Preview
  • You Can Do Anything

  • The Surprising Power of a "Useless" Liberal Arts Education
  • By: George Anders
  • Narrated by: George Anders
  • Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (32 ratings)

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You Can Do Anything

By: George Anders
Narrated by: George Anders
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Publisher's summary

In a tech-dominated world, the most needed degrees are the most surprising: the liberal arts.

Did you take the right classes in college? Will your major help you get the right job offers? For more than a decade, the national spotlight has focused on science and engineering as the only reliable choice for finding a successful postgrad career. Our destinies have been reduced to a caricature: learn to write computer code or end up behind a counter, pouring coffee. Quietly, though, a different path to success has been taking shape. In You Can Do Anything, George Anders explains the remarkable power of a liberal arts education - and the ways it can open the door to thousands of cutting-edge jobs every week.

The key insight: curiosity, creativity, and empathy aren't unruly traits that must be reined in. You can be yourself as an English major and thrive in sales. You can segue from anthropology into the booming new field of user research, from classics into management consulting, and from philosophy into high-stakes investing. At any stage of your career, you can bring a humanist's grace to our rapidly evolving high-tech future. And if you know how to attack the job market, your opportunities will be vast.

In this audiobook you will learn why resume writing is fading in importance and why "telling your story" is taking its place. You will learn how to create jobs that don't exist yet and to translate your campus achievements into a new style of expression that will make employers' eyes light up. You will discover why people who start in eccentric first jobs - and then make their own luck - so often race ahead of peers whose postcollege hunts focus only on security and starting pay. You will be ready for anything.

©2017 George Anders (P)2017 Hachette Audio
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Critic reviews

"George Anders has provided a compelling and decisive answer to the recurring question, 'What is the value proposition of a liberal arts education?' Students should have this book in their backpack or on their iPads. So should their parents, teachers, and our policy-makers." (Frederick M. Lawrence, CEO of Phi Beta Kappa Society)
"Anders shows us precisely why majors like philosophy, history, and anthropology teach the skills employers can't outsource to robots and software...students should feel not only reassurance or permission but an actual obligation to go there, for their own sake, and for the sake of us all.'" (Julia Lythcott-Haims, author of How to Raise an Adult and former dean of freshmen at Stanford University)
"Utterly fascinating and massively important. George Anders peers into his signature crystal ball and paints a portrait of the future of work that's as compelling as it is provocative." (Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times best-selling author of Give and Take and Originals)

What listeners say about You Can Do Anything

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Encouraging for those graduated, useful info if you're still in school/about to be.

When Anders' reached out to me about the book I was just confused as to why someone writing a book would want to talk to me. As you can imagine I was very curious as to what exactly the book would entail when finished, and was pleased to hear that he had reached out to speak with Professor Kohn whom I had said that he had to meet during our interview in Prof Tomjanovich's Wall Street class.

Having finally heard it I can tell you it's chocked full of the very same advice that many great professor's and alumni would give you while in school. I would very much suggest this book for anyone in a liberal arts school or considering attending one. As for those who have recently graduated, this book is still full of solid advice and at the very least a great deal of encouragement in what may be a stressful point in life.
My one complaint is that Anders didn't seem to either understand, or want to highlight the benefits of non-liberal arts majors being completed within a liberal arts school. I was an economics and psychology double major at Drew and found that in my classes like management with Professor Kohn and political economy with Professor Safri we engaged with a great deal of material involving philosophy and psychology that I don't believe would be touched on if taking the same classes in a non-liberal arts college. My advice would always be to double major, but know that you can attend a liberal arts school major in something like economics and still get the benefits of engaging in anthropology and classics coursework (especially at a school like Drew University).

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Not very clear

So he says that you can probably still earn $100k or more and it’s useful for finding the right path later on. I like the book on Liberal Arts by Fareed Zakaria more. This one was a bore.

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