Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
I personally think anybody here saying your negative response is because people hate thinkers or anti intellectualism or whatever is totally missing the point. Those things are certainly true. But probably not why you get weird looks.
Probably it's a combination of 2 things:
In 2025 philosophy, English, history, poetry, etc are to greater or lesser extents "hobby degrees". People enjoy the topics generally but don't see a way to repay loans using that degree, because if you're not going to go teach it or write the next book, there's no money in it. These are things we do with our free time for the love of it.
By extension of 1, if you CAN have one of these degrees you either a) have a boatload of money, b) you must be naive of the fact (according to people you are talking to) that your job prospects are very limited, or c) you have extreme aptitude to be part of the small group that can make it, but everybody will still limp you into b.
I have a friend who majored in music in college, but not to teach: it was specifically to play timpani. He also was perplexed at the negative reactions he would get. Unfortunately right before he graduated someone told him that there are only like 10 professional concert timpanist positions in the country that provide a salary you can live from, and the rest just moonlight and have other jobs. After 1 year if hunting a good position he sold his drums and got a job in marketing selling windows and siding.
Of course the world would be less vibrant without professionals in these areas, but there are a lot more philosophy majors working in, say, marketing than there are Humes, Kants, Socrateses, Hegels, and so on.
Basically it doesn't look practical so it seems like either a bad financial choice or that you're a spoiled rich kid unless you mention "double major" type stuff.