciences like Bio filled the rest of their courseload with art courses?
Yes it’s sad that us “whites” have to attend college to make up for your lack in improving society.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
what school
haha
if you like this blog, check out http://justsomepetpeeves.wordpress.com!!
Arts degrees are a luxury to make all people with a little money (white people) feel as if they have scientific research university intelligence. Which most of them obviously don’t have or they would’ve gotten an engineering degree and become a rich Google guy.
I am white and I know a LOT of people that do this… I am not one of them. Cyber Security FTW.
Well this is kind of ignorant… it totally ignores the majority of reasons why people would take art degrees – teachers, social workers, charity workers, politicians, lawyers, writers, journalists, broadcasters – not to mention you can get conversion courses to more vocational qualifications!
I think the majority of what is on this website is really funny – but this article is just plain rude. Furthermore, lots of my friends who do arts degrees don’t ‘rely on their parents’, but have to take out massive loans, and work jobs on top of a full time course.
Perhaps if the person who wrote this had taken an arts qualification, they would know how to write with balance, and to avoid sweeping generalisations. I’m sure there’s a job waiting at the Daily Mail or at Fox News though…
Chill out! Now, look up the definition of “satire” and “joke.” Finally, read #101 Being Offended. These are generalizations, and people who can hold two thoughts in their head at one time realize that they don’t apply to everyone. However, it is funny because most of us can think of at least one person that this DOES apply to…maybe even ourselves!
hey @ kt,
why don’t you call WHINE-ONE-ONE and get a WHAAAAAMBULANCE here stat.
lol @KT… noob. this is a statrical blog…
It is suppose to make outlandish sweeping generalizations.
I live in Europe and study maths and linguistics, but my parents stopped supporting me financillaly since I am 17.
I read a lot, but I would never mantion this at a Party… well.. that be probably the conversation killer.
Actually.. I thought that going to a Party with Arts students involved is intresting because the topics aren-t just man and fashion or gossip… but seems that what is said does not matter…. why is the important part and even if it sounds smarter that the conversation starters that I am used to .. it is still a lot of …**
LOL I go to the school in the photo (McGill). Going for an Arts degree…
Haha how true.
I’m of Asian descent, and I graduated with a degree in Asian studies… faculty of Arts. When I tell white people of what I graduated in, they are like..”wow cool! that sounds so interesting… tell me what kind of things u learned”. When I tell this to an asian person, particularly one who is not raised in n.america, they say “huh? there is a degree for that? what kind of job can u get with that? (blank stare)”.
Ok, sure, the Asian studies degree isn’t related to any career in particular, but it really helped me to broader and open my mind to new ways of thinking. I’m doing my MBA now, which is much more practical, but I never regret what I studied.
[…] with chapters dedicated to all of the things white people like including marathons, bicycles, arts degrees and hating corporations (I took the liberty of linking each of those examples to the corresponding […]
The writer of this blog has a degree in English and went (or is still?) in graduate school studying Film. It’s called self-derision…
LOL I saw this blog on http://www.DanielDickey.com (The MTV VJ) and must admit it’s just as funny!!!
White people, well all people, also enjoy http://www.NakedHipster.com. Mainly because the girls are hot and don’t have clothes on. Usually those two things go well together. You know, the hotness and the nakedness.
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This is SO TRUE. I’m a freshman in college and my “white” parents are actually trying to get me to get a liberal arts degree. I think I’ll end up going to law school.
You’re missing the point: Racism is hilarious.
Oh god. *the English major hides her head in shame*.
But seriously, this is absolutely hilarious.
Hmmm
White? Check
Arts degree? Yes, history
Unemployed? No, I’ve got a job as a banker so HA
You are an angry angry little man with a chip the size of Texas on your shoulder.
White people also pay most of the tax and do the bulk of the actual work in the US, as well as the fact that simply being white significantly increases your risk of being a victim of crime, rape, flash mobs ETC.
you consider yourself lower-class? i think you joined the white-trash class he he..
overall this is pretty funny but by ‘white people’ you mean upperclass/upper-middleclass people, not sure how this translates to white people but I guess that’s between you and your therapist :]
although re-reading it I’m not even sure you know who you are talking about, these people are called students?
The infamous two numbers by the WHITE POWER Neo-NAZIs.
They hate Obama, huh? Do they know? About the history?
“NAZI” is short for Nati-Фnal SФcialism. NФ to NeФ NAZФs!
[…] #47 Arts Degrees Stuff White People LikeFeb 1, 2008 They can take that degree and easily parlay it into a non profit job, an art gallery job, or work in […]
[…] #47 Arts Degrees Stuff White People LikeFeb 1, 2008 They can take that degree and easily parlay it into a non profit job, an art gallery job, or work in […]
Since im white my parents will pay for my college!?! What?! Well jeeze could someone go tell them cuz im currently up to 3 student loans to pay for my, yes, Fine Art and Design degree!
It seems to me that someone didnt get accepted into one of those fancy art schools and is now taking it on white people?….maybe talking about art is what is keeping white people out of gangs and killing themselves? Homocide is the 2nd leading cause of adolescant deaths in the US after all.
wow. you managed to sound self-important, racist, humorless, AND butthurt all in one post. congratulations. how ever will your overinflated white sense or self survive?
it’s a comedy site ffs.
– fellow whitey, but with one of those worthless science degrees XD
LOL @ the poster two below this (NAME). Pretty sure the person who started this blog went to McGill (seen in the picture for this post), which is ranked 17th in the world.
Also since I’m studying science and rarely talk about arts it probably means I’m in a gang and might kill my self. Homocide is the 2nd leading cause of adolescant deaths in the US after all.
The guy who wrote the book and these statements is white…they are all funny stereotypes that are not true of everyone so calm the f down.
[…] you have it. My plan makes me a stereotype. No. As a TV-less, Prius driving girl with bangs and a liberal arts degree who could live on sushi and wine, I already was one. Well, I choose to think of myself not as a […]
I am an english major… but I am also working two jobs to support myself in the process…. two VERY PRACTICAL JOBS… please stop with the generalizations!!
You realize that you are posting on a site called “What White People Like” and you are asking for them to stop posting generalizations, is that correct? English degree.
What kind of a stereotypical bulls–t it is this?!
Ha, definitely reminds me of my experiences in college.
Another blog I like on this topic is “100 Reasons NOT to Go to College at:
http://reasonstoskipcollege.blogspot.com/
Check it out.
Clearly your English major has nothing to do with your two practical jobs, nor does it give you the ability to understand satire. You are a perfect example of the uselessness of liberal arts (emphasis on liberal) degrees.
It’s Satire people.
It may be satire but that doesn’t mean it’s quality satire. Far too many constructions the aren’t fully developed. The piece appears to be well-ntended but several sentences just sound like cantankerous racism. Should be revised and rethought.
Here is how to impress white people if you don’t have an art degree but find yourself at an art exhibition: http://www.isitajoke.de/2012/11/9-crap-art-exhibitions.html
[…] according to the aesthetic at StuffWhitePeopleLike.com. According to the site, white people like Arts Degrees (#47), the Ivy League (#98), and Graduate School (#81) . They also like Taking A Year Off (#120), but […]
Agreed.
As long as other requirements are met and especially if there is a second major, medical and law schools and most major business prefer people with Philosophy degrees for three reasons:
>People who have taken Aristotle and Logic III out-think, out-strategize and connect the dots better than anybody else, and usually have additional strong math and systems ( as in they can prove things math students only study at the end of course) or psychology-management backgrounds.
>Philosophy attracts those with the higher IQ’s/SAT scores to begin with, followed by economics/finance and the classical humanities
>Philosophy majors are taught to be sensitive to details and context at a deep level unlike others and have enormous self-confidence from tussling with the greatest minds of history
As a consultant I was always interested in how many millionaires had Philosophy MA’s/PhD’s and professionals had philosophy backgrounds, and really good engineers had a philosophy second major or minor. Military officers too.
That’s something SWPL’s know.
Wow cant believe I just read this post, is this 2013??
I actually consider Business Administration and Economics to be Arts degrees. (Let’s be real, economics is not real math.)
I have a BA with a major in museum studies and a minor in classics and now work a government job and have just cracked six figures at 27 years of age. No regrets about it at all, might not be working in the field I majored in but the skills acquired during the degree such as writing, communication and comprehension of complex articles are valuable and can be applied to many jobs.
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[…] #47 Arts Degrees | Stuff White People Like – Feb 01, 2008 · Here at Princeton degrees in the arts seem to prepare students well for ibanking and wall street – yes, some white peers may disapprove, but they can … […]
[…] #47 Arts Degrees | Stuff White People Like – Liberal Arts degrees are what rich girls with rich parents do to keep their daughters occupied so they can “find themselves”. It doesn’t matter really if they … […]
If this ain’t the truth, my parents are Mexican immigrants and im barely on my second year of college and they already asking when I’m gonna be done to start making money 😂😂😂😂😂. Also my dad told me to pick up the pace and was forced to get into the engineering school, living the American dream!
[…] Cross-reference that with Stuff White People Like and a case for a 100% match can be made: #47 Arts Degrees, #60 Toyota Prius, and #8 Barack […]