A Defense of a Liberal Arts Education

[Matt Dillon]

You are dumber than I thought.

You don't know how many college credit hours and the extra things necessary it takes to get a Master's degree. So you lied about that.
Whether you claim you got a Phd., or 2 Master's, Idgaf, you're full of shit.
That's not good.

 

[Yakuda]

None I went to.

Graduated Harvard law school with honors.

LMFAO

And doesn't know what a woman is. Fucking hilarious

 

[Moosakofsky]

You write all the time about the US Congess and White House,

Really? Let's see a link to that, chump. I rarely mention congress or the white house, much less start threads on them. At least politics is something that is a topic of conversation for a great many people. Especially on a political discussion board.

two institutions you do not have the remotest chance of ever serving in.

I'd be willing to bet you post far more often about elite universities and where they happen to be located than I do about congress or the white house.
You have a strange obsession with universities that would never accept you.
I'm just mildly curious why that is.

 

[cawacko]

After all your complaints that I was supposedly denying there are some excellent universities in the South, you finally and grudgingly admit my statements about elite universities was100% correct.

Since we're on the theme of liberal arts I believe the appropriate class would be social psychology. And the subject would be identity.

In this particular case you tie your identity to more elite Universities being in California and the Northeast than the South. California I can see because it's your home state but you act like the Northeast is your home. It's all an identity thing because California and much of the Northeast is politically liberal today.

I'm trying to imagine walking around Cali taking some sort of personal pride in the fact that there are a number of elite schools in the Northeast. But once you make it about political identity, I guess it makes sense.

 

[Walt]

Nobody affiliated with the University of Texas system won a Nobel Prize in 2025.

Also, it would be absolutely embarrassing to compare the number of total Novel Prize laureates from University of California with the total number from University of Texas.

Basically put, Berkeley(one school) has done better than all the red states combined.

 

[Walt]

You don't know how many college credit hours and the extra things necessary it takes to get a Master's degree.

Anywhere from 30 to 60 (or even more) depending on the program. There is a high variety of different lengths for a Master's depending on major. For most engineering and physical science Master's degrees there is little to nothing extra. It is like another year of an undergraduate degree.

Omy, campus population exploded 300% and most were seriously not college material.

Maybe after WWII, but at no other time has a campus population exploded by 300%. The Clinton years were relatively steady.

Who the fuck goes and gets 2 Masters Degrees?

Mastering two subjects makes someone very employable. Most sane people strongly recommend it.

Arithmetic to calculate things

Arithmetic is literally the least amount of mathematics you can learn. I mastered it by fourth grade, and had moved on.

They courted me with a full-ride scholarship.
Had to turn it down. The kids that went there had "fuck you" money, and I knew that.

Why would you turn down a full-ride scholarship? There is no elite university that only has kids with "fuck you" money. In fact, most rich kids do not have "fuck you" money(trust funds).

I remember being in Humanities class,

Others have made fun of you for this, so I will not pile on too much. The idea that all of humanities can be put into one class... that is "special."

 

[Matt Dillon]

Anywhere from 30 to 60 (or even more) depending on the program. There is a high variety of different lengths for a Master's depending on major. For most engineering and physical science Master's degrees there is little to nothing extra. It is like another year of an undergraduate degree.


Maybe after WWII, but at no other time has a campus population exploded by 300%. The Clinton years were relatively steady.


Mastering two subjects makes someone very employable. Most sane people strongly recommend it.


Arithmetic is literally the least amount of mathematics you can learn. I mastered it by fourth grade, and had moved on.


Why would you turn down a full-ride scholarship? There is no elite university that only has kids with "fuck you" money. In fact, most rich kids do not have "fuck you" money(trust funds).


Others have made fun of you for this, so I will not pile on too much. The idea that all of humanities can be put into one class... that is "special."

^bullshit. They started letting in non-college material students during Clinton, and there absolutely is a University where most of the kids have "fuck you" money.
It's a good school. They teach it right there. That's why people pay the big bucks.

 

[Matt Dillon]

Also, this is the Humanities book:

At least it's the one we had to have for that gosh-awful class.
I gotta have the others somewhere. Ones I'd actually like to see.
Like I remember a big World History book. I have quite a library without the old college textbooks.
That are somewhere..I know they are..
But get you some of this for a minute!

 

[Cypress]

you tie your identity to more elite Universities being in California and the Northeast than the South. California I can see because it's your home state but you act like the Northeast is your home.

Do you have a habit of leaping to conclusions about people you don't even know?
I was born in the Northeast, lived in Maryland until I was 22, and did my freshman and sophomore years at University of Maryland before transferring to a UC school.

I'm trying to imagine walking around Cali taking some sort of personal pride in the fact that there are a number of elite schools in the Northeast. But once you make it about political identity, I guess it makes sense.

You are very strange.
I stated a simple fact that most of the elite research universities are in the north, northeast, and California. A fact that is not even remotely controversial. But it took you like two dozen posts to grudgingly admit I was correct and there was nothing factually wrong with what I stated.

 

[murph63]

I'd be willing to bet you post far more often about elite universities and where they happen to be located than I do about congress or the white house.
You have a strange obsession with universities that would never accept you.
I'm just mildly curious why that is.

Arm Chair Psychologist Here: Cy seems to be an intellectual poseur. If you read his posts you will note that he constantly "name drops" as many famous <insert authority here> as he can to bolster his arguments. He can't really defend his own position (as he doesn't have one of his own) but he will demand you accept it because <famous scientist> says it is so.

So it is no surprise that he would obsess on where the "meatiest" or best authorities are that he can rely on.

That's not bad in and of itself, but it also is a crutch. He can't think beyond what he's been told. You'll note he almost never formulates his own ideas for anything. It will ALWAYS be name-checked to some authority figure.

And when he runs up against ideas that the authorities have not told him of he is incapable of addressing it and instead constantly mischaracterizes it and restates it back to you flawed.

I assume he's just smart enough to know how to try to sound smart to the uneducated, but he's carrying a big chip on his shoulder about his general lack of academic skill or ability.

 

[Matt Dillon]

Not sure how much my life was enriched by learning about pointillism, but OK.
Seriously, as far as that shit goes?
We didn't need a college class.
There was a TV thing like Willy The Whistle, but it was
"Sarat knew a lot about dots".

 

[murph63]

I stated a simple fact that most of the elite research universities are in the north, northeast, and California.

It's your use of the word "elite" there, Cleetus. No one doubts many good schools are in those regions but you arbitrarily decided that the ONLY metric was number of FAMOUS PRIZES YOU COULD LIST. That's weak tea. Especially when YOU don't seem to really know much about Research or research universities. How could you? You couldn't even hack grad school.

Just sit this one out. You like the schools you like. Stop slagging unis you have no clue about.

 

[murph63]

Not sure how much my life was enriched by learning about pointillism, but OK.

Mine was. But I've since become more a fan of low brow/pop surrealism.

 

[Matt Dillon]

Mine was. But I've since become more a fan of low brow/pop surrealism.

You like Dali? Doesn't get much more surreal than that.
I'm more of the "still life" fan of real things.

 

[Cypress]

It's your use of the word "elite" there, Cleetus!

The US News and World Report annual ranking of universities I posted previously lists nine of the top ten research universities as being located in the north and northeast.

No reasonable person is going to whine and complain if I state the top ten universities can be called elite.

 

[Matt Dillon]

The US News and World Report annual ranking of universities I posted previously lists nine of the top ten research universities as being located in the north and northeast.

No reasonable person is going to whine and complain if I state the top ten universities can be called elite.

None of which you ever attended or even qualified for.
You're taking airs above your station, brah. It's annoying.
MIT, Cal Polytech. You never had the chops to get accepted at, wtf are you on about?
Shiet, I got a Bostonian friend, one the real blue bloods, lived right next to MIT.
Looks like the Patriots dude.
He went to that school that offered me the full ride. Because it's a good school, and yeah, he's got "fuck you" money.
If I had accepted, I mighta been partying with him 20 years ago, but it didn't go down like that.


We did a lot of the same things, though.
He's an honorary cracker.

 

[murph63]

The US News and World Report annual ranking of universities I posted previously lists nine of the top ten research universities as being located in the north and northeast.

No reasonable person is going to whine and complain if I state the top ten universities can be called elite.

I believe the USN&WR rankings are skewed heavily to the Undergraduate end of things. So it's kinda hard to just rely on one metric which misses the research component (more grad focused) which is what generates all those famous prizes you constantly name check.

Another component is the SURVEY aspect to their rankings. I don't much care about public surveys in establishing the relative value of the academic output of a research university.

Long story short: there are better metrics and rankings for research unis.

But you learned about USN&WR back in the 80's when you were looking for an affordable party school to go to and you couldn't get into SIU.

 

[murph63]

You like Dali? Doesn't get much more surreal than that.

I do like Dali and the surrealists. The pop surrealists like Todd Schorr and Roger Williams and Mark Ryden are kinda my jam right now, though.

I'm more of the "still life" fan of real things.

I like a dose of "realism" and kind of avoid most really abstract stuff. But I did see a piece in a museum the other day that was just a red glass mirror by some german artist (the names evade me now) that was pretty striking if almost content-less.

 

[Cypress]

I believe the USN&WR rankings are skewed!

I see. You mouthed off and didn't realize I had posted the USN 2026 university ranking, and that nine of the top ten universities are in the north-northeast. 'Elite' is a perfectly good word for the top ten universities.

Feel free to make the case that Harvard, Princeton, Columbia do not have world class graduate schools.

 

[Into the Night]

Really? Let's see a link to that, chump. I rarely mention congress or the white house, much less start threads on them. At least politics is something that is a topic of conversation for a great many people. Especially on a political discussion board.

I'd be willing to bet you post far more often about elite universities and where they happen to be located than I do about congress or the white house.
You have a strange obsession with universities that would never accept you.
I'm just mildly curious why that is.

The answer is simple: Narcissism.