May 16, 2006

• I’ve switched quite a few times, but it looks as if I will end up with something that would resemble a triple major/triple minor. The areas of emphasis are Theater, Communications, Education, Health, Liberal studies, and Women’s Studies. I may add the major of Social Work this upcoming year. If only he would stay a little longer and get Psychology and Sociology under his belt, his easy-major collection would be complete.
• Women's Studies? What the hell is that?
• Ack.
• He took a lot of Women's Studies classes because that's where all the chicks were. I was just amazed to find you could get a minor in 'coaching'. Would have gone well with my philosophy degrees... "You call that a Hegelian triad? I want to see you give 110% to Phenomenology, maggot! Now drop and give me 20 examples of a Hypothetical Syllogism!"
• How is he paying?
• what's liberal studies? liberal arts?
• come to think of it, i knew a bunch of people like this when i was at college, but they'd all reached postgrad by the ninth or tenth year. one or two managed to eke out six or seven years on a doctorate.
• when I was a spry young lad I ventured down among these stacks and I like living here so well I've never looked back now my beard is long and white entwined among the racks I sleep in the natural history and what I subsist on's a mystery though books, don't ye know, give food for thought to one, such as I be, who's largely untaught
• God that's awesome. Not only does he manage to get all those fluffy degrees (and I say that as a proud English major) but there's not a decent-earning one in the bunch. I salute you, Mr. Lechner. I hope he lived in the dorms and smoked out the whole time too.
• I know one person who had a doctorate, a masters and a bachelors in two different technical fields, and been working professionally for a year by the time they were his age. But then, I guess they didn't get all those hot chixx0rs and the hacky-sack title cup.
• what's liberal studies? liberal arts? Usually a Great Books dealie. A bunch of seminars collecting the greatest books of the West, usually leading to lengthy and pointless debates about the canon, and an atmosphere of incestuous loathing. Oddly enough, a friend of mine had the same idea. Every time he came close to graduating, he'd change his major. Eventually, he lost his focus, and he flunked out. Now he's a big shot in the call centre. But recently, he managed to get back in somehow, and is now completely insufferable, going on and on and on about the hotties in his American Poetry seminar. His fiancee is off to teacher's college in Australia in a little while. You can probably tell where this is going...
• How's he paying for it? He accepts donations via his website. Duh.
• His diploma out to look pretty cool. Will they have to make a custom one? I mean, they leave X amount of standard space to list your major. His will need like 5 lines to fit them in. What a nut. I'm about two years older than him, and although I was in college for 11 years I got a PhD out of the deal.
• A true hero.
• I did 11 years too.
• For whatever its worth, his majors aren't nearly as cushy as you all think. Different peoples have different strengths and what's easy for one person is hard for the next. I took a Philosophy of Technology class that the uni required for engineers. I was auctully the only phil major in the class. The engineers, guys who can build planes and computers and stuff, found the class, that was veeery dumbed down for them, to be br extremely hard.
• Yeah, but engineers are an odd bunch. You can't use them as a standard against which to measure competencies in liberal arts classes, since, for the most part, they do not find much value such things.
• I did ten years, too :) But, like clf now people hafta call me "doctor." But, as an old friend's dad told me, "It's not the kind of doctor that's any good for anything, is it?"
• I was a college senior for 20 years or so with interruptions for real life, and finally got a business degree, having abandoned psychology way back when. But when I went back, I found I could have stayed forever. Learning is a wonderful thing, and the challenge of succeeding was a real high. I was really good at both, so it wasn't a burden. Most of us find it necessary to do something practical with our lives - get a job, make money, raise a family. And then we complain that we hate our jobs and family life has it's problems. Did those of you who spent years getting a degree not do it out of love? Do you regret the time spent? I find it rather cheering that someone can spend much of his life learning, even though he seems not to value the intellectual part in his interview. When I was accepted to an excellent university at 17, I studied the catalog, and found a zillion courses that I wanted to take. The requirements for a specific major didn't let me follow that path, but, even now, I wish I had been able to do so.
• Lets not make him into some poster-child for the love of learning. People who go back to school just for the love of learning are called non-degree seeking students. He's a degree seeking student that doesn't want to be.
• If I could have afforded to stay at my undergrad, I would have. I wasn't ready to graduate, and was scared to go into the "real world." (In fact, I was only there for a year before I went back to school) I would have gotten a philosophy major (instead of my minor), an art history minor, maybe an English degree...Nothing that would get me the good job, but lots of food for thought.
• An ex of mine had two B.A.s when were were dating -- I think she got a B.Ed. after that. Must have been in as long as this guy, but at least she got the degrees she was after. (Which isn't to say that I can see the value of doubling up on the B.A.s, but still.) Part of me is jealous of this guy -- I would loved to have stayed longer -- but really, I have to agree with Mord. He's not the poster child of the love for learning. If he were, he could easily keep on learning in grad and post-grad. Since he didn't, and he 'only parties a few nights a week', it's pretty clear it's a Peter Pan thing more than anything else.
• Double B.A.?
• He pities the fool, you know. He really does.
• TUM, take a lap!
• Indeed! Double the mohawk -- is that, like, a bihawk?
• what's liberal studies? liberal arts? A general unfocused degree in humanities, from what my dept. head told me yesterday. A friend just landed a lecturing contract at York in TO and he was thrown unceremoniously into that dept. although he is a math dude.
• I totally forgot to mention: this Johnny guy is what we call a dick.
• Pay me to go to school. Please?
• But, as an old friend's dad told me, "It's not the kind of doctor that's any good for anything, is it?" What's healing the sick compared to competency in Latin? Nothing! InsolentChimp - York has a liberal studies department? I don't remember one (1998-2002). There were "Humanities" and "Social Science" departments which were really good, because it was a great place for scholars and courses who were interdisciplinary.
• Reading the actual articles - He's been paying for his own education all along. Any of us could do that if we wanted to hard enough, and wanted to give up a lot of comfort to do so. Power to him.
• Any of us could do that if we wanted to hard enough I couldn't. Maybe state school tuition is cheaper out there or something.