[nraford]

I went to a liberal arts college that allowed you to design you own degree. The process of design was half the degree itself. Whilst it make seem that "sociospatial analysis & design" is a useless boutique major, the attitudes of self-motivation, learning how to learn, and successfully exploring new areas of interest, inquiry and productivity have been essential to my career.

While I did use the specific skills and knowledge I learned in the process for a couple years, the underlying methodology of discovering needs, aligning interests, convincing others to support you, and developing new ideas and opportunities have been essential - even though I now do something totally unrelated to my degree.

Obviously I was both lucky and atypical, but the "useless vs. useful" distinction is not so black and white. Liberal arts universities _used_ to be about learning how to be a whole person in the world, of which gainful employment is an important part (but not the only goal).

Clearly the aristocratic origins of university education are out of step with the economic realities of today, but the DNA of the approach is arguably even more important to financial outcomes in the long run than just getting a degree in business or STEM.

The world is a mess and defaulting to a cookie cutter degree just because it will get you a vanilla, status-quo job out of the gates is not the kind of thing that will serve most people in the long run (IMHO).