/lit/ - Literature

>blocks your path
>kills your hopes and dreams
heh nuffin personnel mufugga

>Here is what this book will tell you, in a nutshell:

>You should major in a STEM field, preferably in some type of engineering other than environmental. Clarey discusses and ranks the various engineering fields, but basically, any type of engineering except for environmental is OK. Also OK: degrees leading to jobs in the medical profession (although Biology and especially Kinesiology are discouraged); accounting, statistics, econometrics, and actuarial degrees (though Economics and Finance are discouraged); and computer-oriented degrees. Clarey says little about majors in theoretical sciences such as "pure" math or physics, but it is safe to assume he would discourage them for being not practical enough.

>Also OK is any training that will produce a precise and valued skill. Trade school and military routes are encouraged. The author is vehement that "the lowly plumber has more in common with the bio-engineer than does a doctorate in philosophy because the plumber, like the bio-engineer, produces something of value." Trade school is considered "a superior option to the humanities or liberal arts" because it leads to the acquisition of a skill that is in demand.

>The economics of supply and demand should exclusively dictate what one chooses to study. This is a major point of the book. The author gives the model of a medieval European village in which everyone is expected to pull his weight by providing a genuinely useful service to the community. In such a village, there is no room for "the professional activist, the social worker, the starving artist, the trophy wife, the socialite or the welfare bum." Everyone must contribute something that is in demand by the other villagers. By contrast, in modern American society, people increasingly choose educational paths that bear no resemblance to the products and services they actually want and need--everyone demands cars, gas, and gadgets, but fewer and fewer people are willing to study the fields needed to produce them. Instead of electrical and petroleum engineering, people major in "soft" subjects that do not enable them to create sought-after commodities. In the author's pithy words, "I have yet to see a student ask Santa for 'a lecture about women's studies.'"

The book that obliterated /lit/