Ask HN: Are irrelevant degrees at all useful?
However I would like to go to University (I left school at sixteen as I was bored and wanted to sink my teeth into something more useful), and am looking at working towards a place at Oxford starting September 2012.
Here's the thing: the subject I would really like to study is Music, rather than one of the many degrees that is actually related to where I currently work and where I hope my career will lead me (CS/Business/Marketing/etc).
Can anyone give me any thoughts on how you would feel if you were looking to hire someone in that kind of area, and they held a Music Degree from Oxford? Obviously I understand that it wouldn't be AS useful as a relevant degree, but would it at least serve as a demonstration that I'm not completely dim, that I know how to apply myself, and that I can achieve what I set out to?
Thanks, Corin
60 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadPersonally, I was a philosophy major.
As was I, along with Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Physics.
Philosophy was by far my most important and relevant major. It taught me how to think and express myself logically and to identify specious reasoning - two things which are invaluable in life.
In fact, I know of at least one Philosophy major that Apple hired as an iPhone engineer.
They should really teach Philosophy in high school - it's a much better way to learn to read and write than English class, and the payoff is you learn to think for yourself and not simply quote authors like Shakespeare.
http://epgy.stanford.edu/ohs/courses/core.html
One of the things that high school muffs up is not having an asynchronous online forum for the students, who are enrolled from all over the world. That's crazy that the school doesn't have a pan-school channel for interaction among all the enrolled students.
If you're studying four subjects in your final year, how do you go into any depth in them?
I love learning, and couldn't decide on a single major. First I was planning on CS / Math, but wound up taking a physics course, asking the right questions, and the professor hired me to do research for him and put me on the honors track. As long as I was matriculated as a physics major, I had a scholarship and a pay check waiting. I also happened to love it. Because my University didn't allow more than two courses to overlap between majors, I wound up taking enough math courses to otherwise have majored in it, but it didn't count.
In my senior year, I took philosophy to satisfy a writing requirement. It was analytical philosophy. Logic and reason was valued above all. We discussed the problem of other minds, philosophy of religion, and a broad array of other things I had always pondered. In fact, I thought I must have been the only kid in kindergarten wondering how I could be certain that my parents were actually conscious beings and not just bags of molecules. How could I know for certain that they had a mind and consciousness in the same way that I did? When I found out that you could get paid to think about these things and teach people how to think, I was hooked. I decided to double major, and spent an extra year filling all of the requirements.
After graduating (the first time) I spent 6 months working at a local bookstore, deciding what track I wanted my life to take. I could teach high school physics, I could get a PhD in physics (though I was getting tired of seeing divs, grads, and curls every time I closed my eyes). I could become a philosophy PhD and later professor, which sounded like a dream job, but was difficult in practice to obtain.
Then it occurred to me that I didn't know much about biology and my own body. I would be stuck with it for the rest of my life, so I thought maybe I'd go to medical school. The problem was two-fold. I didn't meet the pre-requisite coursework for applying, and my grades were not competitive (I never handed-in homework. I studied things for their own sake and not for the grades.)
After watching a few UC Berkeley lectures on chemistry and biology, I decided I loved biology. I returned to my University to get a degree in some form of biology. I wanted to learn it very well, get great grades, and I chose the hardest sub-discipline with the fewest students: molecular biology and biochemistry.
I was amazed to discover that when I actually tried and cared, I was at the top of every class. I graduated again, with a 4.0 and applied to medical school.
Amazingly, even with these credentials, a large body of research, and a very competitive MCAT score I was still only accepted to a few schools.
I wound up getting into a combined MD/PhD program, which was an additional 3 years over regular medical school, but allowed me to conduct research. It also came with full tuition and a stipend.
I'm now in my third year and doing research at the NIH. I have five more years until I graduate for the final time.
In retrospect, I could have forgone almost all of college and just audited the courses that interested me. In fact, I believe that college is of only marginal value to most people. Most of the skill set I acquired I learned in high school, on my own, with books and computers.
Without college, however, I would never have gotten into medical school. It is definitely necessary for some things.
There is a strong connection between music and programming, that shouldn't be ignored. Doesn't mean that programmers are necessarily musical, or vice versa, but programming well requires similar thought patterns to music (and writing, and philosophy).
However, I would not choose to hire someone who didn't have a clue about the general area the job offer was on, regardless of what the job specifically required. I would rather try and judge her suitability from a personal interview, instead of a few lines on her resume. For technical tasks, you don't have to be a CS grad to solve them. For research and development, I'd value a formal background on CS more.
My point was more than the percentage of people with degrees who might be considered "dense and slow" is going to be significantly lower than of people without education, and I would imagine the difference is further highlighted when the degree is from a university like Oxford.
I'd never suggest that person A who went to Oxford is smarter than person B who went to a less-popular university, or none at all, without knowing more about both people, I just think as an overall it works out that way (you don't have to get a degree to be clever, you do have to be [reasonably] clever to get a degree)
Irrelevant degrees are things like 'asian studies' or 'art history', where you learn how to criticize without learning to create.
Actually, I personally would look on someone who does a music degree rather positively as it is the kind of course that only someone who has a passion for the subject is likely to do, rather than doing something purely for the career/earning prospects.
Isn't that like half of the UK cabinet for the last few hundred years?
I used to work as a recruiter, and the candidate for whom I got the most interview requests ever had a triple-major: music, physics, and math. You don't have to go that far, but if you can minor in math at a minimum, it's a good idea.
Not business -- you can pick that up in grad school if absolutely necessary; they have special graduate programs just for it.
Physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, statistics, engineering.
I program in Python and earlier was a DB developer, but have an economics masters degree. The most useful thing of this degree was maths and games theory that surprisingly comes to conclusions on things like morale, honesty and dignity, and shows that they're not relative as the classic economics implies.
(I asked HN more to see if it would give the impression of having improved my other areas, than if it would)
If the double major doesn't work out, consider minoring in Music. My real passion is history, so I did a major in Computer Science and a minor in History.
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/courses/music-informatics/overvie...
If I could do it over again, I would have majored in music.
I have heard your argument very often though, it seems about as popular as the one that states painters benefit from knowledge of Chemistry[1] ;)
[1] http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm#...
So while the actual content of philosophy classes is pretty much irrelevant to anything in real life, the process of philosophical thinking and writing (at least analytic philosophy) turns out to be very good training for CS and probably a fair number of other things.
- Most of my ancestors on my mother's side went to Oxford or Cambridge, so feels roughly inherited (no university on my Dad's side)
- I've lived in Oxford all my life, and a.) love this city and b.) have grown a sort of irrelevant pride for it (kind of a more localised patriotism)
- I've very close personal ties with two colleges here at Oxford, one of which is the one I'd like to attend
- I happen to know a few professors at Oxford (all in Music, as it happens), one of which is the director of music at the college I'd like to attend
The fact that "Oxford" on a CV traditionally looks better than some other universities is just an added benefit, I'm not someone who would chose it purely for that reason.
If you want to work in the private sector, I would suppose that all depends on your target company. Some HR people see a degree as an accomplishment and do not worry themselves much about the specifics of your degree. Some, however, feel that you simply must have a relevant degree to understand your job even though you will learn almost all of your job duties on-site.
I am 31 and started college about 2 months ago. I work for the state Board of Education and a degree = pay raise. I administer several large Windows domains, do basic hardware/software tech, and plan/integrate networks. The state does not care if I have a degree in computers or gymnastics. I get the same pay raise regardless. They don't care if it is Ivy league or University of Phoenix (which I am doing by the way.)
For Business/Marketing: Specific degree is less important, although some firms prefer degrees with mathematical content. Again having relevant extra-curricular activities or internships are much more important if your degree is in an different subject.
It's worth noting that most people (~60%) go on to careers completely unrelated to their degree so don't worry too much about it.
Feel free to email me if you want more advice, I used to run a non-profit that did analysis on degree -> career paths in the UK so I'm pretty familiar with the area.
Basically the last few years I've been doing my best to build up experience in as many of the areas that interest me as possible, partly because I love what I'm doing and partly because I want my CV to be non-restricting to any future path I might want to take.
But music is definitely NOT a replacement for either. After discrete math, linear algebra, and algorithms, advanced music theory felt like elementary arithmetic. I've never taken any music theory class that was as mentally demanding as compiler design (although with music there is a lot of room to seek greater challenges on your own).
I don't know about business or marketing. But if you do go music I would definitely try and cherry-pick some good classes from those other majors.
It will also be vital for you to have a persuasive cover letter.
Finally, when it comes down to it, you have to have the required technical skills -- so take some CS classes, and perhaps find interesting ways to combine the two.
when looking at hundreds of resumes for prospective hires, i don't think i once looked at the school or degree somebody had. i barely looked at the resume at all; past experience is nice to thumb through but conversation with the candidate was the only real way to tell if they know what they're doing.
as for getting past anonymous HR resume scans, don't worry about it. nobody can really get past those anyway. your best bet is and always will be inside referrals.
I'm a drummer and God's not very fond and it sucks competing with angels. God liked Abel's offering more than Cain and Cain killed him. Think about that.
Here's some songs by show-off angels, bootlegs from Heaven.
http://www.losethos.com/hymns.html
I have a computer systems engineering degree (embedded systems) and a electrical engineering masters (control systems) from ASU. Not very useful in eternity. Yeah, God's got awesome computers which have no problem predicting all the timings of my machine so a mouse click can land on an exact nanosecond.
And if someone won't employ you because you didn't do management courses or some other silly criteria, trust me you don't want to work there.
The other way round is fine too. I know plenty of seriously accomplished musicians (at an Other university) who were chemists, mathematicians, historians, you name it. The orchestras and ensembles are of an extremely high standard - you won't be short of opportunities.
As much as I love music, I don't want a career in that area, not any more, just looking to do the degree as something I've wanted to do since I was 8.
Discussion: About whether or not it "helps your career", I think the counter-argument would be not so much that it doesn't help, but the opportunity cost of your time/money. What else could you be doing over that time.
In other words, compare "Music vs What Else I Could Do", and not Music vs Nothing
I'd love to get a degree in Music, but balancing that fact with the amount of time it uses up I'm on the fence, so really the reason for asking the question was to see how far over the fence people would push me.
Thankfully, I've been flying since then. So if you habitually choose your life based on what you think is best not easiest, and you have some reasonably well founded confidence that you can make it work out regardless, study whatever you want to study. Just don't expect anyone to give you credit for it until sometime after you don't need their regard.
Of business and marketing I know nothing at all.
edit: Of course, it's always best to do a relevant course, but it won't be the end of the world.
The most important role my degree has played: I was able to get a "College degree required" job. The importance of this cannot be understated. Many places will not consider you without the piece of paper, whether it is related or not is much less important. The paper itself signifies the ability to get through 4 years of doing something.
While not required (at least at good companies that look for talented people rather than degrees), they serve as a nice launching board (and as a negotiating point for salary).
If you are passionate, then school is a great idea to get a breadth level exposure to the field.