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Grades and Success?

SolitaryWalker

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Approximately 20-30 years, the belief that the quality of person's academic grades serve as an accurate indicator of his level of intelligence, consequently, the more intelligent the person is, the more likely he is to be successful by conventional standards.

To be successful by conventional standards simply means to make a lot of money and to hold a prestigious position.

On average, I would say that people who did get good grades are more likely to make a lot of money at a prestigious positions of employment than those who did not. Whether or not the case is such because the former have more merit than the latter is a debatable matter, however, very few could argue that the person who did have high grades is more marketable at an employment market than a person who did not. One reason why the case is such is that employers tend to believe that people got high grades are simply better workers than those who did not. Many employers today believe that the former are better workers than the latter because they are smarter.

I don't think that this is true. However, this does not mean that this belief of conventional employers is without merit altogether. I would argue that people who did get high grades are better workers than those who did not for a reason other than that they are smarter.

Our conventional education program, especially that of pre-college course-work focuses intensely on mindless memorization of various notions and a wide range of other route work. What set of qualities does this set of activities help an individual develop? Certainly not intelligence as route tasks do not help one become any more creative or analytical. However, they do without a question almost, help one develop the quality of perseverance and the skill of following vague and subtly logically inconsistent instructions that often make almost no sense.

An overwhelming majority of jobs require an employee to have exactly those two qualities. 1. Work hard consistently or persevere. 2. Accept all instructions uncritically even if they are downright absurd. In a conventional business environment critical thinking is discouraged as businesses have only one goal in mind; making as much money as possible and in order to do that they need to have as many people as possible working as hard as possible at tasks that require very little critical thought or solution of complex problems. (Business work is after all very concrete and practical as opposed to theoretical and is lacking in conceptual depth)

It is true that most businessmen would profit from a careful, theoretical overview of their circumstances, but they simply do not have the education or intellectual talents to do so, hence, they see it as a flat out a waste of time. That is one reason why they would have an incentive to censure critical thought as intensely as they do. Secondly, if people in their organization do begin to think critically, they may devise a strategy that will lead to a loss of profit for the business owner. The whole and sole purpose of a conventional American capitalist entrepreneur is to procure as much money for himself as possible, all of his other activities are merely means to the end of achieving this goal. Thus, as subtly as possible, in almost all cases, he will try to pay himself more at the expense of those who work under him. (For example, a CEO of Walmart makes many millions of dollars per year, yet a conventional worker makes $9 per hour at the most) In order to see that this is truly happening and to discover exactly how it is happening, serious critical thought is necessary. The fact that most CEOs in America are hooligans who dressed themselves up as leaders of serious and respectable companies is not obvious to an unaided eye. They have been involved in this practice for many decades and doubtlessly devoted a lot of serious thought to the subject-matter of how they could steal money from their people without making it clear that this is what they are doing. They would be in serious trouble if a person who is skilled in critical thought was to discover what they are doing and inspire their workers to demand better treatment not only in the financial regard but also in all the other respects that the Corporation gets its way at the expense of the people. If even one such iconoclast could cause major problems, imagine what would happen if an average person was skilled in critical thinking?

In addition to this, the temple of human dignity indubitably rests on thought or the ability to think independently and critically. Our intellect is defined by our ability to think independently and critically, that is the main distinction between humans and animals. Accordingly, almost by our very nature we obtain self-respect by being able to think for ourselves. When we do that we feel that there is something in life that we have accomplished on our own endeavor and did not merely follow our animalistic urges or the dictates of our authorities.

Since the primary purpose of a conventional businessman is to make as much money as possible, he certainly does not want people who have dignity to work for him as this would prevent him from getting his way at their expense. As a general rule, employers treat the employees in a disrespectful manner only in a subtle way, by severely underpaying them, but cases of outright disrespect are rare. However, because people are stripped of dignity due to their inability to think for themselves, the employer has his options to treat others in a disrespectful way again. As utilizing this option may increase his capital, he certainly would appreciate the fact that people do not have much dignity.

But most of all, in recapitulation, the fact that people cannot think critically is to be appreciated by the employer the most on the account that they are unlikely to know what the employer is doing, hence, they would be unlikely to stop him from getting his way at their expense. On a smaller note, people who cannot think are generally better at doing the mindless tasks than those who can as they are much less likely to become bored with the tasks.

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The educational system creates the kind of people who would be the most well-suited for exploitation by the conventional employer. In most cases, especially in pre-college education, students who diligently follow the instructions receive high grades and those who do not are likely to fail. Most schools are influenced heavily by politicians and businessmen who are interested in maintaining the system where people can be exploited. Most of them are in a similar position as the CEO of Walmart who makes millions of dollars per year whilst most of his employees make less than $10 per hour. Thus, it is persuasive that they are purposefully supporting a system of education that creates docile people who can be savagely brutalized by their avaricious fiat until the very day their casket drops under the ground.

A 'good' student is likely to be a 'good' worker just as truly as a good soldier would. A 'good' citizen (in this case both student and worker) is one who satisfies the agenda of the contemporary American capitalist system that creates prosperity for a very small portion of the population at the expense of everybody else. (Note, the Wealthiest 1% of the population has a higher Net worth than the entirety of the poorest 95% of the population)

In order to be a 'good' citizen, you have to be industrious and uncritically follow whatever instructions you are given. We are taught to do this since grade school and up until High School. Only people who have successfully developed those two qualities are admitted into college. Mindless adherence to the instructions is less pronounced in college, however, it is still significant. Why? Because the University is first and foremost a business and a bureaucratic organization. In this 'free-market' economy, they are forced to offer only the kind of a service that the public would be willing to pay for. The public is only willing to pay for the kind of a service that turns them into 'good' citizens, or teaches them to uncritically accept all instructions and to work hard.

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The conventional school is the ultimate 'training ground' for people to become 'good' citizens. In school people are drilled with countless routine, thoughtless tasks that will prepare them for anything that the bureaucratic businesses will put them through. On that note it is not surprising that many adults who go back to school find that they are no longer 'good' students as they are either too demanding or have a hard time following the instructions as they simply cannot see a point behind doing that.

In summary, the conventional education program accomplishes the following.

-Strips people of their dignity by robbing them of their critical thinking faculties
-How does it do the above point? By teaching them to perform many mindless tasks uncritically.
-Teaches the skill of following directions, regardless of how confusing or ridiculous they are.
-Teaches perseverance and causes people to become industrious.

Why does the conventional education program do that? One reason why is because it is influenced very heavily by philistines and bureaucrats who have an interest in making the public stupid, docile and devoid of the basic respect that they all deserve as human beings. There can be no doubt that the conventional businesses do not drill their workers nearly as much as the educational program does, but they do drill them with thoughtless tasks enough and they need the public to do such tasks in order to be financially successful. Thus, for this reason the thoughtless tasks in question are much more common in a school curriculum than in a professional environment as the school is a mere training ground for the professional environment. The training in question is with regard to turning people into imbeciles who can do no other than to follow instructions that lead them to do mindless tasks for eight hours each day. The propagandists who support the current educational system deftly conceal this by convincing the people that they are doing the opposite of what they are truly doing. That is, they convince the people that the schooling system is genuinely edifying and it is turning people into independently minded adults who can think critically.

Yes, there are professors, teachers and even schools with regard to which this does not apply. However, they are mere exceptions and rebels to the most prevalent politico-educational system.

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In addition to the purely conceptual thought that I put into this inquiry, how else can I support my views? Am I merely engaging in armchair deduction? No, not at all. I hold a degree in Philosophy and Religious studies, the two subjects that are renowned for encouraging critical thinking and an open-minded attitude. Many of the professors and students that I dealt with rebelled against the system that I have described above and appreciated my drive for knowledge and intellectual growth. However, many of them did not and even those who did had authorities that they had to answer to. Accordingly, every time I followed instructions, I got very high grades, yet when I did not, I was penalized. The rebels of the system granted me a B, part of it was a token of appreciation for my independent thought, if they were to follow the system as they were expected to, they should have flunked me altogether. Those who were not rebels, penalized me severely and some of my friends who have produced genuinely illuminating papers have received a zero grade because their essays were not relevant to the assigned topic. This of course, was the case with the conventional instructors who are slaves of the system.

When I attended courses that were not part of my major, I truly had no choice but to follow instructions as I could not have passed otherwise. In those courses, what I knew or what ideas I could come up with were not relevant, all that mattered was whether or not I could follow the instructions. To put it crudely and simply, all that mattered is whether or not I could 'do the ritual'.
 
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brainheart

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All right, I didn't read all of that but I think I read enough.

Me: mostly As, Honors student, academic scholarships, liberal arts college degree. Stay at home mom who has never had a 'real' job.

Husband: Barely Cs, but a college degree in a practical field. Real job, real money- enough for me to stay home with the kiddies, comfortably.

I could say the same for a good chunk of people I've known through my life. What matters in getting a good job is that you are reliable and willing to do the work, no matter how much you hate it, and that you are good at selling yourself. And that you major in something practical. That's pretty much it- here in the U.S., anyway.
 

Halla74

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All right, I didn't read all of that but I think I read enough.

Me: mostly As, Honors student, academic scholarships, liberal arts college degree. Stay at home mom who has never had a 'real' job.

Husband: Barely Cs, but a college degree in a practical field. Real job, real money- enough for me to stay home with the kiddies, comfortably.

I could say the same for a good chunk of people I've known through my life. What matters in getting a good job is that you are reliable and willing to do the work, no matter how much you hate it, and that you are good at selling yourself. And that you major in something practical. That's pretty much it- here in the U.S., anyway.

Very true! Awesome post. :yes:
 

runvardh

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Yeah, when it comes to correlation with grades and ability to aquire a job it tends to be the C-B people who do best - something about having a social aspect as well as getting things done.
 

SolitaryWalker

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Yeah, when it comes to correlation with grades and ability to aquire a job it tends to be the C-B people who do best - something about having a social aspect as well as getting things done.

I'd think that people who get As should do a better job. In order to get an A you don't need to be very smart, you need to be diligent and hard-working. People who get Bs and Cs may well be smarter than those who get As. Yet because all students are graded on how well they meet the arbitrary and often absurd course requirements, students who gets As generally tend to do better at mindless tasks than those who get lower grades.

I agree with the first reply to my thread that you need to be reliable and do the job well even if you hate it. In other words, you need to be a hard worker and persevere. You learn this by getting As in school by following instructions uncritically.
 
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brainheart

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Yeah, why do you think so many INFPs and INTPs are on here all the time?

Unemployed...
 

DiscoBiscuit

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So far, I've A's and B's until Law School.

What I've gotten in Law School is no one's business but my own.

It's funny that it has taken people this long to realize that you need to own your own labor. The upper tier pay structure in most large enterprises these days is absolutely ridiculous. If I decided to go to a large silk stocking firm right out of school, I take home a third of what I brought into the firm.

To put that in concrete firms.

If I brought in 40K a month in revenue. I would take home 13K.

One third of that goes to the firms overhead, and the other 13K goes to the partners.

The partners end up earning (as a group) as much from my labor as I am. It's like that money is payment for them offering you the job.
 

SolitaryWalker

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You all responded minutes after I posted, I am having a hard time believing that any of you read even half of it. So far only DiscoBiscuit said something that is directly relevant to the theme of my essay. Take some time to read the OP before responding to it.
 
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brainheart

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I'd think that people who get As should do a better job. In order to get an A you don't need to be very smart, you need to be diligent and hard-working.

You can be smart and not particularly hard-working and still get As. Not so hard if school is easy for you.

Knowing how to write a good paper is way different than most jobs. I could be a good journalist or a good film critic, book critic, I think, but the jobs are slim pickins, my friend. And I hate writing news copy. It bores the living shit out of me. The majority of jobs out there do not require the skills I have and the majority of jobs out there require skills that I lack, or that do not pique my interest in any shape, manner, or form.

Oh p.s.- my husband is a way harder worker than me, even though he did more poorly than me in school. Most employers realize there isn't a correlation, mainly because most employers were B, C students themselves.
 

SolitaryWalker

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You can be smart and not particularly hard-working and still get As. Not so hard if school is easy for you.

Knowing how to write a good paper is way different than most jobs. I could be a good journalist or a good film critic, book critic, I think, but the jobs are slim pickins, my friend. And I hate writing news copy. It bores the living shit out of me. The majority of jobs out there do not require the skills I have and the majority of jobs out there require skills that I lack, or that do not pique my interest in any shape, manner, or form.

Please read this post in entirety, try not to assume from the very beginning that it is going to be something you're not going to like or something that is fundamentally wrong-headed.

If you are smart you grasp concepts quickly, that is, you understand the material that is taught in class. That will not get you a high grade. What will get you a high grade is if you sit down, open your textbooks and take hours to memorize some asinine information that you will forget two weeks later. What if you have to write a paper? Today (don't know about the time when you were a student), most professors will not give you a good grade for your paper if you merely show that you understand the material in class in your own way. In order to get a good grade you have to answer a bunch of tedious questions and many arbitrary rules that have little to do with knowing the material.

(For example citation rules--APA/MLA format and so on. Many English and History professors give you a detailed guidelines document that is supposed to tell you how and where you should write each and every sentence in your paper. They often will force you to make a tedious bibliography page that contains some 20 sources that you may never look it, that, and all of the other examples constitute mere mindless, busy-work. Political science professors drill their students with 3000 word long book reports, more than 30% of which are composed of direct references to the text or mere quotations. Merely quoting a text, believe me, is a tedious, jejune and a mindless activity which is anathema to all genuinely educative work. Even many philosophy professors, especially on the introductory level will force you to quote the text that was assigned in class. Many will fail you if you write a paper that reflects your understanding of the subject yet does not quote the text enough. )

How the hell do I know all of this? I make my paycheck as a ghost-writer and most of my clients are students. You should see some of the ridiculous paper instructions that I get in my inbox everyday. Every week I get at least one example to represent each mindless academic task I listed in the previous paragraph.

Don't get me wrong, I love what I do as my clients force me to learn something new every day and the act of writing so much makes my thoughts clearer as well as allows me to become a better writer and a communicator in general. However, everything that I have learned in my work, I have learned by reading the material and putting some serious thought into it, not by getting As for my clients by following the completely idiotic instructions of their professors.

In my long experience of writing academic essays, very rarely did I get a high grade because of my knowledge or ability to learn. Most of the time, I got good grades because I painstakingly followed instructions and got poor grades when I did not.

Oh p.s.- my husband is a way harder worker than me, even though he did more poorly than me in school. Most employers realize there isn't a correlation, mainly because most employers were B, C students themselves.


I think that you can get hired as a B or a C student, but most employers would prefer an A student, granted of course the student's degree is relevant to the work the employer offers. Yes, most employers were students themselves yet they generally are not reflective enough to understand that a person who got Bs or Cs could be a harder worker than a straight A honors student, they won't even consider this. Note, I said most, not all. Most tend to assume that if you get As, you're an all around 'good' citizen, which means that you're good at everything, smart, hard-working, able to fit in and so forth.
 

Kingfisher

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SolitaryWalker, you have a good point. i think succeeding in traditional education does prepare people to succeed in traditional jobs. jobs that are about plugging away, doing as you're told, fitting in to the bussiness.

when i was young and poorly educated i was fired from many many jobs for not fitting in, for throwing too much of a wrench in the works. i was not fired for lack of education, but for individualistic thinking, not being part of the system. i had to change jobs quite often, so i didn't follow a traditional "career path".

but the great successes i have had in working have come when i struck out on my own, became my own leader and boss. when i took the work system and made it my own.

but i have worked in "team" enviroments where i really excelled and fit in. but those have always been situations where it was a very social and brotherly kind of team, and we had to form relationships out of neccesity rather than convenience. my exmple is working as a firefighter. we became very close and 'group oriented' (living together while on call), but it was because we all had a very clear and direct sense of purpose. it was not because we simply 'were supposed to fit in.'.
 
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brainheart

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Please read this post in entirety, try not to assume from the very beginning that it is going to be something you're not going to like or something that is fundamentally wrong-headed.

I read it all. Okay, maybe I didn't before my first post, but I did after. I'm a fast reader. And I'm good at picking up the gist without agonizing over every sentence. Guess that's why I did well in school...

I don't know why you think it's something I don't like. Where did I give you that indication? I just think it's faulty, and I stated why.

Of course there's dumb busy work crap in school. Some of us are good at memorizing and following instructions with relative ease. Does that make us harder workers than the C students who bust their ass but 'just don't get it'?

Look, I'm not saying people become A students by not working at all. But smarts play into it as well. But the smarts that make you good at school don't necessarily make you a good employee or a good manager. Knowing how to write a good paper won't help you in a lot of jobs. As someone mentioned, social skills play a tremendous part. That's all I'm saying.

You seem to think getting As is merely grunt work. I say that's not the case. You say jobs require the same sort of hard work and skill that goes into doing well at school. I beg to differ.
 
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brainheart

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when i was young and poorly educated i was fired from many many jobs for not fitting in, for throwing too much of a wrench in the works. i was not fired for lack of education, but for individualistic thinking, not being part of the system. i had to change jobs quite often, so i didn't follow a traditional "career path".

Exactly. I think individualistic thinking is often beneficial in school, to which you most definitely disagree, solitary walker. I know that the individual thinkers were some of the most prized students; many teachers prize individuality and creative thinking, especially if you are in the upper levels of the school. I guess it depends on your school and what your major is.

So I have all kinds of individualistic thinking which doesn't play with a lot of jobs. But I did well in school because a lot of school for me was arguing my point or expressing myself, which teachers appreciated.
 

Haphazard

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So I have all kinds of individualistic thinking which doesn't play with a lot of jobs. But I did well in school because a lot of school for me was arguing my point or expressing myself, which teachers appreciated.

To be successful, you need to be able to be a drone, and you need to be able to be individualistic, and you need the wisdom to tell when you should be one or the other.
 

SolitaryWalker

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You seem to think getting As is merely grunt work. I say that's not the case. You say jobs require the same sort of hard work and skill that goes into doing well at school. I beg to differ.

I would not say that all of it is mere grunt work, but most of it. Certainly you need more intelligence in order to be a good student than to be a good construction worker. In fact, I would say that you'd need more intelligence to do well in school than in 95% of all jobs, even white-collar ones. However, not much more.

Most jobs do not require intelligence, you're absolutely right, but they do require that you do a lot of 'grunt work'. The latter is a much more significant part of schooling than the former. You only need to be relatively intelligent to do well in school and that will account for only 10-20% of your success, the rest depends on how well you follow instructions and how hard you work.
 
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brainheart

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To be successful, you need to be able to be a drone, and you need to be able to be individualistic, and you need the wisdom to tell when you should be one or the other.

Yeah, I guess my main fault with the OP argument is that it's way too simplistic. There are lots of jobs and lots of ways to do them. And lots of majors which require lots of different skills as well.
 

SolitaryWalker

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Exactly. I think individualistic thinking is often beneficial in school, to which you most definitely disagree, solitary walker. I know that the individual thinkers were some of the most prized students; many teachers prize individuality and creative thinking, especially if you are in the upper levels of the school. I guess it depends on your school and what your major is.

So I have all kinds of individualistic thinking which doesn't play with a lot of jobs. But I did well in school because a lot of school for me was arguing my point or expressing myself, which teachers appreciated.

I'd agree that many teachers and even many schools value independent and creative thought, yet those individuals and institutions are mere rebels to the mainstream system of education. I am not criticizing every school and every teacher, I am criticizing the underlying educational system of our nation. It is tyrannous to all teachers and institutions that do value independent and critical thought. It takes a great deal of courage to hold strong under such tremendous pressure and almost all of them cave, or give into it.

This is less so on in a higher education scenario or the PhD level work, but it still goes on and creates a substantial impact. In fact, it even goes on with professional scholars. I have met philosophers and physicists who told me that for the most part articles that are in fashion or earn a name for their school get published. Articles that are truly insightful, unconventional and do not bring any profit to the institution either financially or in terms of reputation stand almost no chance. In short, if you want to get published in a scholarly journal, independent thinking is something that you do not want to be doing a lot of. And if you want to keep your job, you have to get published in the scholarly journals as whether you get tenured, in many institutions, is decided solely by how many articles you published.

I am truly not surprised that many very bright professors that I knew disliked writing essays, in fact one of them told me outright that this is the part of his job that he doesn't like. However, the philistines, the glory-hunters and the slavish worshipers of the odious contemporary educational system make getting published in scholarly journals their primary goal and brag about every little thing that they published whenever they get half a chance.
 
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brainheart

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Most jobs do not require intelligence, you're absolutely right, but they do require that you do a lot of 'grunt work'. The latter is a much more significant part of schooling than the former. You only need to be relatively intelligent to do well in school and that will account for only 10-20% of your success, the rest depends on how well you follow instructions and how hard you work.

I didn't say most jobs don't require intelligence. There's lots of different kinds of intelligence. It's just most jobs don't require the kind of intelligence employed in writing papers.

I think how well you follow instructions and how hard you work will get you a B. And that's why it's irrelevant whether you get As or not when it comes to getting the majority of jobs.

Ah, sigh... I think we're getting a wee bit nitpicky.
 

SolitaryWalker

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I didn't say most jobs don't require intelligence. There's lots of different kinds of intelligence. It's just most jobs don't require the kind of intelligence employed in writing papers.

I think how well you follow instructions and how hard you work will get you a B. And that's why it's irrelevant whether you get As or not when it comes to getting the majority of jobs.

Ah, sigh... I think we're getting a wee bit nitpicky.

All I mean by intelligence is ability to solve complex problems quickly and accurately. Under my definition, there is only kind of intelligence. That doesn't mean that my definition intelligence is right and all the other ones are wrong, or that everyone should use only my definition. All it means is that this is simply how I use the word.

Yeah, I guess my main fault with the OP argument is that it's way too simplistic. There are lots of jobs and lots of ways to do them. And lots of majors which require lots of different skills as well.

Yes there are such opportunities that you speak of, but the general underlying educational-economical system does not create many of them. In fact, by its very nature it thwarts such opportunities before they can even arise. They are mere exceptions to the rule and are generally created by those who have rebelled against the system.
 

Haphazard

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Yeah, I guess my main fault with the OP argument is that it's way too simplistic. There are lots of jobs and lots of ways to do them. And lots of majors which require lots of different skills as well.

What I mean is that most jobs require you to do grunt work before you get to make any decisions on your own. You need to prove to the employer that you're trustworthy before they can trust you with creativity, because we all know how dangerous creativity can be.
 
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