pointless worthless useless majors! part 2
Accounting!
Okay, so do they now teach a seminar on how to keep your clients from buying Turbo Tax. I mean, really. Quickbooks. How do they still get people into this discipline?
First of all, a math major teaches people to do math. Accounting teaches people to add up numbers in a column...with a calculator...or an excel spreadsheet. How about also breathing for beginners and how to keep your hair growing? What's to learn here?
Let's put this into perspective: during the glory days of the British empire, accountants were able to keep their country strong while balancing against foreign markets in a global economy with unreliable reportage. They managed to perform this function with such success that they were able to vault England into the position of world superpower. Had it not been for atomic energy and a persistent bombing campaign against England, the union jack would probably still be flying over half of the world. That being said, they did all this without a degree in accounting. It was a job: people took a vocational course in it and then they went to work..
Now, let's imagine what the world of accounting that has done bolstered up by their rank of college-trained professionals. Savings and Loan, Enron, and now total economic collapse. Do they train these people to be communist fifth columnists or something. Untrained=global empire. Trained=international incompetence.
Why? Well, it comes down to what these people learn. First, they needn't learn much. They use programs the same as we do. You pay your taxes without a class in TurboTax, these people get that class...and, therefore, need that class. That means that they require a crutch that you do not. They're worse at this than you are.
Math classes? Yes, the backbone of accounting is clearly math, but how much math do you need. Let me try it this way. I took Business Calculus in college to provide support for a friend of mine. I missed half the classes and solved all the problems using Algebra. I passed the class. Later, when I took actual calculus in a Math department (first semester calc), I knew nothing despite having passed a class in calculus already. I actually did better than half the accounting students who were in business calc who showed up every day.
The real reason that this discipline is problematic is because its participants are almost totally without courage or belief in themselves. While most people go to college to expand their minds, these people show up to put numbers in a row. They believe that accounting is essentially like majoring in "job"--and they want a job, and here they are. If you say to them, why don't you study something you enjoy so that you can work a job that you like, they will inform you that they like nothing...nothing at all. Sometimes they like drinking or pleasing their parents. Backbone? None.
Maybe I'm picking on the future accountants, but if I am, I think I'm justified for three reasons. First of all, they take four years to learn something that a computer can help anyone do in less time and with less mistakes. Second, those who have held these degrees have bathed themselves in so much failure that they've devastated the nation's economy. Third, accounting itself is a subset of economics, which means that economists learn accounting AND the science of economics whereas accounting majors only learn accounting, and yet, it still takes the same amount of time to learn these things; accountants are economists who simply weren't up to snuff.
Okay, so do they now teach a seminar on how to keep your clients from buying Turbo Tax. I mean, really. Quickbooks. How do they still get people into this discipline?
First of all, a math major teaches people to do math. Accounting teaches people to add up numbers in a column...with a calculator...or an excel spreadsheet. How about also breathing for beginners and how to keep your hair growing? What's to learn here?
Let's put this into perspective: during the glory days of the British empire, accountants were able to keep their country strong while balancing against foreign markets in a global economy with unreliable reportage. They managed to perform this function with such success that they were able to vault England into the position of world superpower. Had it not been for atomic energy and a persistent bombing campaign against England, the union jack would probably still be flying over half of the world. That being said, they did all this without a degree in accounting. It was a job: people took a vocational course in it and then they went to work..
Now, let's imagine what the world of accounting that has done bolstered up by their rank of college-trained professionals. Savings and Loan, Enron, and now total economic collapse. Do they train these people to be communist fifth columnists or something. Untrained=global empire. Trained=international incompetence.
Why? Well, it comes down to what these people learn. First, they needn't learn much. They use programs the same as we do. You pay your taxes without a class in TurboTax, these people get that class...and, therefore, need that class. That means that they require a crutch that you do not. They're worse at this than you are.
Math classes? Yes, the backbone of accounting is clearly math, but how much math do you need. Let me try it this way. I took Business Calculus in college to provide support for a friend of mine. I missed half the classes and solved all the problems using Algebra. I passed the class. Later, when I took actual calculus in a Math department (first semester calc), I knew nothing despite having passed a class in calculus already. I actually did better than half the accounting students who were in business calc who showed up every day.
The real reason that this discipline is problematic is because its participants are almost totally without courage or belief in themselves. While most people go to college to expand their minds, these people show up to put numbers in a row. They believe that accounting is essentially like majoring in "job"--and they want a job, and here they are. If you say to them, why don't you study something you enjoy so that you can work a job that you like, they will inform you that they like nothing...nothing at all. Sometimes they like drinking or pleasing their parents. Backbone? None.
Maybe I'm picking on the future accountants, but if I am, I think I'm justified for three reasons. First of all, they take four years to learn something that a computer can help anyone do in less time and with less mistakes. Second, those who have held these degrees have bathed themselves in so much failure that they've devastated the nation's economy. Third, accounting itself is a subset of economics, which means that economists learn accounting AND the science of economics whereas accounting majors only learn accounting, and yet, it still takes the same amount of time to learn these things; accountants are economists who simply weren't up to snuff.
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
10:50 AM
2 Comments:
Ironically.. or not... it is the creative disciplines that everyone not in the rat race pays homage to. Art, writing, music, etc. And yet, if these things are so wonderful (and they are) and so beneficial to humanity (and they are) and so vocally valued (and they are) how is it that they have almost no value in the economic world? How can we consider creativity, which has immense impact on the course of human history, to be undervalued and yet continue to undervalue it economically? It is only the rare talent that is recognized and given significant financial value.
I liken it to teaching a child to be nice to the other kids on the playground. There really isn't any logic to it. You could tell them that they will have more friends, but then they realize that even with more friends, they won't get the extra toys and treats that bullying will get them. You could tell them that they won't have as much fun, but then you have to convince them that playing with toys stolen from other children won't be fun if played with alone. The logic of decency is, essentially, illogical. The child only learns why they should be nice by feeling ostracism and boredom.
The same holds true for art: there is simply no simple and immediate value to it. It's value is an investment in culture. It is ongoing. And its absence is only recognizable as disastrous once the disaster comes.
But I digress...people from creative disciplines actually do very well in the work-a-day world. I will discuss this more in part 3.
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