The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

B.A. in Special Snowflake Studies

Posted on | January 18, 2014 | 58 Comments

Instapundit wants to be lenient on Randye Hoder — “it’s not a ‘useless’ degree if in fact it teaches students ‘to think critically and analytically, read widely and write well’” — which means that I’m obliged to play bad cop with this overindulgent mother:

My oldest child, Emma, just returned to campus after a long holiday break to finish up her last semester of college.
But even before she has put the final period on her senior thesis, friends and family have been bombarding me with one question: What is she going to do after graduation?
The job market is, after all, awfully tough. Just this month the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a study showing that “recent graduates are increasingly working in low-wage jobs or working part-time,” if they’re lucky enough to find work at all.
The bright spot, according to the Fed analysis, students who majored in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics — areas in which recent graduates “have tended to do relatively well, even in today’s challenging labor market.” But Emma is a student of the much-maligned humanities — an American Studies major with a focus on the politics and culture of food at a small liberal arts school. . . .

Whoa. Stop right there: “an American Studies major with a focus on the politics and culture of food at a small liberal arts school.”

First of all, that’s not “the humanities.” It just isn’t.

Second, if you’re going to study some ridiculous made-up gimmick of a major — “the politics and culture of food”? really? — why on earth would you study it “at a small liberal arts school,” i.e., an expensive college for overprivileged trust-fund babies?

[W]e are not immune to the high cost of college. Emma’s father and I have made sacrifices to give her, and her brother, the kind of education we value. There will be loans to pay when she graduates—and, yes, my husband and I will foot that bill.

Oh, now I see! Mommy and Daddy will pay the bill for their daughter’s luxurious four-year-vacation — “the kind of education we value” — because their Special Snowflake (a) didn’t have the scores to get into Berkeley, and (b) Cal State’s for losers.

See, this is the niche that “small liberal arts schools” fill: The offspring of permissive parents who will give their Special Snowflakes whatever their selfish hearts crave. The kid isn’t smart enough or hard-working enough to get into a genuinely elite school, but they’re just too doggone special to attend a state school (let alone community college), and so there’s always that trendy little campus that will charge them $35,000 a year to pretend that they’re better than those disgusting low-brow slobs at State U.

This is not about education, it’s about aspiration.

The “small liberal arts school” is a luxury that the rich can afford, but borrowing money to attend one? That’s just crazy.

Maybe Randye Hoder‘s daughter can apply her knowledge of “the politics and culture of food” at Burger King.

 


Category: Education

Comments

58 Responses to “B.A. in Special Snowflake Studies”

  1. Adjoran
    January 20th, 2014 @ 1:05 am

    I saw the Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi on some Fox Business Channel show. He was arguing that millenials like him have the right to show up “as they are” at interviews without bothering with coats, ties, haircuts, or shaves, and that employers should not hold it against them.

    The anchor probed and questioned him well, he was absolutely serious and adamant about it.

  2. Adjoran
    January 20th, 2014 @ 1:08 am

    At least she is still their kid. Wendy “Abortion Barbie” Davis, candidate for Governor of Texas, left her second husband right after he paid off her last student loan. He had tapped his 401(k) to send her to Harvard; she thanked him by sleeping around and leaving him full custody of her two daughters – including one from her first marriage.

  3. Adjoran
    January 20th, 2014 @ 1:11 am

    I was doing air quotes with my fingers.

  4. jarober
    January 20th, 2014 @ 9:30 am

    Lost amidst the mocking (well deserved, but still) is a simple point: No degree (STEM or otherwise) is worth the kind of debt many students rack up in this country. Attending a community college for 2 years might help, but state schools are not really a solution for everyone. Here in Maryland, the in-state rates are only slightly lower than the out of state rates to attend a SUNY (NY State) school. Sure, degrees like the one the Hoders are paying for are an utter waste. At the same time, don’t kid yourself into thinking that 5 or 6 figure debt is worth it for a STEM degree; it’s not.

  5. keyboard jockey
    January 20th, 2014 @ 10:26 am

    Everyone attacked Obama for saying that American’s have gotten soft. But if this isn’t a prime example of depths of personal self indulgence I really don’t know what is?

    Of course the special snowflakes thought Obama’s comment was directed at conservatives hardee har har. Cause the light-bringer would never criticize them/

  6. Scott Wilson
    January 20th, 2014 @ 11:40 am

    Speaking of the “politics of food,” Princess Snowflake now has to figure out how to earn some.

  7. Dianna Deeley
    January 20th, 2014 @ 9:30 pm

    Most revolutions begin as bread riots, true. My issue is having an entire major based on this topic. A course? Two, even, with one at a graduate level? Certainly. But it ought to be encompassed in a history degree, in some sort of grounded context.

  8. FMJRA 2.0: A Few Minutes After Trancefer : The Other McCain
    January 27th, 2014 @ 12:02 am

    […] B.A. in Special Snowflake Studies […]