College: The Biggest Scam in America.

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Ajay

Lifer
Jan 8, 2001
16,094
8,109
136
2 things....the effing government got into it and guaranteed student loans. Fucktard wants a basket weaving degree, school realizes that the lenders will lend fucktard $100K for such a degree and the government guarantees repayment. BAM, school charged fucktard $100K for a basket weaving degree.

Yes, it does seem that federal loans guarantees have allowed colleges to blow up costs. And students do get too many 'useless' degrees; there's just so many history majors, etc., that the world needs.
 

NoTine42

Golden Member
Sep 30, 2013
1,387
78
91
If all college was truly worth it, they would be priced like Harvard

https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works/cost-attendance

Ninety percent of American families would pay the same or less to send their children to Harvard as they would a state school.

DEDICATED TO AFFORDABILITY

Families with incomes between $65,000 and $150,000 will typically contribute from 0-10% of their income.

In regards to student loans

https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/types-aid/loans
You are not expected to take out loans as part of your financial aid package. Our aid packages are designed to cover your financial need without additional borrowing. In fact, most of our students graduate debt-free.
 

OutHouse

Lifer
Jun 5, 2000
36,410
616
126
Friend worked for a company that make tank parts. High school education but had 29 years at this company doing engineering work. They closed so he went to the big local government contractor. 6 months in, his boss up 2, found out he didn't have a degree and told him that he couldn't work there. His work/performance was fine but he didn't have a price of paper. Effing B.S.

yea, the company i left last year started doing that. my boss (director level) has an associates degree and he is nervous as fuck about getting the pink slip because the new edu requirement for that position is a Masters degree.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
68,457
12,611
126
www.anyf.ca
I know there is no chance in hell I would be where I am at in my career and field had I not gone to college. I am a comp sci major and while I know you can learn on your own, at that age there is no chance I would have learned how to program on my own. But I graduated in 2004 and only had like $19k in debt which has been paid off, and my tuition was like $15k/yr or so I think, and that included living on campus. Prices have gone up a ton since I left though. It completely depends on your major though. My brother went to the same school as me and doesn't even use his degree, he's a fire fighter now.

I had a different experience, I knew how to program, or at least the basics, but the college courses never really went past the basics. We would literally spend over 1 week on one concept, like if statements. Then loops, then arrays, then functions. By the time we got into OOP it was year 3 lol. I already knew all that. Would have liked if they covered stuff like how to code GUI applications or even games but never remotely got that far unless text based games count.

Though oddly enough it seems lot of people in my class were struggling and I was basically the tutor lol. I expected to get there and learn way more than I already knew but instead I was practically a God. :p
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,704
5,456
136
https://youtu.be/tXgCG50YoWs

I had no idea that colleges were tax exempt. I do agree with Pat on the tech part, and that thru technology we can make college much cheaper, and we could accelerate the process for many majors. Instead of 4 years, we they could have students out in 2 years. But, that won't happen anytime soon unless we demand it, or find other alternatives.

It's scammy, but there are multiple factors involved, so it's not an entirely negative thing:

1. Tribal knowledge can be a really powerful asset to gain from college. Not just what the books tell you, but how things really work in the field & in things like corporate politics.

2. A lot of networking & connections happen there. I got my first paid internship through school & was able to go from three part-time jobs (two of which were minimum wage) down to one, which was amazing. I discovered ATOT through college & still have a lot of friends from school (some of whom still lurk here!). Those are not assets I would have magically stumbled across had I not gone to college.

3. Going to college & getting a degree shows that you can stick with things & finish them. There are plenty of unqualified people who graduate college, but they went to their classes, got a passing grade, and finished it. That counts for a lot.

4. For managers, it's an easy way to weed out people to hire. Again, lots of unqualified people graduate college, but you also have to understand Corporate Politics 101: if the person being hired has a degree but turns out to be a screw-up in the company, then the manager can save face by pointing back to their degree as a reason to hire them, so they can't be faulted.

I mean, for me, my parent's rule was basically to cover the first year of college to get us started, and then we were expected to make ends meet as adults. Working at crap jobs & feeling like I'd be stuck there forever was often my primary motivation to keep chipping away at school, because I recognized that that was the golden ticket to making money the traditional way in America. I'm not Steve Jobs or Elon Musk; I have no desire to run a company or work 100 hours a week, and I needed a reliable way to make money until I retired. I have a lot of mixed feelings about college, but it has opened many career doors for me that would have been closed otherwise.

I think in a lot of ways, having things as they are now, despite the high prices, is actually a good thing. We have sites like Glassdoor that tell you how much money specific jobs make in specific areas. We have tons of data on industry needs & what jobs are good to study for. We have a ridiculous amount of online tools to help you stay relevant in your career. You essentially have an army of information at your fingertips, so if you're smart, you can do some gap analysis from where you are now to where you want to be, and figure out a solid plan to achieve that.

If you refuse to think (to pick a goal & make a plan) & refuse to work at it, then you're just shooting yourself in the foot. I know several people in one situation or the other. I have a couple good friends who simply don't want to have to commit to anything, so they've avoided any & all thinking about their future, despite being smart guys, and are just kind of drifting in life. I also know a guy who knows what he wants, but isn't willing to push past the barriers of having to try very hard at school to actually finish & graduate. I feel bad because all of them are wonderful, capable people, but they are also their own roadblocks, and don't want to accept responsibility for that.

In many ways, I do feel like college was a waste of time for me, personally. It has been a powerful tool for opening doors to jobs, but I also spent way too much time there & way too much money there, and did not learn a tenth of what I've learned from self-study & OJT. But on the flip side, I wouldn't really want my doctor or my dentist going the DIY route for education, so it really depends on what niche you're into. I do general IT stuff, it's mostly a lot of really basic things & busywork, but it's also a never-ending educational opportunity, so you never get bored.

I've learned various operating systems, hardware build & repair, network installation, virtualization, all kinds of stuff over the years. Literally every week I get to learn something new & interesting & I'm not just stuck being bored showing up to the same job day after day. And yet there are plenty of people who LOVE jobs like that. So it really depends on what you want, and again, we have so much information available these days that it really puts you in a good position to find something you enjoy doing & actually be able to make a living at it.

I do think school should be more affordable, and I also think culturally we should treat alternative educational systems like trade schools & OJT with an equal amount of social respect as college. But, the world largely pays you what it thinks you're worth, and college is the rite-of-passage system to funnel people into certain career fields, so it is what it is, for now. What I'd recommend to a lot of people is:

1. Pick a career field that (1) you will enjoy, (2) will be relevant long-term, and (3) will meet your personal financial requirements.

2. Go to community college for two years & get your Associate's degree, then take more classes that will transfer to a university, then get a Bachelor's at a university. That's a solid & cost-effective foundation that you can carry around with you for the rest of your life, even if you don't stay in your field long-term.

3. Pursue continuing education so that you stay relevant. Again, for the most part, a job will pay you what they think you are worth. Those numbers are pretty public now, so you can fairly easily figure out a path forward to meeting your own goals in life. But there is no loyalty to companies or workers these days, and the employment market can be fluid, so staying on top of your niche makes you more marketable in your field & makes you more valuable to your company. There's a phrase I really like: "master your craft", which isn't a static thing, but a dynamic thing - get your degree, but keep on pursuing new information. For me, I've gone primarily from hardware to virtualization over the last five years, and it's really given me a lot of benefits to know how to dive into Hyper-V, VMware, VDI, etc.

Of course, that advice only matters if your particular job requires college. But it helps to have that to fall back on! Of course, practical economics plays a role too. Like, I'd really like to go & finish my Master's degree, but it's going to cost me time (I'm already working full-time & have a family that needs time spent with them) & ten grand per semester, and it's not going to bring me any significant financial gain in my line of work, so I'm not super motivated to complete that particular degree. I wish it were more affordable, because they do have flexible evening & online classes, but they're in business to make money, so there you go.
 
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purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
53,024
5,905
126
I had a different experience, I knew how to program, or at least the basics, but the college courses never really went past the basics. We would literally spend over 1 week on one concept, like if statements. Then loops, then arrays, then functions. By the time we got into OOP it was year 3 lol. I already knew all that. Would have liked if they covered stuff like how to code GUI applications or even games but never remotely got that far unless text based games count..
You have to walk before you can run.

I used to think the same way as you about GUI apps and games as well, but after I got out of school into the real world, everything clicked as to why they didn't do that.

My courses weren't like yours though, I learned loops and if statements in highschool. College was straight into OOP and C then C++. Looking back too, I didn't necessarily learn languages in college, but it taught me how to think in a different way and taught concepts. I remember when I first learned a linked list I simply did not get it. Then a buddy drew it out on paper and it clicked and was like that "AH HA" moment.
 

Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
20,480
3,601
126
https://youtu.be/tXgCG50YoWs

I had no idea that colleges were tax exempt. I do agree with Pat on the tech part, and that thru technology we can make college much cheaper, and we could accelerate the process for many majors. Instead of 4 years, we they could have students out in 2 years. But, that won't happen anytime soon unless we demand it, or find other alternatives.

I think its interesting how people talk about what a huge scam it is. "People leave with an average of $34k in debt." Well the median is $17,000 overall and a bachelor's is $25,000. But the pay gap between those with a degree and those without is accelerating. Even if we take the average calling this a "scam" would make it the worst scam in the world. "Give us $34,000 and you'll get an extra $1,000,000."

Are there problems? Yup - from the students to the institutions to the government to all the companies that require a degree but that doesn't mean its a scam.

And 3...yeah, I know I said 2....admin costs have risen some 70% over the last 5 years but professors pay has not.

While some of that is expansion of inclusion, DEI, advisory etc programs and the bifurcation of technology the government has had a huge impact as they keep pumping out new\changing regulations.Many Universities need to comply with HIPPA, FERPA, PCI, GLBA, ITAR, CUI, FISMA, PII, SIHSR (and more) regulations. Some, like GLBA which was geared towards large mortgage and banking institutions, or Title IX have minimal federal guidance on how Universities are expected to comply. Universities also tend to be heavily decentralized because their scope covers so many different disciplines so complying with FERPA across an entire organization (Where OneDrive, Box, Google Drive, on-prem, AWS, Azure, GCP and SharePoint are all offered as file storage locations) is much harder than a mortgage company complying with GLBA

The study, which was conducted by the Boston Consulting Group, indicates regulatory compliance represents 3 to 11 percent of higher education institutions’ nonhospital operating expenses, and that faculty and staff spend 4 to 15 percent of their time complying with federal regulations.

The study estimated that higher education institutions report to approximately 18 different federal agencies and comply with approximately 30 different areas of regulations and more than 200 federal laws and guidelines.

https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2015/10/19/regulatory-compliance/
 
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snoopy7548

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2005
8,126
5,151
146
You certainly get out what you put in. I work with some extremely successful and A-grade engineers who went to state schools; going to a top-tier college like MIT pretty much guarantees your choice of employer, though - not going to one you'll have to work your way up after you graduate for a number of years before you can approach a company like Google or Intel, if that's your goal. Raytheon and Lockheed don't seem to care all that much, especially if you can get a co-op position during school, and from old classmates and colleagues, I hear that once you get in there you're pretty much set.

IMO, college is a self-created scam. Everyone strives to go to the absolute best college when they're approaching the end of high school, but ask any working adult and they'll tell you that unless you're going into a very specific career (medicine, law), nobody gives a crap. This goes doubly for the humanities majors like history and english.

College is a necessity and not exactly a scam if you want to go into a number of careers - would you want your physician to be "self-taught" or have a degree? For the trades, you can make more than almost any college graduate but you've pretty much got to put in the equivalent time and energy and then some.
 

Mai72

Lifer
Sep 12, 2012
11,562
1,741
126
I'm self taught. Learned some by doing it, some from other people, and some from books. I didn't pay for any of it. If someone doesn't care enough to learn on their own, they should be questioning their career choice.

I agree.

Being self taught is also another option. Finding mentors is another. Education should be a life long persuit, but what happens to most people is they end up quitting after high school or college. If you want to make more money, all you need to do is lessen the skill gap between who you are today and who you want to become. The internet has and it will in the future transform the way that we learn. I love taking courses on Coursera. It's a great way to learn, but most bcompanies that are looking to hire do not recognize those courses yet. If you are competing with someone from a 4 year, and the only thing you've gone the self taught route, the 4 year degree person is going to get the position. But, I guarantee you the self taught person will be more successful because they've developed a passion for learning. The 4 year person got that degree to get a job and that's it. It's not always the case and I'm generalizing but you get the point I'm trying to make.
 

Mai72

Lifer
Sep 12, 2012
11,562
1,741
126
I think its interesting how people talk about what a huge scam it is. "People leave with an average of $34k in debt." Well the median is $17,000 overall and a bachelor's is $25,000. But the pay gap between those with a degree and those without is accelerating. Even if we take the average calling this a "scam" would make it the worst scam in the world. "Give us $34,000 and you'll get an extra $1,000,000."

Are there problems? Yup - from the students to the institutions to the government to all the companies that require a degree but that doesn't mean its a scam.



While some of that is expansion of inclusion, DEI, advisory etc programs and the bifurcation of technology the government has had a huge impact as they keep pumping out new\changing regulations.Many Universities need to comply with HIPPA, FERPA, PCI, GLBA, ITAR, CUI, FISMA, PII, SIHSR (and more) regulations. Some, like GLBA which was geared towards large mortgage and banking institutions, or Title IX have minimal federal guidance on how Universities are expected to comply. Universities also tend to be heavily decentralized because their scope covers so many different disciplines so complying with FERPA across an entire organization (Where OneDrive, Box, Google Drive, on-prem, AWS, Azure, GCP and SharePoint are all offered as file storage locations) is much harder than a mortgage company complying with GLBA





https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2015/10/19/regulatory-compliance/

The pay gap has actually been debunked.

Take out the higher paying jobs. Lawyer, doctor, engineer, programmer, and the salary gap between someone with a college degree vs. a non degree individual drops significantly. One of the reasons why the gap is so large is because they're throwing in highly skilled positions. For example, a doctor who makes $250k a year. Most (95%) of people who attend college aren't going into college to be doctors, lawyers, and engineers. They are going for degrees that pay on average $50k a year. The average starting salary is $50 for a college grad, and many max out at $75-80k. IMO, not much money. My father who has a 4th grade education was making $250k a year in his prime. He was a contractor, and my parents owned small businesses. The point is there is money to be made today if you're willing to hustle. Finally, with the internet many more oportunities are out there, but you need an open mind and you need to hustle. Starting a business in 2018 is a viable option, and it's not as risky as you might think it is. We are living is amazing times today. Starting a side business that bloosoms into a full time thing that you do is very real. And, something that you LOVE. Sitting in front of a computer in a cubicle for 40 years is a death sentence to me. Geting only 2 weeks of vacation time is a death sentence.

Gary Vee Rant on College. (NSFW)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3pAfb0huJE
 
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Chaotic42

Lifer
Jun 15, 2001
33,932
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I feel like I got a lot of value out of my mathematics degree, but that's one of the more traditional subjects that universities were founded to teach and research. I'm not sure that a four-year degree in Computer Science (which it seems is in many places a degree in programming) is better than four years of real work experience, but finding someone who *can* program well is difficult without some sort of discriminator. I think many degrees are just first-line HR filters.
 

child of wonder

Diamond Member
Aug 31, 2006
8,307
176
106
It's scammy, but there are multiple factors involved, so it's not an entirely negative thing:

1. Tribal knowledge can be a really powerful asset to gain from college. Not just what the books tell you, but how things really work in the field & in things like corporate politics.

2. A lot of networking & connections happen there. I got my first paid internship through school & was able to go from three part-time jobs (two of which were minimum wage) down to one, which was amazing. I discovered ATOT through college & still have a lot of friends from school (some of whom still lurk here!). Those are not assets I would have magically stumbled across had I not gone to college.

3. Going to college & getting a degree shows that you can stick with things & finish them. There are plenty of unqualified people who graduate college, but they went to their classes, got a passing grade, and finished it. That counts for a lot.

4. For managers, it's an easy way to weed out people to hire. Again, lots of unqualified people graduate college, but you also have to understand Corporate Politics 101: if the person being hired has a degree but turns out to be a screw-up in the company, then the manager can save face by pointing back to their degree as a reason to hire them, so they can't be faulted.

I mean, for me, my parent's rule was basically to cover the first year of college to get us started, and then we were expected to make ends meet as adults. Working at crap jobs & feeling like I'd be stuck there forever was often my primary motivation to keep chipping away at school, because I recognized that that was the golden ticket to making money the traditional way in America. I'm not Steve Jobs or Elon Musk; I have no desire to run a company or work 100 hours a week, and I needed a reliable way to make money until I retired. I have a lot of mixed feelings about college, but it has opened many career doors for me that would have been closed otherwise.

I think in a lot of ways, having things as they are now, despite the high prices, is actually a good thing. We have sites like Glassdoor that tell you how much money specific jobs make in specific areas. We have tons of data on industry needs & what jobs are good to study for. We have a ridiculous amount of online tools to help you stay relevant in your career. You essentially have an army of information at your fingertips, so if you're smart, you can do some gap analysis from where you are now to where you want to be, and figure out a solid plan to achieve that.

If you refuse to think (to pick a goal & make a plan) & refuse to work at it, then you're just shooting yourself in the foot. I know several people in one situation or the other. I have a couple good friends who simple don't want to have to commit to anything, so they've avoided any & all thinking about their future, despite being smart guys, and are just kind of drifting in life. I also know a guy who knows what he wants, but isn't willing to push past the barriers of having to try very hard at school to actually finish & graduate. I feel bad because all of them are wonderful, capable people, but they are also their own roadblocks, and don't want to accept responsibility for that.

In many ways, I do feel like college was a waste of time for me, personally. It has been a powerful tool for opening doors to jobs, but I also spent way too much time there & way too much money there, and did not learn a tenth of what I've learned from self-study & OJT. But on the flip side, I wouldn't really want my doctor or my dentist going the DIY route for education, so it really depends on what niche you're into. I do general IT stuff, it's mostly a lot of really basic things & busywork, but it's also a never-ending educational opportunity, so you never get bored.

I've learned various operating systems, hardware build & repair, network installation, virtualization, all kinds of stuff over the years. Literally every week I get to learn something new & interesting & I'm not just stuck being bored showing up to the same job day after day. And yet there are plenty of people who LOVE jobs like that. So it really depends on what you want, and again, we have so much information available these days that it really puts you in a good position to find something you enjoy doing & actually be able to make a living at it.

I do think school should be more affordable, and I also think culturally we should treat alternative educational systems like trade schools & OJT with an equal amount of social respect as college. But, the world largely pays you what it thinks you're worth, and college is the rite-of-passage system to funnel people into certain career fields, so it is what it is, for now. What I'd recommend to a lot of people is:

1. Pick a career field that (1) you will enjoy, (2) will be relevant long-term, and (3) will meet your personal financial requirements.

2. Go to community college for two years & get your Associate's degree, then take more classes that will transfer to a university, then get a Bachelor's at a university. That's a solid & cost-effective foundation that you can carry around with you for the rest of your life, even if you don't stay in your field long-term.

3. Pursue continuing education so that you stay relevant. Again, for the most part, a job will pay you what they think you are worth. Those numbers are pretty public now, so you can fairly easily figure out a path forward to meeting your own goals in life. But there is no loyalty to companies or workers these days, and the employment market can be fluid, so staying on top of your niche makes you more marketable in your field & makes you more valuable to your company. There's a phrase I really like: "master your craft", which isn't a static thing, but a dynamic thing - get your degree, but keep on pursuing new information. For me, I've gone primarily from hardware to virtualization over the last five years, and it's really given me a lot of benefits to know how to dive into Hyper-V, VMware, VDI, etc.

Of course, that advice only matters if your particular job requires college. But it helps to have that to fall back on! Of course, practical economics plays a role too. Like, I'd really like to go & finish my Master's degree, but it's going to cost me time (I'm already working full-time & have a family that needs time spent with them) & ten grand per semester, and it's not going to bring me any significant financial gain in my line of work, so I'm not super motivated to complete that particular degree. I wish it were more affordable, because they do have flexible evening & online classes, but they're in business to make money, so there you go.

Great, pragmatic, sensible advice. I try to teach my kids these same things.

1. College is an investment - consider the ROI of the school(s) you want to attend, the degree you want to pursue, and likely career options with that degree. Perhaps start in a cheaper school to get your generals done, then transfer to the school you really want.
2. Choose something that challenges you and you wouldn't mind getting out of bed in the morning to do.
3. Build relationships with your peers and practice your soft skills - employers can train almost anyone, but a good personality, good attitude, and ability to work with others is critical and opens more doors.
4. Once you pick something, give it your all. Practice and experiment outside of class. Spend some free time researching beyond the boundaries of what your classes teach you. Find a way to meet people already in the field.
5. Don't whine and don't give up.

College is not a golden ticket to success. It's just a first step on a journey towards a successful career. Having a degree helps you get your first, perhaps second, job and that's it. Your experience, achievements, soft skills, and personal network are infinitely more valuable after that.
 
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eng2d2

Golden Member
Nov 7, 2013
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The universities now resembles like a mini strip mall. The stadiums are really nice too.
 

Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
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The pay gap has actually been debunked.

Take out the higher paying jobs.

lol "It's not true if you ignore the things that make it true!"

Those jobs you want take out of the equation are also the ones pushing the average student loan amounts higher - by significant amount. If you take them out of the salary gap you also need to take them out of the discussions on student loans

Most (95%) of people who attend college aren't going into college to be doctors, lawyers, and engineers

Engineering alone makes up 5% of the degrees so your 95% figure is completely wrong. 'Health professionals' is the #2 most common category coming in at 12%

The average starting salary is $50 for a college grad, and many max out at $75-80k.

So...the average starting salary starts out close to the median household income with people maxing out well above median household income? Sounds pretty good to me. Of course people can make money without a degree. The deficiency in the number of people going into the trades doesn't make college a scam - they aren't mutually exclusive.

Starting a business in 2018 is a viable option, and it's not as risky as you might think it is.

I think you are presuming too much about my views esp considering I own a small business.
 

NoTine42

Golden Member
Sep 30, 2013
1,387
78
91
I feel like I got a lot of value out of my mathematics degree, but that's one of the more traditional subjects that universities were founded to teach and research. I'm not sure that a four-year degree in Computer Science (which it seems is in many places a degree in programming) is better than four years of real work experience, but finding someone who *can* program well is difficult without some sort of discriminator. I think many degrees are just first-line HR filters.
Yeah, I think the educational system really messed up not offering an IT professional degree (in architecture, some schools had a 5 year professional program instead of the more traditional 6 year masters program) with mandated continual learning requirements for full certification...and instead made product makers fill the educational gap by offering their own certs.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
68,457
12,611
126
www.anyf.ca
You have to walk before you can run.

I used to think the same way as you about GUI apps and games as well, but after I got out of school into the real world, everything clicked as to why they didn't do that.

My courses weren't like yours though, I learned loops and if statements in highschool. College was straight into OOP and C then C++. Looking back too, I didn't necessarily learn languages in college, but it taught me how to think in a different way and taught concepts. I remember when I first learned a linked list I simply did not get it. Then a buddy drew it out on paper and it clicked and was like that "AH HA" moment.

Linked lists were my favourite! Actually containers in general were fun. I forgot we did do those too. Oh man did so many people get confused by those though. To be fair the whole concept of pointers can be a tad confusing and it's easy to get a brainfart when working with them. I had slightly experimented with 2D pointer grids but never went that far into it. Definitely beyond the scope of our course. I actually wrote my own linked list based container a while back for hobby use as I was working with packet data and I wrote a class that lets me serialize bits together so it was basically a linked list of bools. I think I ended up using a deque stl container though as it was actually better optimized.

One thing college was good for is to give you ideas and ways of thinking, so there is that. I had one teacher who would just tell you to google everything lol. But in the real world that's pretty much what you have to do.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,552
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If someone doesn't care enough to learn on their own, they should be questioning their career choice.
This. 100% this.

Some people think that Universities just wave a magic wand for four years, and "make" someone into a professional person. Well, let me tell you, if you're not self-motivated, you're not going to get anywhere.

I programmed video games in Jr. High and HS, on home PCs, school's mini-computer (took up an entire room), etc. Had kind of a nice little portfolio of games to show off, I went to College, flunked out my first year (mental health issues that were undiagnosed at the time, mostly, some lack of motivation on my part). Anyways, in my "C Programming" course, I got accused by other students, of being a "professional programmer". Well, not really, not at that point, but I was largely self-taught, and at the time, highly self-motivated.

After flunking out of College, I got hired by a game-programming startup, and went on to do some early development work on one of the first commercial MMOs. My portfolio of game-programming examples (all the classics, Pac-Man, Tetris, Space Invaders, and a graphics / tile editor), kind of like being in a cover band, sort of. But they saw that I had talent, being able to get those games running at 60 FPS in assembly on a 386 VGA PC.

That was my "rock star" job, in my mid-20s. Seems like another life, at this point, LOL.
 
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VirtualLarry

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I had a different experience, I knew how to program, or at least the basics, but the college courses never really went past the basics. We would literally spend over 1 week on one concept, like if statements. Then loops, then arrays, then functions. By the time we got into OOP it was year 3 lol. I already knew all that. Would have liked if they covered stuff like how to code GUI applications or even games but never remotely got that far unless text based games count.

Though oddly enough it seems lot of people in my class were struggling and I was basically the tutor lol. I expected to get there and learn way more than I already knew but instead I was practically a God. :p
Yeah, same experience here. One of the pre-requisites for the "System programming in C" (on *nix), was supposed to be, knowing how to program, at least at a basic level.

Most of the class time was spent going over basic programming idioms, instead of actually teaching what I, and apparently, the teacher, though the curriculum was supposed to be. IOW, it wasn't an "intro" class, but it turned into one. :(
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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If you refuse to think (to pick a goal & make a plan) & refuse to work at it, then you're just shooting yourself in the foot. I know several people in one situation or the other. I have a couple good friends who simple don't want to have to commit to anything, so they've avoided any & all thinking about their future, despite being smart guys, and are just kind of drifting in life. I also know a guy who knows what he wants, but isn't willing to push past the barriers of having to try very hard at school to actually finish & graduate. I feel bad because all of them are wonderful, capable people, but they are also their own roadblocks, and don't want to accept responsibility for that.

There's a lot of truth to that. I'm very unmotivated in life, anymore.

I do general IT stuff, it's mostly a lot of really basic things & busywork, but it's also a never-ending educational opportunity, so you never get bored.

I've learned various operating systems, hardware build & repair, network installation, virtualization, all kinds of stuff over the years. Literally every week I get to learn something new & interesting & I'm not just stuck being bored showing up to the same job day after day. And yet there are plenty of people who LOVE jobs like that.
That's the beauty of IT - it seems like there's ALWAYS new technology, and ALWAYS something new to LEARN.
 

TXHokie

Platinum Member
Nov 16, 1999
2,557
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There’s always anecdotal examples of how college helped or not. But it’s always been you get out of it what you put in. Going to college doesn’t automatically put you in top earning and not going doesn’t make you an auto failure. But my college degree has granted me with opportunities whereas I’ve seen first hand not having one limited opportunity for others.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,704
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There's a lot of truth to that. I'm very unmotivated in life, anymore.

The nice thing is, especially in America, it's never too late to change. America is for late bloomers! I've seen people get motivated & adjust their lifestyles successfully at 40, 50, and even past that age. The average life expectancy in America is nearly 80 years old now, and I know plenty of people who are pushing 100 these days. If you want more from life, there is plenty of time to shift gears still!
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,704
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Great, pragmatic, sensible advice. I try to teach my kids these same things.

1. College is an investment - consider the ROI of the school(s) you want to attend, the degree you want to pursue, and likely career options with that degree. Perhaps start in a cheaper school to get your generals done, then transfer to the school you really want.
2. Choose something that challenges you and you wouldn't mind getting out of bed in the morning to do.
3. Build relationships with your peers and practice your soft skills - employers can train almost anyone, but a good personality, good attitude, and ability to work with others is critical and opens more doors.
4. Once you pick something, give it your all. Practice and experiment outside of class. Spend some free time researching beyond the boundaries of what your classes teach you. Find a way to meet people already in the field.
5. Don't whine and don't give up.

College is not a golden ticket to success. It's just a first step on a journey towards a successful career. Having a degree helps you get your first, perhaps second, job and that's it. Your experience, achievements, soft skills, and personal network are infinitely more valuable after that.

#1 is huge, just huge. College will teach you anything & take your money for literally anything you want to learn, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's a pot of gold (i.e. a good-paying job) at the end of the rainbow. You can spend $100k on degree that will never make you more than $20 an hour & will stick you with the equivalent of a car payment for the next 25 years paying back that student loan.

I would also add, don't necessarily follow your dreams. Working at something you love is a great way to grow to hate it, haha. I learned this the hard way when I worked at a pizza shop...I couldn't even smell pizza for years after that without grimacing lol. Some things are better left as hobbies (or as occasional treats).

Skipping ahead to #5, the greatest indicator of long-term success is "grit", i.e. the ability to stick with things as they get hard or boring, and as they go on day after day over time. This lady wrote a book on it & has a great TED Talk on the subject:

 

highland145

Lifer
Oct 12, 2009
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the government has had a huge impact as they keep pumping out new\changing regulations.
And back to the government...


+1 for the contacts that you meet in college.

My son has no idea what he wants to do/study so he just says business. I ask what's going to make him stand out from 20K new business degree grads? He'd better have the grades/intern/specialize and expect to get his masters. The other is that a business degree from the local uni/ Darla Moore business school/ Wharton are not equal.

Last week, he started talking about chemistry majors.....It's good to be 17.
 

gorcorps

aka Brandon
Jul 18, 2004
30,739
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...going to a top-tier college like MIT pretty much guarantees your choice of employer, though

It certainly would guarantee you an interview most of the time, but employers are getting picky about finding the right personalities and true team players. I interviewed at a forging/forming company a while back, and part of my interview group was 3 MIT students. They were the most arrogant SOBs, pretty much of the opinion that having to interview for the job was just a formality, and those of us from other schools shouldn't even bother. A buddy working there told me none of them got offers due to their attitude. I did, but ended up accepting something else.