I think of this piece of literature every time I see people criticizing universities for not having “useful on the job curriculum” or schools not teaching “useful skills”.
Useful skills might stop being useful quick, general knowledge/intelligence goes further.
The problem seems to be how many universities are trying to do both, but therefore failing to do either well.
If you need to support yourself based on what you learn in a university, you don't want a liberal arts degree from a mid-rate university. You want some degree with a heavy practicum component. Or maybe you want a trade school.
If you have the chops to make it as an independent thinker, get your liberal arts degree somewhere that actually churns out high-level thinkers. If you can't get in, reconsider whether you have the chops at all.
If you're not dependent on income, though, study whatever you want. It's one of the reasons I'd love to see retirees studying things like philosophy, because they're not trying to instrumentalize it for a career, and they have enough life experience not to be hopelessly naïve about it.
I agree. The University provides the opportunity to do and experience all sorts of things; at my own school I got to work with/talk to/learn from many of the smartest people I have ever met and learned (outside of my engineering curriculum) everything from Cray YMP era super-computing to an class in bargaining and negotiating (which has probably helped me at least a little almost every day since) to how to pan for gold and climb mountains. But it's up to the individual to take advantage of it; if all you do is go to the required classes until you graduate, you're probably missing out the best parts.
Useful skills might stop being useful quick, general knowledge/intelligence goes further.