Going to an elite private liberal arts school was and still is so prohibitively expensive and somehow I cannot imagine navigating my career without it. I also know like 100 lawyers more than anyone would ever care to know in a lifetime. The sad thing is that I wish I had a trade. I still pay for my Spanish degree with minor in philosophy to this day. But they sure think I'm smart what with my fancy words and transitional phrases, so I can't complain.
Good stuff regarding educational/career hierarchies.
I've worked for about four years in post-graduate education and I fully subscribe to the David Graeber "Bullshit Jobs" theory that upper class white collar careers often act as institutional walls. Although I think it's a little less intentional than the keeping people stupid wavelength, and more towards the protectionist nature of upper-class finance.
The benefits of being atop the hierarchy are numerous, but one of the more under-discussed elements is how easy it is for people in the upper tranche to fail and not have real fallback on their well-being, whereas the lower you are, the more deadly losing a job obviously is. My experience is mostly in the MBA field so I can say with varying degrees of confidence that many of the people in the industries nominally attached to the degree are not really "difficult" jobs; they're jobs many can learn if given decent training. But they're good jobs, walled off with the credentialism you mention in the form of Ivy League degrees and networking advantages (which is why the school of choice is so important for wealthy people).
Incisive comments! Yeah, I think the value of network/prestige is widely misunderstood--one of many things that's intentionally obscured. Very few people who didn't go to an elite undergrad even understand that many companies recruit solely from those top schools. It's this entire tier of the job market that's occluded for most educated people.
I'll have to read Graeber. From what I can glean, he's probably right
Going to an elite private liberal arts school was and still is so prohibitively expensive and somehow I cannot imagine navigating my career without it. I also know like 100 lawyers more than anyone would ever care to know in a lifetime. The sad thing is that I wish I had a trade. I still pay for my Spanish degree with minor in philosophy to this day. But they sure think I'm smart what with my fancy words and transitional phrases, so I can't complain.
Yeah I was lucky as far as cost but to your latter point: It's a huge part of who I am now. Did you become a lawyer?
God no. I was in a fraternity with a lot of guys who are lawyers. I went into education.
Good stuff regarding educational/career hierarchies.
I've worked for about four years in post-graduate education and I fully subscribe to the David Graeber "Bullshit Jobs" theory that upper class white collar careers often act as institutional walls. Although I think it's a little less intentional than the keeping people stupid wavelength, and more towards the protectionist nature of upper-class finance.
The benefits of being atop the hierarchy are numerous, but one of the more under-discussed elements is how easy it is for people in the upper tranche to fail and not have real fallback on their well-being, whereas the lower you are, the more deadly losing a job obviously is. My experience is mostly in the MBA field so I can say with varying degrees of confidence that many of the people in the industries nominally attached to the degree are not really "difficult" jobs; they're jobs many can learn if given decent training. But they're good jobs, walled off with the credentialism you mention in the form of Ivy League degrees and networking advantages (which is why the school of choice is so important for wealthy people).
Incisive comments! Yeah, I think the value of network/prestige is widely misunderstood--one of many things that's intentionally obscured. Very few people who didn't go to an elite undergrad even understand that many companies recruit solely from those top schools. It's this entire tier of the job market that's occluded for most educated people.
I'll have to read Graeber. From what I can glean, he's probably right