George Anders & The Surprising Power of a "Useless" Liberal Arts Education
Jill on Money with Jill Schlesinger
Audacy
4.6 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 5 October 2017
⏱️ 40 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
So often on this podcast, and on my radio show, we field questions from recent grads with insane amounts of student loan debt. Sometimes it’s enough debt to wreck a life. There’s enough blame to go around, but so often it’s a case of students feeling the pressure to go to fancy, high priced colleges to study what seems like an obscure major. But before you think that I am about to argue that every able-bodied student should be studying for a degree in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) field, read on... Let me pose a question. What is wrong with a well-rounded liberal arts degree? A degree, which I might add, can be earned at countless reasonably priced colleges. George Anders, our guest this week on Better Off makes a strong case in his recently released book, You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a "Useless" Liberal Arts Education. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or know how to write computer code to succeed in today’s work environment. When you really think about it, it’s amazing how many doors a so called “useless” liberal arts education can open. As George says, you can be yourself, as an English major, and thrive in sales. You can segue from anthropology into the booming new field of user research; from classics into management consulting, and from philosophy into high-stakes investing. At any stage of your career, you can bring a humanist’s grace to the rapidly evolving high-tech future. If you’ve got kids starting the college application process, who are resisting calls to declare a STEM major or if you’re thinking about furthering your education by going to grad school, listen to this episode before making any decisions. “Better Off” is sponsored by Betterment. We love feedback so please leave us a rating or review in iTunes. "Better Off" theme music is by Joel Goodman, www.joelgoodman.com. For a recap of every episode, visit https://www.betterment.com/resources/topics/inside-betterment/better-off-podcast/ Connect with me at these places for all my content: http://www.jillonmoney.com/ https://twitter.com/jillonmoney https://www.facebook.com/JillonMoney https://www.instagram.com/jillonmoney/ https://www.youtube.com/c/JillSchlesinger https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillonmoney/ https://soundcloud.com/jill-schlesinger http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/jill-on-money http://betteroffpodcast.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/better-off-jill-schlesinger/id431167790?mt=2
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Better Off, I'm Jill Schlesinger, your host today on the pod, an interview with |
| 0:08.8 | a fascinating author, George Anders, who's discussing the surprising power of a useless |
| 0:15.5 | liberal arts education. If you've only got a community college degree you're |
| 0:20.0 | probably switching jobs about 11 times. If you've got a full-fledged four-year degree, |
| 0:24.5 | you're switching it 12 and a half times. |
| 0:26.4 | And some of that is you're getting more promotions, |
| 0:28.7 | but you're also more adaptable. |
| 0:30.4 | And I think actually college is a way |
| 0:31.9 | to get job mobility so that when your old field comes to an end, |
| 0:36.0 | you don't sit there and go, I'm never going to find work again. |
| 0:38.0 | The only thing I can do is something the world doesn't want. |
| 0:41.0 | And instead you go, okay, deal me me a new hand I'm ready to play again |
| 0:46.1 | welcome to the better off podcast we're sponsored by betterment the largest independent |
| 0:50.8 | online financial advisor you know before we got on the air I was |
| 0:54.5 | joking with Mark that I really only wanted to invite guests onto the program that |
| 0:58.6 | reinforced my life decisions. That's why I love the idea that we have George Anders. He is the author of, |
| 1:08.6 | you can do anything, the surprising power of a quote, useless liberal arts education. |
| 1:15.8 | Yeah, I have one of them. |
| 1:18.2 | I just love this book. |
| 1:19.9 | It probably smashes through every single bit of advice that you have heard about where your kids should go in terms of their majors and they should be STEM majors and they should be math heads and engineers. |
| 1:33.0 | Well, maybe not. |
| 1:35.0 | George Anders is going to recount the remarkable power of a liberal arts education |
... |
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